tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4818542164384221282.post4245320452699400410..comments2024-03-25T17:53:49.828+08:00Comments on Grassroots Oracle: An random insight into computing historyScott Wesleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18106937181788036683noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4818542164384221282.post-15737441693086408342011-05-19T19:32:47.208+08:002011-05-19T19:32:47.208+08:00The first computer I spent any hours on was my pri...The first computer I spent any hours on was my private high school's DEC PDP/8e that some rich alumnus had donated (new it'd had cost $20 grand). It had up to 3 paper terminals, small magnetic tapes and <b>8 KB</b> of memory. I learned to program in DEC BASIC on it. You booted it up by toggling in a sequence of a dozen octal numbers using the switches on the front.<br><br />So yeah, <b>that</b> young! ;-)<br /><br><br />I took their only computer course there my junior year, then in my senior year I taught it to other kids because the professor said I knew more about it than he did. I spent so much time at it that I even got my own key to the computer lab! Ah those were the days! :-)Stewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05177922393895344852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4818542164384221282.post-5611572332213665442011-05-19T09:19:30.605+08:002011-05-19T09:19:30.605+08:00Maybe not quite that young... this was my uni comp...Maybe not quite <i>that</i> young... this was my uni computer. The first in our family was a variation of an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT" rel="nofollow">IBM XT</a>.<br />I remember dad upgraded the hard disk from 30mb to 40mb, and managed to wrangle a deal on a great dot matrix printer.<br /><br />Oh, and that didn't count the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20" rel="nofollow">Commodore VIC-20</a>, where I guess I had my first programming experience peeking & poking with BASIC!Scott Wesleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18106937181788036683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4818542164384221282.post-58210686007012415152011-05-17T19:56:30.039+08:002011-05-17T19:56:30.039+08:00Man you're young! The first computer I owned ...<b>Man you're young!</b> The first computer I owned was a "portable" <a href="http://oldcomputers.net/osborne.html" rel="nofollow">Osborne 1</a> that weighed in at 32 lbs, had 64k of memory, dual 92k floppies and a 5" diagonal screen (displaying 52 characters per line). But I could take it to a customer site and school (though my classmates told me the typing drove them nuts). But it let me learn the craft of programming and got me working in the field.Stewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05177922393895344852noreply@blogger.com