VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Donovan · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 6:33 pm Post subject:

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Donovan

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glittlefield · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 7:15 pm Post subject:

My entry for Old Geek Week here:

Learned on a TRS80 Model III with a cassette recorder in high school. Spent study hall periods in the computer lab and managed to make a nuisance of myself. My family got an Atari 800 that Christmas with 16K of RAM, a couple games, and a cassette recorder for storage. I stuck with Ataris up until I sold 8 large boxes of Atari stuff so that I could buy a color Macintosh to replace the little MacPlus I bought when I first got to Austin.

Got this program called "Kaboom!" for the wee Mac that not only had a ton of cool system sounds, but also included a recording program that let you do your own with a microphone. I used that to make a Mickey and Goofy startup sound for my niece and nephew. Smile

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louzucaro · Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 10:17 pm Post subject:

It stinks having to sell a collection of stuff. I've done it twice, including this video game auction that I put up on eBay a few years back...

http://www.pause.com/vga/
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Lou Zucaro
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"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

glittlefield · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 5:07 am Post subject:

Wow, Lou. That's quite a treasure trove. You didn't happen to sell it all to a guy named John Hardie, did you? Smile

Those 1020's were cute little plotters, but relatively useless unless you used it as a receipt printer or something.

I sure wish Ebay was around when I unloaded all my stuff. I probably could have bought a couple new computers with what I would have made.
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Greg Littlefield
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Mike · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 5:23 am Post subject:

Ah, we always remember the first eh?

Mine was a little kit built machine with a 1K memory. No cassette backup, so once you powered off everything was lost. This was around 1976. I learned Basic on that machine and spent many a late hour huddled over it's black plastic keyboard on the kitchen table.

I still have a Sony laptop prototype (SN.0003) from 1985 that my ex-wife got from the designer. Anyone know of a computer museum that would be interested? Seems a shame to let the poor thing sit shivering in the corner in mortal fear of my MacBook.

Maiku.
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louzucaro · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 5:29 am Post subject:

Haha I don't think he bought anything. I ended up splitting up the auction and selling everything separately because there wasn't much interest in it as a lot.

And to be honest, I didn't really make that much off of the sale...I had to get rid of everything just because I didn't have room for it all (it had been stored in my office at the time, but then we hired more people and they, like, wanted a place to sit and have a desk or something stupid like that...new employees are so selfish).
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Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

CarynClark · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:07 am Post subject:

My first computer was around 1983 - age 12 Wink

- ... the illustrious Texas Instruments computer. I subscribed to a computer magazine that would give you code you could input to make a stick figure appear on your screen and he'd do a little dance. I would painstakingly type it all in and watch the man dance... and feel pretty accomplished that I could actually type with some accuracy.

Got bored with that pretty quickly and used it to play games.

I was never smart enough to actually create code myself!!
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sdelgo · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:27 am Post subject:

I had one of these... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey

You had to put a plastic map on your tv screen for the game field, I think it only came with 13" and 27" maps.

Steve
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todd ellis · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 6:34 am Post subject:

had the TI-something - plugged into the TV, learned basic on that - then the upgrade to the TRS-80 which was totaly bitchin' and, btw, did anybody else have the Compaq "Lugable"? 386 i bleeb, size of a sewing machine, amber 9" monitor the flipped up when you flipped the keyboard down. i was TOTALLY cool with that dude! i've actually thought about picking one up - gutting it - putting in a LCD monitor & new hardware & pimpin' it out.
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TDAVID · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 8:33 am Post subject:

Yeah, George, I loved my Trash 80 too. Actually, they were real trail blazers for the PC world. Frank, I found an Altair at a Goodwill store not too long ago. I almost cried. Loved my Kaypro II as well.
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TDAVID · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 8:49 am Post subject:

And I can't forget my beloved original Compaq 'luggable' One of the first portable, sorta, computers. Amber phosper screen, dual 360k floppies, and 256k RAM. I even had a 20 Mg Plus Hardcard in it. Smokin'!
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louzucaro · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 9:33 am Post subject:

Haha I forgot about the Plus Hardcard...those were the shiznit back then.

Anybody remember a program for the Apple II series called Fontrix? It was WAY ahead of its time, but the Mac rendered it sorta obsolete.

You could load in tons of different fonts and it creatd a "virtual workspace" where you could create very detailed graphics at much larger than the screen size of the Apple II series. Then, on a dot-matrix printer, it would print a 1:1 pixel / dot ratio so that your virtual workspace, when printed out, looked gorgeous.

But of course without layers and objects like we're used to today, editing was a major pain.
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Lou Zucaro
http://www.voicehero.com

"Well, yeah, there's my favorite leaf!"

ConnieTerwilliger · Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 10:38 am Post subject:

Me too! A KayPro - "portable" was my first home computer. That tiny green screen, the big floppies, no hard drive, the keyboard that latched onto the top with the handle for ultimate transportability.

And everyone who remembers having to use DOT prompts - before DOS - we could start a club. I remember using an Eagle at my office in the 80's - and spending hours on the phone with a software developer trying to get the computer to do dual columns for video scripts. Then - one day Windows arrived and my problem was solved. I remember helping people on the VidPro Message board learn how to use Tables to create the side by side scripts.
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scooter2 · Guest

Donovan said

"I was born in 1979! "

That was the year I "retired" from broadcasting. Now who's the old goat?

and do I care?

ronharpervoice · Club 300 Joined: 23 Jan 2007 Posts: 347 Location: Ohio

Donavan: I have radio station T-shirts older than you!

Elaine: I had a KayPro in Knoxville. Ran a music scheduling system, DBaseIII for our listener database, and Word Perfect MailMerge to send out promo letters. Really fun printing 500 personalized letters on letterhead with an Okidata dot matrix printer. I think it took all night.
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