-=> Gaylen Hintz wrote to Charles Stephenson <=-

 -=> Charles Stephenson spoke thus to Gaylen Hintz <=-

 GH> especially with the cost of ram back then. :)

 CS> RIGHT! I just wrote a post saying the same thing! first
 CS> Computer/Desktop I actually BOUGHT was a Tandy 1000 SL, I was in High

 GH>  Hmmm, started out with a mighty MC10 from Radio Shak, worked my way up
 GH> to a Color computer 1 and then finally 3.  Ran a unix clone OS on that
 GH> and even had a dialup board on that one.  Great fun those days...
 GH> multi user multi tasking environment on an 8 bit machine. :)

I built my first confuser from a sandwich baggie of parts and mimeographed
instructions that were sold as a "kit" in the back pages of Mechanix
Illustrated magazine. There was no storage and input was via dip switches.

First "store bought" item was a TRaSh-80 Model 1 (level 2 dos) with the
16K memory expansion already installed. At the time if one owned stock 
in Tandy there was a spiffy discount. So, I went to Shearson-Lehman and
bought 10 shares. Saved the cost of those shares off the price of the
'puter. I remember pounding in the basic programs from the back of BYTE,
Creative Computing and .info. And logging on to my first local BBS (home
brewed on a Burroughs Mini-Frame) a multi-line affair which would get
me connected to (gasp) usenet. And trying to view 80 column porn on a
40 column screen.  Bv)=

Which prompted my next computer purchase - a PET 8032 ... still a 
monochrome, cassette storage machine with a lordly 32K of ram and an
80 column display. It also had a real ieee printer port and supported
a disc drive (only $395).

Ahhhhh .... the best thing about the good old days is that they're in
the rear view mirror.

... Amiga made it possible. Commodore made it dead.
--- MultiMail/Win32