The computer brands graveyard

[Koldov]

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My first 'computer' was a Commodore 64 (interestingly it is listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

 

Take that Sinclair fan boys! Brand wars starting already! Ati vs. Nvidia, AMD vs. Intel...

 

I can remember my sister and I typing out huge amounts of basic code from a magazine called Input (iirc) as it had code for all the latest computers such as Spectrum, Atari, Dragon, Apple, Apricot (?), BBC etc.

 

Anyway, after about a thousand lines of basic you'd hit enter and..... Syntax error in line 987!!!! So you'd have a look at what comma or other symbol you'd misread only to find out you'd done it correctly - but it still wouldn't run!

 

With no way to save it you'd just turn it off and go out in the sunshine to play! Next month in the latest magazine there would be a list of erratum in the back which is where you'd find out it was a full stop - not a comma (I think this experience put me off ever wanting to become a programmer)! Cue spending another few hours re-typing in all the basic code and voila a square 'ball' bouncing across the screen! Technology eh? WOW! Especially waiting 10 - 15 minutes for a game to load from the 'datasette' only for it to crash when you pressed 'fire to start'!

 

So as a Commodore fanboy, next I had an Amiga for a short while... Floppy disks and such!

 

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Then I'm ashamed to say I left for the ease of the games console world of the Playstation after playing my sister's SEGA megadrive...

 

For many years I only used computers as an end-user on an AS/400 mainframe system called Navigator and another called DDMS for warehouse distribution with huge dot-matrix printers attached and warehouse ops using pen and paper to complete orders, until the firm upgraded and went all WMS with Red Prarie with barcode scanners.

 

About this time I bought a pc from Time...

 

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In the end it cost about £1500 for specs something like Duron 750 Mhz cpu (Spitfire?), 256 mb of ram (2x128), onboard ATi GFX, onboard soundblaster etc... 15" monitor that was too heavy for the desk I bought and a b/w printer iirc, and pathetic software/games bundle!

 

I quickly found it wouldn't play the games I wanted and researched what I needed to do... But I just spent £1500! So I looked at ways to improve what I had... Bought a PCI gfx card (not PCI-X obviously for you youngsters), then I got an AGP card, I think it was a Hercules 3D Prophet:

 

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Then I started playing Counterstrike on 56k modem!

 

But then the CPU was holding me back and the small amount of RAM and upon checking the specs of the motherboard and finding out it was the most the motherboard could take, I started on my long history of pulling apart PC's and upgrading them and I haven't bought a brand new one since then - just second hand or refurbished and swapping the parts out.

 

So really, I can thank TIME pc's for my love (and hate) of computers and my current career path! Who'd have thought it?!

 

Sorry for long post (that escalated quickly), but that's what you get for asking geeks to reminisce!

 

Kol.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Koldov

[unixman_again]

I remember when we used acoustic couplers at 300 baud for remote access. These Sendata Series 700s where the exact ones. We had a new phone system installed with flashy square ends on the handsets. We had to keep an old phone just for the couplers. 300 baud works out at about 2.25 KB/min. I remember when we went to 9600 baud, we thought all our Christmases had come at once.

 

[jdoyle]

I remember when we used acoustic couplers at 300 baud for remote access. These Sendata Series 700s where the exact ones. We had a new phone system installed with flashy square ends on the handsets. We had to keep an old phone just for the couplers. 300 baud works out at about 2.25 KB/min. I remember when we went to 9600 baud, we thought all our Christmases had come at once.

 

 

used something similar (must have been around 1982/3). Very tuneful.

 

At the same place we had a camera with a funny enclosure on it to fit over the screen of Newbury terminals to literally take screenshots.

[Gaz]

Not strictly a computer manufacturer but when I was building my first systems years ago EPoX was a big brand for motherboards as was SOYO who made some of the first motherboards aimed at the enthusiast market.

[Duranis]

I can remember my sister and I typing out huge amounts of basic code from a magazine called Input (iirc) as it had code for all the latest computers such as Spectrum, Atari, Dragon, Apple, Apricot (?), BBC etc.

 

Anyway, after about a thousand lines of basic you'd hit enter and..... Syntax error in line 987!!!! So you'd have a look at what comma or other symbol you'd misread only to find out you'd done it correctly - but it still wouldn't run!

 

Yep remember exactly the same experiences I also remember when it dawned on me and my mate who also had a C64 that we could "pirate" our games using a normal tape recorder and suddenly we could have all the games that the other person had.

 

I also remember The ZZap magazines that had demo tapes stuck to the front of them.

 

I could actually still remember the cover from this edition despite not having looked at it for over 20 years! Maybe its because I played the hell of of Spy Vs Spy that was on the tape. I still have the tapes and probably the mags in storage somewhere.

 

 

Edit: lol, Looking through the covers now I also remember this issue quite well, not sure what part of it stuck in a teenage boys head so well..... Everyone loves a free poster don't they?

[AJWhite1970]

Just been looking through the on-line archive of CVG (Computer & Video Games) magazine I used to get every month, mainly so I could type in any games for the Vic 20

 

https://archive.org/details/cvg-magazine

 

There are some great memories in there

[gmj]

Hmmmm. Elvira

[bald_pig]

Are these guys eligible?

[AJWhite1970]

What about these guys? Went out of business in 1997 (although it's sister company doesn't go out of business until 2029...)

[Norphy]

 

How about this lot?

[LeMarchand]

Hmmmm. Elvira

 

Apologies for the OT post, but this is Cassandra Peterson at ComicCon 2012 - a couple of months shy of her 61st birthday:

 

[gmj]

Sorry for an OT reply.....but Good lord! does she bathe in virgin blood or something? Damn.

[Koldov]

Sorry for an OT reply.....but Good lord! does she bathe in virgin blood or something? Damn.

 

Yes....

[azc]

Honeywell Bull

 

[PotNoodleTech]

http://www.tcocd.de/Logo/escom.gif

 

My first proper PC when I were a lad - 486 DX2-66!

[mikeprice]

http://www.tcocd.de/Logo/escom.gif

 

My first proper PC when I were a lad - 486 DX2-66!

 

eeeee - I used to DREAM of having a 486 - the first PC I had at home was an IBM XT - which someone had upgraded to have an EGA monitor and a 20Mb Hard drive - and that was in the 1990's

[Norphy]

eeeee - I used to DREAM of having a 486 - the first PC I had at home was an IBM XT - which someone had upgraded to have an EGA monitor and a 20Mb Hard drive - and that was in the 1990's

 

IBM XT? EGA Monitor? 20MB hard drive? Eee, you were lucky. When I were a lad, we had an Amstrad PC1512 with a monochrome monitor, 2 5.25" floppy drives, 512KB RAM and an 8086 CPU. And that were during the 90s as well.

 

Well, up to about 1992 anyway. It got replaced by a 286 by that point.

[mikeprice]

IBM XT? EGA Monitor? 20MB hard drive? Eee, you were lucky. When I were a lad, we had an Amstrad PC1512 with a monochrome monitor, 2 5.25" floppy drives, 512KB RAM and an 8086 CPU. And that were during the 90s as well.

 

Well, up to about 1992 anyway. It got replaced by a 286 by that point.

 

and tell that to the kids today and they won't beleive you

[Norphy]

I told that to the kids back in the early 90s and they didn't believe me. They were still using Speccies and didn't believe me when I said that you could get that much RAM in a computer!

[Oaktech]

As a family we had a succession of Spectrum and Amstrad machines until I was about 12. My Mum was going back to work after having kids and the world had moved on since she was a wages clerk in 1979 so she decided to get a PC. The first one we had in 1992 cost about £1500 and was a 386dx2 66 from a company called MicalData who ran out of a garage in highcliffe. It had a 30mb HDD, dos 5 and windows 3.1 and had a Sampo Alphascan SVGA monitor that was about £500. We had that for 4 years before switching to a 486dx4 100 from a company callled LDS Tech (later Dorset Internet) with windows 95 on it and a diamond stealth graphics card that cost about £250 that I paid for out of my saturday job money. They only stopped using that 486 in about 2006 and the Sampo Alphascan in 2010 when I bought them at great expense a 22" monitor because mum was fed up having to use her reading glasses to see the 14" CRT!

[tinca492]

 

 

wrote my first databases using Dataflex 4GL on the drs 20 then progressed to DRS 300 these babies which were used as "departmental Servers" completely modular from ICL using the multi user OS CDOS. oh what memories what memories. Also used to gateway to ICL Series 39 mainframes. Networking was OSLAN Thicknet Months were spent at the ICL training centre near Windsor Great Park which had its own swimming pool and croquet pitch

 

 

My first PC Hardware and MS DOS training was in London and the trainer was a certain bearded American called Mark Minasi !!! wonder what happened to him some 30 years on.

[tinca492]

forgot to mention on a personal/hobby side it was Videogenie, a cheaper alternative to the Tandy TRS80. we had to order them from Belgium if I recall