4 ms·

Great article. I can barely remember a time when computers weren’t a part of my life, but I know with certainty that that time existed, and that when computers

by kitd 6y ago

Great article. I can barely remember a time when computers weren’t a part of my life, but I know with certainty that that time existed, and that when computers first entered my life, they were exceptional and special. I can distinctly remember the moment computers came into my life. It was around 1980. My school had just received a simple desktop computer which ran Basic (I forget the make/model). I remember being dumbstruck that a machine, a machine, could understand what you were typing at the keyboard. What is barely noticed now was completely alien and futuristic then. I think that was when I started really wanting to get into computing.

bitwize 6y ago
I can remember mine too. I was four years old and VERY interested in calculators. My dad, an engineer, had bought a new calculator-like device: a Radio Shack PC-1, a badge-engineered version of the Sharp PC-1211, which see: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/sharp_pc1211-tandy_trs80_pc1.html http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/sharp_pc1211-tandy_tr... He showed me how he wrote programs on it. One of them was a math quiz game. Later that same year he bought a "real" computer: a TRS-80 Model 16, an absolute beast which could do high (for the time) resolution graphics and even, with a hard disk option, run Unix. He wrote a program in BASIC which plotted the mechanical advantage curve of a piston acting on a crankshaft while simultaneously displaying a crude, 0.5fps animation of the piston assembly. I was hooked. To keep my grubby mitts off his expensive machine, he got me a Commodore VIC-20 for my fifth birthday.
aparsons 6y ago
Lovely article indeed . I loved the attached photographs. I probably predate you and the author by a decade, but growing up in the 70s in rural Michigan, I did not even know what a computer was until my late teens (and by a stroke of luck at that). When our town got a second TV, it was a huge deal and I still remember that day! I started documenting my journey at [0] but have not written follow ups in the last 2 months as I’ve had to deal with some health issues. [0] https://romlane.substack.com/p/from-sawnwood-to-software https://romlane.substack.com/p/from-sawnwood-to-software
- nivethan 6y ago
  Really enjoyed this, thank you.

by kitd 6y ago

bitwize 6y ago

I can remember mine too. I was four years old and VERY interested in calculators. My dad, an engineer, had bought a new calculator-like device: a Radio Shack PC-1, a badge-engineered version of the Sharp PC-1211, which see: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/sharp_pc1211-tandy_trs80_pc1.html http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/sharp_pc1211-tandy_tr... He showed me how he wrote programs on it. One of them was a math quiz game. Later that same year he bought a "real" computer: a TRS-80 Model 16, an absolute beast which could do high (for the time) resolution graphics and even, with a hard disk option, run Unix. He wrote a program in BASIC which plotted the mechanical advantage curve of a piston acting on a crankshaft while simultaneously displaying a crude, 0.5fps animation of the piston assembly. I was hooked. To keep my grubby mitts off his expensive machine, he got me a Commodore VIC-20 for my fifth birthday.

aparsons 6y ago

Lovely article indeed . I loved the attached photographs. I probably predate you and the author by a decade, but growing up in the 70s in rural Michigan, I did not even know what a computer was until my late teens (and by a stroke of luck at that). When our town got a second TV, it was a huge deal and I still remember that day! I started documenting my journey at [0] but have not written follow ups in the last 2 months as I’ve had to deal with some health issues. [0] https://romlane.substack.com/p/from-sawnwood-to-software https://romlane.substack.com/p/from-sawnwood-to-software

nivethan 6y ago
Really enjoyed this, thank you.