WARNING: This message reveals just what a sociopathic geek I was during the 80's...

Anyone grow up in the 1980's and have their first computer back then?  I look back with fond memories thinking of...

1982 - Timex Sinclair 1000: Plugged into the 21" monitor (a Zenith console TV, turned with rotary knob to Channel 2, and flip the antenna switch to "Game") for some awesome low-resolution black & white graphics.  Remember learning to program on that thing... had all its basic commands assigned to individual keys so you could type them quicker.  I'd sit in front of the TV with it, sitting on the green shag carpeting, making my name go back and forth.

1983 - Commodore 64: Plugged into my 13" color TV, 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE, complete with 1541 Disk Drive (180K on a single disk baby!), and MPS-801 printer (lousy printer made "g" look like "9").  Burned untold hours playing Zork games on that thing, and moved on to "Beach Head", "Raid Over Moscow", and the amazing sound of "Beach Head II".

1985 - Commodore Amiga 1000: A real computer with its own real monitor, 4096 colors, speech synthesis, stereo sound-- that thing sound kicked any computer in its day for graphics capabilities (Atari ST's came close, I recall).  I never got more than 512K for mine, and never had a hard drive, so I was constantly flopping disks back and forth.  I actually got through college with the Amiga as my primary computer (no internet, no e-mail, just used it for reports and stuff).  It wasn't until 1991 that I went to the dark side with a shiny new 386.

Okay, I'm done now...

Chris

first i had the commodore vic 20. then i was shamed by my friends who had 64s. so i pressured my parents into getting me the commodore 64. i remember "raid over moscow" i only beat it twice. how about bard's tale? i've played bard's tale 3 until my 64 died.

didn't get another computer until '01, when i got this one i'm typing on now.

heh.  i had a 64, 128, and an amiga 1000.  My 64 was actually an sx-64 and had a little built in monitor.  everything folded up into a "portable" unit.  The reason i put portable in quotes, is because it was heavy as hell.

when i was in college a few years agao i started collecting old computers and game consoles.  now i am hooked on collecting 80s arcade games.



kevin
www.krakboi.com

I think I can out-Geek you!  ;D

I got my first PC in the early 80s - an Olivetti M-24, a massive 512K of memory and a 10Mb hard drive! I learnt to program in Turbo Pascal and wrote a public domain adventure game called 'The Golden Wombat of Destiny' (search on the Internet, people are still playing it  :o !)

Soon I started writing for computer magazines, then I edited a computer magazine. And from there on in, that sort of defined my career. I am still writing for computer magazines... (including programming columns in which the art of the adventure game still features large!)

all the best
Huw

we have a commadore 64 still in the box, now the trouble is finding a TV with the right hookups.lol.

Wow... to have had 10MB of hard drive in the early 80's is impressive.  I remember a friend from college in 1988 having an 8086 (no, not yet a up to the new-fangled 80286) IBM clone with 20MB and it was pretty workable at the time.  This was running DOS 3.XX I think, so not much overhead required.  But it was just fine for such educational efforts as report writing, MATLAB, and a few hours with Leisure Suit Larry.

I will be downloading that Wombat game, by the way...

Quoting:
I think I can out-Geek you!  ;D

I got my first PC in the early 80s - an Olivetti M-24, a massive 512K of memory and a 10Mb hard drive! I learnt to program in Turbo Pascal and wrote a public domain adventure game called 'The Golden Wombat of Destiny' (search on the Internet, people are still playing it  :o !)

Soon I started writing for computer magazines, then I edited a computer magazine. And from there on in, that sort of defined my career. I am still writing for computer magazines... (including programming columns in which the art of the adventure game still features large!)

all the best
Huw
End Quote

Since you mentioned games, it's interesting to go to the Blue Sky Rangers website to look into Intellivision stuff.  I've since downloaded freeware emulators for the Intellivision (Nostalgia works great!) and played AD&D again.  Ahh, those were the days!

Quoting:
heh.  i had a 64, 128, and an amiga 1000.  My 64 was actually an sx-64 and had a little built in monitor.  everything folded up into a "portable" unit.  The reason i put portable in quotes, is because it was heavy as hell.

when i was in college a few years agao i started collecting old computers and game consoles.  now i am hooked on collecting 80s arcade games.



kevin
www.krakboi.com
End Quote

My first computer was an Amstrad CPC464. It had 64k of raw memory! The first games I remember playing on it were Defcom, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Warlock, Bomb jack and Chuckie Egg 2.

My uncle owned a Spectrum 128k +2. It was amazing at the time! He owned an amazing amount of computer games including Rick Dangerous, Rainbow Islands, The whole collection of Dizzy games (adventures starring a smiley egg!).

I'm so glad I have my Spectrum emulator . . .  :)

I was mostly an Apple head back then.  I got to help build a TimexSinclair 1000 from kit form with a neighbour.  Amazingly, the Z80 chip is still in use today.

At one time I had every Apple ][, an Apple 3, and a Lisa 2/10.  Still have the Lisa (need a HD for it if anyone has one) but the rest went to a private computer collection for preservation.

I still remember the neat games and the suction-cup accoustical modems running 110 bps back then!  :)

I was mostly into modeming (circa 1982) and the phine art of phone phreaking.  A school bud of mine liked hacking CompuServe and GEnie.  Those were the daze!  :D