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Astonishing story. I'd like to meed this guy and have a coffee with him. I have a similar story but not as harsh as his. I started programming basic(not sure w

Astonishing story. I'd like to meed this guy and have a coffee with him. I have a similar story but not as harsh as his. I started programming basic(not sure which variant) on a small hand held system CASIO PB700. One this system I've created a Paranoid clone and a 4 frame ascii animation. My father saw my aptitude on programming he introduced me to his more advanced systems. He was a computer engineer and had an habit of buying new systems in 1980s. On the newer systems(I don't recall the name) I learned Turbo Pascel. Back then those systems didn't have any storage. MSDOS had to be booted from one 5 inch floppy drive and a new disk had to be inserted to get the different programs. Every time you compile and run a program, it would take a couple of minutes to read the compiler from the 5inch floppy disk. Those floppy disks were fragile and they had a tendency to developed bad sectors after a frequent read-write session. To circumvent this, my father deployed a ramdrive on the system. A drive would be created inside the ram every time the system boots up, and it would copy the Turbo Pascel compilers and all relevant libraries to that ram drive. So next time you hit 'run', it would take seconds instead of minutes. This solutions still blows away my mind. Another thing about these old machines, they all came with monochrome monitors. It was all green and had a very low refresh rate. Every time there was a large change on the display, you could still see the previous characters being faded away. Like matrix. Later I had access to better machines(Pentium 1 133Mhz), but haven't forgot those days. I wish I had more information about those systems to post here, but I am long way from home. Back at home those systems are still all packed up and stacked on top on one another. The funny thing - all them work as if they are 'brand new'.

anopheles 12y ago
My first programming platform was basic on the Casio FX-702P, I remember reading the manual and realising what programming was all about... oh the sense of wonder and possibility on a 9 year-old. The peak of my achievement was a version of E.T. for it (my cousin had an Atari 2600 and to my little brain that was a pretty cool game). I saved my programs by writing them down on a notebook, as my dad never got any peripherals for it...
- iamcreasy 12y ago
  Going through the wiki page of Casio FX-702P reminds me how far we've come. Fascinating.
orangecomputer 12y ago
I've finally stumbled upon your post, after reading through all the comments this has gotten. They definitely don't build 'em like they used to! The Pentium 1 133mhz system I used for a while after leaving is still in top notch shape today. I opened it up last year and there's no dust, rust or corrosion at all (and this is after it sat in a heavily tropical atmosphere for a few years recently). The hard disk is in perfect shape too, the whole thing runs like new. I wonder how well the Osborne 486 would be running if I still had it, or if someone ever salvaged it out there and is running it today. Kind of a crazy thought but it's a shame to think that it's very likely become part of a landfill.
- iamcreasy 12y ago
  Absolutely. I still have my old machines. Some of them may be dusty but all of them are as clean as new. I'd happy that you are taking your time to reply to this thread. How are you doing this days? What are you working on?

anopheles 12y ago

My first programming platform was basic on the Casio FX-702P, I remember reading the manual and realising what programming was all about... oh the sense of wonder and possibility on a 9 year-old. The peak of my achievement was a version of E.T. for it (my cousin had an Atari 2600 and to my little brain that was a pretty cool game). I saved my programs by writing them down on a notebook, as my dad never got any peripherals for it...

iamcreasy 12y ago
Going through the wiki page of Casio FX-702P reminds me how far we've come. Fascinating.

orangecomputer 12y ago

I've finally stumbled upon your post, after reading through all the comments this has gotten. They definitely don't build 'em like they used to! The Pentium 1 133mhz system I used for a while after leaving is still in top notch shape today. I opened it up last year and there's no dust, rust or corrosion at all (and this is after it sat in a heavily tropical atmosphere for a few years recently). The hard disk is in perfect shape too, the whole thing runs like new. I wonder how well the Osborne 486 would be running if I still had it, or if someone ever salvaged it out there and is running it today. Kind of a crazy thought but it's a shame to think that it's very likely become part of a landfill.

iamcreasy 12y ago
Absolutely. I still have my old machines. Some of them may be dusty but all of them are as clean as new. I'd happy that you are taking your time to reply to this thread. How are you doing this days? What are you working on?