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+--- Thread: What was your first encounter with a computer? (/showthread.php?tid=252432)
What was your first encounter with a computer? - lost in space - 02-01-2021
steve....'s thread brought it to mind.
I went to a programming trade school in 1970, where they had an IBM 360, which read 80 (?) column punch cards. We learned COBOL, RPG, BAL and some others I don't recall. Looking back, it's like we were rubbing sticks together to make fire.
Re: What was your first encounter with a computer? - jonny - 02-01-2021
My elementary school has a single computer in what must have been a modified janitor's closet. TRS 80- Model 1.
Re: What was your first encounter with a computer? - cbelt3 - 02-01-2021
Engineering day at my Dad's university.. probably 1964. They had a mainframe with spinny tape drives. AND a robot that looked like a big mouse ! It was awesome. Later I got to play 'Pong" on a mainframe at Amherst College thanks to an uncle who was a professor there.. I was perhaps 7.
Oh, and I took apart my mom's wind up alarm clock when I was about 3. Almost got it working again. Probably should not have used a hammer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx6HojLBsnw&ab_channel=sgispider
Re: What was your first encounter with a computer? - Acer - 02-01-2021
Apple II's (I think) running Bank Street Writer, 1982. A dozen brand-new machines, grant funded I assume, in a random classroom that also happened to be where my tiny French III class was held.
Re: What was your first encounter with a computer? - NewtonMP2100 - 02-01-2021
....it was a close encounter.......of the third kind........
Re: What was your first encounter with a computer? - samintx - 02-01-2021
Back when the PLUS came out. I decided typing was not cutting it and I would need to buy and learn about computers. The PLUS was 2400.00 and I could not afford that so I bought a color AMIGA for 1600.00. Went to the book store. Bought a book titled Norton’s DOS and taught myself the gentle art of computers. We could rent software then. Learned Pagemaker 1, etc etc. then needed a Mac to run certain things. Bought a PLUS FINALLY. Taught myself IBM DOS and simple programming with a Transformer that turned the AMIGA into a DOS machine.
Well, long story short here I am. Dumb as a rock but love DOS and the GUI of the Mac.
Re: What was your first encounter with a computer? - macphanatic - 02-01-2021
cbelt3 wrote:
Engineering day at my Dad's university.. probably 1964. They had a mainframe with spinny tape drives. AND a robot that looked like a big mouse ! It was awesome. Later I got to play 'Pong" on a mainframe at Amherst College thanks to an uncle who was a professor there.. I was perhaps 7.
Oh, and I took apart my mom's wind up alarm clock when I was about 3. Almost got it working again. Probably should not have used a hammer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx6HojLBsnw&ab_channel=sgispider
Got to play with TRS-80 in 77. Bought an Apple II when it came out.
Took my dad's old Timex watch apart when I was 7. Didn't break anything in doing so. My mom still has all of the parts in a pill bottle as she was so impressed with my work. Probably could have put it back together in my teens. Now, I'd need a good pair of magnifying glasses to even attempt it.
Re: What was your first encounter with a computer? - jdc - 02-01-2021
Maybe your first Mac encounter?
TRaSh-80 for me as well. Prob 1982?
We had an Atari consol, and inellivision... so early gaming computer?
Re: What was your first encounter with a computer? - hal - 02-01-2021
an ATM in 1979 (if you don't count TI calculators)
I had a brush with a main frame terminal in 1979 also and decided that this computing stuff wasn't ready yet. I'll come back to it when I can talk to the thing. The mac was close enough.
Re: What was your first encounter with a computer? - Ombligo - 02-01-2021
Late 70s', I am pretty sure it was a TRS-80 that I used at school. I almost bought a Commodore VIC-20 at one point just to use as a word processor, but it was over a thousand dollars and I bought a used Underwood 5 typewriter for less than a hundred instead. It would be a decade later before we bought a home computer - a Packard-Bell 386SX with 2MB or Ram and a 20MB hard drive [I rebuilt it a few years later to a 486].
The paper gave us laptops so I didn't get my first Mac until 1997, and then I got two - a PowerBook 1400 and a G3/233. That was the last desktop I bought, been portables ever since.