#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market.
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@fluidlogic The first microcomputer I had access to was an Altair 8800 that my high school computer club put together the year before I got there. The year after that my parents bought a Commodore Pet and things were never the same. I still have the pet but it doesn't work any more, sigh...
@AdrianRiskin thank you for sharing that story. The PET is probably repairable for not much money!
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@fluidlogic also the MSX people are precious and I admire their passion
️@Foritus yes! I never had an MSX but I remember finding them intriguing at the time. I still do. They were popular in Europe, the Middle East and South America, if I remember correctly.
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic you got a lot of masto olds here
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@fluidlogic you got a lot of masto olds here
@quinn it's more of a mix than I expected!
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R ActivityRelay shared this topic
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@fluidlogic alas my first computer as a kid was 32 bit and supported protected mode, how opulent
I couldn't afford to buy the Gateway with the math co-processor!
Also I played #HammurabisCode when it was a new game! And #Pong on the TV when it was a blast to play! -
#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic my parents bought an Apple //c in 1985 when I was in kindergarten.
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic I was mostly a roadside-find and garage/yard sale bits type
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic
I had an 8088 PC clone in that time, and a little later got a secondhand TI-99/4A. The PC was pretty cool, top of the line for its day with *two* floppy drives (no swapping disks for WordPerfect!) and a full 640k RAM. We upgraded it Theseus style until it was a Frankenstein 386 in the massive grey desktop case with the classic Big Red Switch. -
@fluidlogic my parents bought an Apple //c in 1985 when I was in kindergarten.
@bthylafh ...and you got to use it at that age?
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@fluidlogic I was mostly a roadside-find and garage/yard sale bits type
@howtophil so post-heyday? The machines were considered obsolete by the time you got your hands on them?
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@howtophil so post-heyday? The machines were considered obsolete by the time you got your hands on them?
@fluidlogic Eyup. To the point that people were giving them away or leaving them out for "trash curb day"
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic access to trs80 and original Macintosh in high school
Worked with VAX and Honeywell mainframes, 8088, 286, 386, an onward
Current collection is of Thinkpads, cheese grater and Mac pro/air with some tablets, taking retro computing and make them usable for today.
Along with my NES
️
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@fluidlogic Eyup. To the point that people were giving them away or leaving them out for "trash curb day"
@fluidlogic I do recall the days of "Doctor Dave" who had hardware and "totally legit software on 3.5" diskettes" to sell out of his garage...
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic You will take my TRS-80 Model III from my cold dead hands
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic My mother worked for IBM so of course rather than a normal computer we had to get a 5150 (version 2 system board, so it could hold up to 256K RAM), which she paid for through payroll deduction. A few summers later I went to a "computer camp" where I was the only kid with a PC in a sea of TRS-80s and C-64s and Apple IIs. It was upgraded over time; the second floppy drive broke and was replaced with a 20M hard drive, and we got a better (non-Epson) printer and a color monitor.
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic My school had a Polymorphics 8813.
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic I had a personal 8-bit computer (an Apple IIc) when I was young, _but_ it was well after their heyday. The family computer was a Windows 95 machine.
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@fluidlogic My school had a Polymorphics 8813.
@maccruiskeen wow, I'd never heard of that system. What a privilege to be exposed to such an early personal computer!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolyMorphic_Systems#System_8813
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic there's a lot of room to carve this up. Like CP/M was mostly before my time but I got pretty into those machines when they were at once relatively almost new, but also very obsolete- and I'd argue that was retrocomputing. Similar for the TRS/80 model 2/16/6000 which could also run XENIX and verged on being minis.
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#retrocomputing folks: I'm trying to get a sense of the proportion of people here who are into retrocomputing today but didn't experience the machines when they first came on the market. I want everyone's input! Please boost!
(I'll ask the same question about minicomputers. This poll is about the early consumer home computers released between say 1977 and 1994.)
@fluidlogic we were able to afford an Apple IIe when my mom's co-worker threw one out. This was WELL into the 386 era.
