I think I had Word Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBase back in my first year of college, so long ago. Back in those days they also taught Pascal and Vax Fortran, and maybe even Cobol. Hey, whatever happened to Ada? Oh, it's a cryptocurrency now, instead of a programming language.Here are a couple things that show my age... lets all jump in...
Do you remember...View attachment 22309
or View attachment 22310
I guess I can go back as far as the oregon trail on floppy disc but I couldn't tell you what computer it was. I remember it being small and bulky and the keyboard was built into the machine if I recall.
LOL it probably weighed 75+ pounds and advertised as "lightweight and portable"I guess I can go back as far as the oregon trail on floppy disc but I couldn't tell you what computer it was. I remember it being small and bulky and the keyboard was built into the machine if I recall.
My first video game was when my parents brought home a game console to hook to the TV. it was Pong
I actually had a Commodore Vic-20 which had 3581 bytes of free RAM to hold Vic-Basic programming. It used a tape drive that used audio cassettes that would normally be used for music.View attachment 22314
I had a Timex Sinclair 1000 ... not in the $100 days but when you could pick them up on discount for $40.00... but if you plugged in that massive 16 K RAM pack, the video quality went all to crap. I am still impressed by the way the keyboard input changed modes depending upon what sort of input was expected next - it made using that tiny membrane keyboard bearable.
Commodore 64 - with a stack of four 1541 floppy drives (separated with spacers so they wouldn't overheat). I had a reset switch (useful for hacking certain games) wired to the "user" port but had to remove it because if someone turned on the fluorescent light down the hall it would induce some current in the wire and reset my machine as the ballast fired up.
Ampro LittleBoard 1b - Z80 SBC with an ADM 3A terminal - it had a SCSI interface right on board, though I never had a hard drive for it.
Those were the days!
-But- I still have a zip file floating around with a bunch of MS DOS software, in it's installed form, including Lotus 123 (version 3, I think), dBASE III Plus, Wordperfect 5.1, Zortech C++ and Procomm Plus. Last time I tried them under dosbox, most of them still worked. In about 1997, I had occasion to run dBASE III PLUS on a 300 Mhz Win 95 box and I'm pretty sure George Tate would have sat up in his grave if he could have seen how fast that old software was running.
Once I bought my C64, I had to save up for another whole year before I could afford a 1541 floppy drive. During that year, I used a borrowed cassette drive (1341, I think). When I finally got a 1541, I found that -all- of the programs and data that I had accumulated over that year fit handily onto -one- floppy disk - you know, those very high capacity 170 K ones.I actually had a Commodore Vic-20 which had 3581 bytes of free RAM to hold Vic-Basic programming. It used a tape drive that used audio cassettes that would normally be used for music.
Signed,
Matthew Campbell