Happy Days

[Alien8]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12703674
Yep, them were the days.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Yeah I saw this. My bro built himself the ZX80 and has been hooked on computers ever since.

He designs computer chips now - it all means absolutely nothing to me!!

Funnily enough I was thinking what was the computer I used when I first started in engineering in 1989 and it was the Olivetti M24. We used to press the 'design' button then go for a waz, have a cup of tea, eat some sarnies, etc. and it would still be thinking about it!

space age stuff!

 

[Dan B]

The M24 was in its day about the best (and most compatible) PC clone on the market. 1989 was a few years after its day though, I think. The 80386 (first of Intel's "modern" chips that made proper multitasking support sanely possible) was out in 86 or 87 iirc

 

[threebikesmcginty]

The M24 was in its day about the best (and most compatible) PC clone on the market. 1989 was a few years after its day though, I think.

That's manufacturing for you - we don't have money for the latest anything!

 

[ufkacbln]

I was insulted complimented in the Apple Store yesterday..... The guy called me a Geek!

We were discussing various bits and I mentioned my ZX80 and how I had added (wait for it.......) 1MBb of memory and acclearated the chip speed to 330 MHz on my first Amstrad!

I still have articles I wrote for the Amstrad magazines on subjects such as how to use a black and white dot matrix printer to print in colour!

 

[Flying Dodo]

I had a program published in a magazine for the ZX81. It was a 1 player version of Pong, written in BASIC, but making use of the CODE function for commands, to reduce memory, so that it took up less than 1K and would therefore run on the standard machine.

And then there was the wobbly 16K memory expansion pack, that you had to hold on with sticky tape, or else suffer the frustration of losing hours of work when it lost its connection.

 

[beanzontoast]

Fantstic machine the ZX81. All that tape loading and crossed-finger saving of programs... character building stuff. And using it on a portable b+w tv for hours on end gave you eyes like these -

 

[summerdays]

I remember my Dad buying one - which seemed strange as he normally waits for ages before going for technology (he upgraded to broadband about a month ago!!, and only went on-line after his computer didn't explode on Jan 1st 2000). You used to have to type the games in and record them onto tape? (Is my memory correct there?). Can you imagine what the kids of today would make of one!!

 

[Flying Dodo]

Slightly O/T, just over a year ago, we went to the Amberley Heritage Museum near Bognor which has a hall about the complete history of telecommunications. There were a number of rotary telephones on display, including one you could use, and my teenage daughter just couldn't understand how to use it. I had to show her how to put her finger in the dial on the appropriate number, and then turn it.

 

[palinurus]

I got started on a ZX81, there would've been no other way for me at the time- only thing the old man would've been able to pay for. There was a lot to learn with the ZX81 for a 10 year old kid, with the basic 1k machine you could do a fair bit- and at least there wasn't much danger of losing loads of code. To really make it work you had to get into machine code. I wasn't that good at it. One kid at school had a copy of "Programming the Z80" by Rodney Zaks- hardcore that was, although it's possible that he was using that for the RML380z at school.

Anyway, the parents would generally stump up for computer stuff- at Sinclair prices anyway- "that's the future, that is".

 

[beanzontoast]

Slightly O/T, just over a year ago, we went to the Amberley Heritage Museum near Bognor which has a hall about the complete history of telecommunications. There were a number of rotary telephones on display, including one you could use, and my teenage daughter just couldn't understand how to use it. I had to show her how to put her finger in the dial on the appropriate number, and then turn it.

I had a retro dial phone for Christmas from daughter. It sits proudly on my desk at home. No answerphone facility, no memory redial, no stored numbers and hopelessly slow when doing telephone banking and having to dial in long card numbers, dates of birth etc etc....

In short...

it's brilliant!

 

[ASC1951]

...... No answerphone facility, no memory redial, no stored numbers and hopelessly slow when doing telephone banking and having to dial in long card numbers, dates of birth etc etc....

...
it's brilliant!

I know just what you mean. The first accounts program for our office ran under CP/M and fitted on a floppy. The latest version takes three CDs for not a lot more functionality.

 

[Fnaar]

1) I wonder what innovations will make our current whizzy PCs/Macs/iPads etc seem quirky and quaint?

2) All kids at some stage have a toy turn-it-to dial telephone... at least they did when my kids were littluns... even though push buttons were the norm then... what do they have now?

 

[Fnaar]

My daughter has a pink toy mobile that plays Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's greatest hits. Shudder...

shudder, indeed!

 

[ufkacbln]

I remember my Dad buying one - which seemed strange as he normally waits for ages before going for technology (he upgraded to broadband about a month ago!!, and only went on-line after his computer didn't explode on Jan 1st 2000). You used to have to type the games in and record them onto tape? (Is my memory correct there?). Can you imagine what the kids of today would make of one!!

My brother is a fan, and has a working "museum" from the early Vic20s, Spectrums, Amigas etc.

When he babysits some friends kids he takes the spectrum or Amiga around and they love it!

The games are much more child friendly