Old computers: Anyone remember the Commodre 64 of the 80's What do you have now...

Ugly Hedgehog - Photography Forum

Home Active Topics Newest Pictures Search Login Register ☰

General Chit-Chat (non-photography talk)

Old computers

Page 1 of 7 next> last>>

Jul 6, 2013 05:40:14 #

Carl A Loc: Homosassa FL

Anyone remember the Commodre 64 of the 80's
What do you have now

Jul 6, 2013 06:01:53 #

Crwiwy Loc: Devon UK

I also remember the Sinclair Z81 with 1Kb of memory.
Prior to that, the first computers also had 1Kb of memory but it was about the size of a table - the memory that is - the computer needed a very large room to house it and special climatic conditions!

Jul 6, 2013 06:27:01 #

Wellhiem Loc: Sunny England.

I remember when a 1.4 Mb floppy disc cost the best part of a weeks wages.

Jul 6, 2013 06:48:58 #

Crwiwy Loc: Devon UK

Wellhiem wrote:

I remember when a 1.4 Mb floppy disc cost the best part of a weeks wages.

You were very modern - I had to use about 25 x 8" (really) floppy disks to reload the system!

The early domestic computers used cassette tapes.
The first floppy disk drive I had took 5" floppy disks.

Jul 6, 2013 06:54:41 #

Carl A Loc: Homosassa FL

I worked on some computers in the 70's They
had large electrolytic filter capacitors and used
crossbar switch's . some times one of the capacitors
would blow due to a miss wire. These computers
filled up a large room. Not sure how much memory
they had.

Jul 6, 2013 07:04:16 #

TrainNut Loc: Ridin' the rails

My first computer was a Texas Instruments TI 994A. Loved it. So much better than all the others of its time.

Jul 6, 2013 07:45:44 #

sarge69 Loc: Ft Myers, FL

I had a Atari 800 and upgraded to the Atari 1040ST. I ran a BBS (Bulletin Board Service) and needed more disc space so I bought a 300MB (megabyte - see that?) and it was $300.00.

My modem at the time was an Atari 300baud and with more subscribers I had to upgrade to the Atari 1200baud and then a blazing fast 14400. It was years before the 56K baud modems were out.

I had to pay for a separate phone line for the BBS or we would never have had time for personal calls.

Sarge69

Jul 6, 2013 07:51:16 #

TrainNut Loc: Ridin' the rails

sarge69 wrote:

Ah, the good old days. :-D

Jul 6, 2013 08:20:55 #

GARGLEBLASTER Loc: Spain

My first computer was this:

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/528/Amstrad-PCW-8256/

It was very expensive, incredibly slow and everthing had to be stored on floppy discs.

Jul 7, 2013 06:04:43 #

Millismote Loc: Massachusetts

Carl A wrote:

Anyone remember the Commodre 64 of the 80's
What do you have now

I still have an Atari 400 with a membrane keyboard running basic.

Jul 7, 2013 06:14:27 #

kaybee Loc: Peterborough UK

My first use of a computer was with the ATLAS computer at London University. It was housed in air-conditioned rooms. Communication was with punched paper tape. Turn around time for a program submitted was 1 week! Language used was EXCHLF and I cannot recall what those initials stood for. For old times sake i still have some of the paper tape programs that I submitted during the Masters course I was following. Prior to moving to Apple Mac I built my own PC's.

Jul 7, 2013 06:31:59 #

ncshutterbug

I graduated to the Comadore 64 from a tiny Casio that fit in the palm of your hand. It had to be hooked up to a TV. I took a class to learn to use it, which you couldn't do unless you knew how to write your own programs. I had lots of fun with it but it was really only a kind of toy. The Com. 64 had a Geos operating system and I remember "chatting" with folks way before AOL came into the picture and started charging for something that was free.

Jul 7, 2013 06:54:39 #