[SunRescue] Re: First Computers (was Re: Yay, I don't feel...)

[Harry J.Regan]

The first computer I used professionally was an IBM 1401 with a mind 
bending 4K of memory.  It was punch card or tape based (7 track!) 
and could heat a small auditorium.  Now before anyone assumes that 
I'm an ancient SOB, I'm "only" 50, let me point out that the machine 
was obsolete when I used it.  My employer at the time was just plain
cheap.

The first microcomputer I owned was a Netronics Explorer 85 that I
built from a kit.  It had an Intel 8085 CPU and a full ASCII keyboard
(built from a separate kit).  Originally it had 128 bytes (not K, bytes)
of RAM, so programming the beast was not for the faint hearted-- I'd
write programs longhand in assembly, then manually translate them to 
hex and enter them through the keyboard.  A "Hello world..." program
took hours to write and debug.  The Explorer went theough a series of
upgrades and ended up as a S-100 bus, 56K CPM machine with a DSDD 8"
Shugart floppy-- about 800K.  Now that's computing!  The power supply
literally exploded about 1982 which gave be an opportunity to get my
first commercial machine-- a (used) NorthStar Advantage 816.

The "advantage" in the Advantage was that while it was a Z80-based
CPM machine, it also had a daughter card with an 8088 chip that
could run NorthStar's version of MSDOS.  So I had the best of both
worlds.  I could run my old CPM stuff (Ooohh!  WordStar! VisiCalc!
dBaseII...) but I could also run DOS programs as long as they weren't
PCDOS or IBM specific.  The Advantage's screen handling was similar to
the Zenith Z100, so some Z100 ZDOS software would run.  The advantage 
retired in favor of my first of a series of PC clones...

At the same time as all this was going on, I was working for Boeing
Computer Services-- a division of the aircraft folks.  Some great
thinker in the Seattle offies observed in 1976 that the 8 bit Apple
and CPM machines of the time just weren't powerful enough for real
business computing.  The next generation of machines that would
revolutionize the computer industry would be 16 bit machines.  They 
would run applications with a common look-and-feel.  They would be 
able to readily exchange data without the need for importing or 
exporting the data between different formats.  The OS that would 
enable this all to happen?  Boeing's BITS (based on UCSD Pascal).  
But the machine that would enable this new wave?  Why, it's the Terak
8510.  Of course!  Good vision.  Faulty execution.

My first UNIX machine?  An Onyx Z8000-based monster running UNIX
Version 7.  In 1984, I got my first personal UNIX box.  An IBM AT
running XENIX.

Oh, by the way, my first professional microcomputer programming
experience was porting Space Invaders to run on BITS on a Terak!

Matthew Haas wrote:
> While we're on this trend- what was everyone's first computer? Do you
> still own it?? Still use it?
> 
> My very first computer was a Commodore VIC-20... I was too young at the
> time to truly appreciate it... I had a game cartridge of some
> number/math game that I remember playing endlessly.
> 
> Then I got an XT that I played with for a few years and then got
> upgraded to a 386SX (kept the CGA monitor from the XT)..
> 
> I got bored with 4 colors and a mono PC speaker, so I left and played
> with the 8-bit Atari machines for a couple years (XE Game Machine, 
> then upgraded to the 130XE! 128K of RAM!!)... I could really play 
> Star Raiders with this setup :) And I still own all my Ataris :)





___________________________________________________________________ 
---- Harry J. Regan
---- Phone: 202.310.2719
---- FAX:   212.202.3923
---- harry.regan at usa.net 



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