4 ms·

A Vic-20 Love Story

16 points by fogus 17y ago

jgrahamc 17y ago
For me it was the Sharp MZ-80K: http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/08/in-which-i-switch-on-30-year-old.html http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/08/in-which-i-switch-on-30-year...
jasongullickson 17y ago
This made me smile all the way through. My first computer was a VIC-20. I wanted a Commodore 64, but now I know I was better off because I had friends who had '64s who spent more time playing games than programming (the games for the 64 were so very, very much better). As it turns out it mattered more that I had a computer of my own than the "quality" of the computer. I had access to better machines, but I had unlimited access to my VIC-20, and being able to sit up all night with it, to start coding minutes after waking from dreaming in BASIC, resulted in getting so much more done than if I had access to a CRAY-II but I had to go to the library to use it.
unwind 17y ago
"Let’s just say they didn’t know what a IF/NOT loop was." Me neither.
- lssndrdn 17y ago
  He has corrected it to "infinite loop" now.
dugmartin 17y ago
TRS-80 CoCo I here. Gotta love the chicklet keys - at least it wasn't a membrane keyboard.
cubtastic71 17y ago
My first was a Vic-20, and yes after two years of begging my parents at 12 I got the Commodore 64. I remember the fun of setting the tape drive up to load, then having dinner, then checking to see if it was done loading! Used to scare my parents that I spent so much time typing in lines of PEEK and POKE code to make sprites and custom characters! Right now I still have my Commodore64, 2 1541 Drives, original monitor and my Amiga 1200 at home!
rbanffy 17y ago
For me it was a Sinclair clone (Prologica's CP-200) and an Apple II clone (CCE's Exato Pro). After using an Apple II, a PC is an inelegant kludge.
- forinti 17y ago
  Exactly. I had a BBC Micro with Basic, Pascal and a wordprocessor (Wordwise) in ROM. It booted in a second and gave you immediate access to all the software in ROM. First time I used a PC, it had no HD, so you had to boot DOS from a disc and then whatever software you wanted from another disc. And everything was green. Why anyone would want to use one was beyond me.

16 points by fogus 17y ago

For me it was the Sharp MZ-80K: http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/08/in-which-i-switch-on-30-year-old.html http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/08/in-which-i-switch-on-30-year...

jasongullickson 17y ago

This made me smile all the way through. My first computer was a VIC-20. I wanted a Commodore 64, but now I know I was better off because I had friends who had '64s who spent more time playing games than programming (the games for the 64 were so very, very much better). As it turns out it mattered more that I had a computer of my own than the "quality" of the computer. I had access to better machines, but I had unlimited access to my VIC-20, and being able to sit up all night with it, to start coding minutes after waking from dreaming in BASIC, resulted in getting so much more done than if I had access to a CRAY-II but I had to go to the library to use it.

unwind 17y ago

"Let’s just say they didn’t know what a IF/NOT loop was." Me neither.

lssndrdn 17y ago
He has corrected it to "infinite loop" now.

dugmartin 17y ago

TRS-80 CoCo I here. Gotta love the chicklet keys - at least it wasn't a membrane keyboard.

cubtastic71 17y ago

My first was a Vic-20, and yes after two years of begging my parents at 12 I got the Commodore 64. I remember the fun of setting the tape drive up to load, then having dinner, then checking to see if it was done loading! Used to scare my parents that I spent so much time typing in lines of PEEK and POKE code to make sprites and custom characters! Right now I still have my Commodore64, 2 1541 Drives, original monitor and my Amiga 1200 at home!

rbanffy 17y ago

For me it was a Sinclair clone (Prologica's CP-200) and an Apple II clone (CCE's Exato Pro). After using an Apple II, a PC is an inelegant kludge.

forinti 17y ago
Exactly. I had a BBC Micro with Basic, Pascal and a wordprocessor (Wordwise) in ROM. It booted in a second and gave you immediate access to all the software in ROM. First time I used a PC, it had no HD, so you had to boot DOS from a disc and then whatever software you wanted from another disc. And everything was green. Why anyone would want to use one was beyond me.