Defunct computers from days of yore
Dec. 10th, 2022 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soniaLots of days left in December if you want to add a question or prompt! Or you can ask any time of year, really.
jesse_the_k asked
My first computer was an Amiga 500, purchased as a grad student around 1990. I mostly used it to dial in to the Berkeley campus network and get my email, and to play many hours of dungeon video game Larn, which I just learned is available in a browser simulation, but I'm going to pretend I didn't see that.
If I remember correctly, the computer had one (1) whole megabyte of memory because I got an expansion card. Or maybe that was the disk drive. Very small numbers compared to what we can get nowadays, in any case.
I guess I taught myself how to use it? Mostly I applied what I had learned on school computers, so it didn't feel like teaching myself. No world wide web back then to look up problems and error codes.
I did my programming on Sun workstations on campus, and I don't remember doing any programming on the Amiga. It had its own operating system, AmigaOS, which I just found out is still maintained by Hyperion Entertainment.
Amigas were great machines that did not deserve to die out. I chose it because of some campus incentive or maybe a friend had one - I don't remember the details but I didn't do an extensive analysis or comparison shopping. It did what I needed it to do, in any case.
I replaced it a few years later when I won a ThinkPad laptop at a computer trade show. I had dropped my business card in a jar, and the person who called me to tell me I won had great difficulty in convincing me they weren't a spam call. Lo and behold, a laptop did arrive in the mail! I really liked the little nubbin of a mouse pointer embedded in the keyboard.
jesse_the_k asked What was your first computer?
Did you teach yourself how to use it and/or program it?
My first computer was an Amiga 500, purchased as a grad student around 1990. I mostly used it to dial in to the Berkeley campus network and get my email, and to play many hours of dungeon video game Larn, which I just learned is available in a browser simulation, but I'm going to pretend I didn't see that.
If I remember correctly, the computer had one (1) whole megabyte of memory because I got an expansion card. Or maybe that was the disk drive. Very small numbers compared to what we can get nowadays, in any case.
I guess I taught myself how to use it? Mostly I applied what I had learned on school computers, so it didn't feel like teaching myself. No world wide web back then to look up problems and error codes.
I did my programming on Sun workstations on campus, and I don't remember doing any programming on the Amiga. It had its own operating system, AmigaOS, which I just found out is still maintained by Hyperion Entertainment.
Amigas were great machines that did not deserve to die out. I chose it because of some campus incentive or maybe a friend had one - I don't remember the details but I didn't do an extensive analysis or comparison shopping. It did what I needed it to do, in any case.
I replaced it a few years later when I won a ThinkPad laptop at a computer trade show. I had dropped my business card in a jar, and the person who called me to tell me I won had great difficulty in convincing me they weren't a spam call. Lo and behold, a laptop did arrive in the mail! I really liked the little nubbin of a mouse pointer embedded in the keyboard.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-12 12:33 am (UTC)...and speaking of muscle memory, I spent a long autumn working as an LTE keypuncher in the state of Wisconsin's student loan division. I was the computer tape librarian, documenting the movement of open reels from the tape-drive cabinets to the rails where they hung like bats.
Wisconsin no longer provides student loans, of course.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-12 04:03 am (UTC)