A trip down memory lane for some.

Eye-level

Banned
I started on an Atari 400 "chiclet" key rig with base 2K or 4K I had it upgraded to 16K by 1982 I think with a cassette storage system using a TV for the monitor with a subscription to Family Computing which always had these cool programs for the PC (IBM) Apple, Commodore 64, who can forget the Commodore 128 that looked like it was trying to rip off IBM? I never made it too Compuserve which was like 3 bucks a minute and you really needed an Apple or PC...in Jr High School 8th grade like 1984 I participated in a city wide "Computer Olympics" where teams submitted simple BASIC type programs in like 5 categories...I was the only person in my school of about 750 who got to use the single Apple 2e they provided for this contest and subsequently at the contest I teamed with two other young dudes like myself but from other districts...we were blown up but had a great frigging time! I won a certificate in front of the whole school...no one knew crap about computers other than Defender and Asteroids Deluxe and Colecovision was cool!!!

I once had my high score on the "revolutionary" arcade game called Dragon's Lair in a computer mag back in those days...I had traded the Atari 400 system for a Redline and started skipping school and chasing girls!!! LOL

First time I was online was through AOL in 98...I know a little about some of those old lanes... :)
 
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PavementPilot

New member
My first computer was a Trash-80 CoCo II with cassette drive, and black and white TV. Then I had a Commadore 64 with 5.25" floppy drive and color TV. I remember programming in basic.Wow that was 28 years ago.
 

Eye-level

Banned
Apple was the king sir! To this day I am still wishing I had an Apple!!! haha :)

Texas Instruments??? What happened to the great TI's...they were like the Olympus of their day... :)

The only thing I am really concerned about nowadays when it comes to computers though is... "can I hook my F2 up to it somehow"???

LOL!!!
 

Eye-level

Banned
If you used to own some 5 1/4 floppy disks that had a checkbook balancing program or some fly the airplane and kill things sometimes program on it - you really understand the concept of software! Plus you are ancient!!! LOL
 

AxeMan - Rick S.

Senior Member
Rebuilt, refit, and repurposed. Ah, I was getting excited there, even broke out my old tape drive. How far we have come in 25+ years!

To think I went to collage to learn this:

10 FOR B=99 TO 1 STEP -1
20 GOSUB 100
30 T$=T$+" OF BEER ON THE WALL"
40 PRINT T$;", ";T$
50 PRINT "TAKE ONE DOWN AND PASS IT AROUND, "
60 IF B-1<=0 THEN PRINT "NO MORE BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL":GOTO 80
70 GOSUB 200:pRINT " OF BEER ON THE WALL"
80 PRINT:NEXT
91 PRINT "GO TO THE STORE AND BUY SOME MORE, 99 BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL"
92 END
100 T$=STR$(B)+" BOTTLE":IF B>1 THEN T$=T$+"S"
110 RETURN
200 A=B-1:pRINT STR$(A)+" BOTTLE";
210 IF A>1 THEN PRINT "S";
220 RETURN

<Taken from the web too lazy to write one out for this post>

I must be ancient. :p
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
I remember those days. I wrote my first program in Basic, when I was about 12 years old. My first "real" computer was the Tandy 1000.
 

jdeg

^ broke something
Staff member
oh man. haha

my first computer was a IBM 8088. I used to play hangman that was on a 5 1/4 floppy. Ran it from DOS of course.
 

Just-Clayton

Senior Member
yea when i was in the service our computer that ran the test equipment had a 12" disc for each program. the only games were word command games. (like) turn left,go forward 12 steps, turn around ETC......
 

theregsy

Senior Member
C64??? The Horror, now if that was a ZX Spectrum 48k complete with original rubber keys that would bring back far to many memories of playing elite for many many hours.
First computer was the ZX81, then Spectrum, Spectrum +2, Atari ST adn onwards through 386 sx 25 etc etc I still shudder at the thought of spending hours, even days typing in basic programs to play a simple breakout game if it worked at all! LOL
Ah the good old days of DOS as well, and Newbshooter the thought of having those old text adventures would reduce kids today to a shuddering wreck, might teach them to spell though....LOL
 

Browncoat

Senior Member
Remember Zork?

open door _
>> WITH WHAT?
use key _
>> YOU DO NOT HAVE A KEY!
break down door _
>> WITH WHAT?
break down door with axe _
>> YOU DO NOT HAVE AN AXE!
go !@#$ yourself _
>> INVALID COMMAND
go !@#$ yourself with axe handle _
>> INVALID COMMAND
 
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theregsy

Senior Member
Yeah, happy but very frustrating times LOL there was a game called Valhalla that was text drived with some animation, but if you swore you got the message 'Little Mary doesn't like bad language' and a little stick figure would walk on to the screen and stab you! Of course you had to try and find swearwords that didin't trip the punishment!!! LOL
I have to say that although modern games may look far far better but I find in a lot of cases the actual game play isn't as involving as the old stuff. I remember spending days trying to get the babel fish in my ear in 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' drove about 4 of us mad for days. LOL happy times. :)
Zork hough was the daddy, even in later versions that moved away from the pure text based stuff it was still a complete %&*$£/) ! of a game.
 
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