KWSN Orbiting Fortress

[ZZyklops]

A TRS-80 Model I, back in 1978 was my first computer. I learned programming with a TI58C and switched to Z-80 ASM with the TRS-80. A nice computer, you had to use a soldering iron to get lowercase characters
There is a nice retro/emulator page at http://www.trs-80.com/. I've got a lot of my Big-Five games in an emulator, but only memories are golden.
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[Sir Hamster of Elderberry]

When I was 4 or 5 my father was teaching computer programming at Rutgers, and I thought everyone had one of these teletypes with a rubber coupler modem in their basement. Ever use a teletype? They has a unique sound. The sharp "clack" noises are the letters being struck, and the rhythmic chugging is just the normal standby operation. The baud rate was probably in the low end of 3 digits.
I have no idea what sort of computer it was hooked up to, and I doubt my dad can remember any more. That modem image is actually too modern, because ours was actually built into a wooden box.

When I was maybe 13 or so, my friends and I used to steal time on the University of Wyoming Sigma 7 computer (picture is hosted at the UWYO site, and might be the actual machine?). Stealing time involved get the username and password of someone who had "time" available on the time-sharing system (CPU time was rationed!), and usually involved digging punch cards out of the trash bin (I was a first generation hacker ). We played an early version of Zork and practiced writing our own computer games.

My friend got an Apple II when I was about 14, and a year or so later (~1978) my dad got me an Apple II+. This originally used cassette tape for storage, but we moved up to the 5.25" floppy disks when those became available (as pictured here).


I kept this computer through college and it served me well, even after I was working on much more advanced computers in school.

One more. In college my "hardware" class project was to hand-wrap a PDP-8. The input/output was done through octal code with toggle switches and lights. The control box looked something like this:


The circuit board with the hand wrapped wires looks like this:
clicky!
and my wrist still hurts just thinking about it!


This thread is definitely going to the archive when we are done with it.

ni! i!u

[Fart in your gen direxion]

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Ni ! Ni !

Flatulenty yours,

Sir Fart

The Prince of Noxious Fumigations
The Earl of Eruption
The Baron of Breaking Wind
The Marquis of the Malodorous
The Monarch of Methane
Loony Emeritus

[KWSN - Sir Brian C.......]