[DUG] You say potatoe I say....

[Phil Scadden]

> You guys aren't very old. I started with a Sinclair ZX80 with 1k RAM and
> 4K rom. I think the clock speed was pretty low too. However, someone
> managed to code space invaders into 1K and that was my favourite game.
> It had chunky graphics in black and white and was pretty much the first
> personal computer that was affordable for a teenager like me. It saved
> code to cassettes and had a jelly keypad. Awesome days!
 
Here we go, the age contest. Well I will be 50 next year. My
first personal computer was Trash 80 for I never get enough $$ for disk
drive (10mb drive was around $5000). not even a floppy. And I had finished
Uni and was working. Anyone remember PORTRAN? Thats what we
used in 7th form on pre-punch cards that you pushed holes in with sharp
pencil. Leave a tag or too on your last card and you could sabatage the
stack of the jock after you. University was Algol, Fortran and punch cards
on a Burroughs. Ah the horrows of JCL and that particular atmosphere in the
punch room while you waited for printout and your turn on a machine. 
I had to run my FEM at 2 in the morning. I remember being shown a terminal
for first time - explained to me that it was like punch machine but you could
see what you typed and when you hit return it was like you card had just
been read. Rock Mechanics got an apple I in my last year. Oh the wonder
of it but only ever saw it being used for "Star trek" (so who remembers that?)

----------------------------------------------------------
Phil Scadden, Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences
764 Cumberland St, Private Bag 1930, Dunedin, New Zealand
Ph +64 3 4799663, fax +64 3 477 5232