Hello all
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 7:15 pm
Back in the very early 1980s, as a late 30s-something newspaper reporter, I did a story on three high school students who were dabbling in the early stages of the home computer revolution. One theme in the story was that the kids felt you had to be young to do what they were doing -- that "old people" (late 30-something reporters), couldn't handle the concept.
That was something of a challenge to me so I started studying the home computing field. Most of the machines available in thise days cost well over $1000. And if you went to a bank to try to get a loan to purchase one they would just laugh at you. But I did manage to get some computer access. A local attorney had an HP85 that he loaned me for several days at a time. But the best source was the local high school. My wife was the business teacher and for some reason the school invested in a half dozen Commodore PETs -- one of the first schools in the state to have computers available for student use. I would go down to the school in the evening with my mate and play with the PETS while she graded papers. I learned a little about BASIC programming and wanted to learn more.
Didn't have a lot of money but finally managed to order a Timex-Sinclair computer. When it arrived it didn't work which turned out to be great because at about the same time the VIC-20 was released. I sent back the Timex, bought a VIC-20 and was on my way. Armed with a copy of BASIC Computer Games by David Ahl I started typing them into the VIC-20. But I soon learned that no program with more than 100 lines of text would fit. It was expensive in those days but I managed to finance a memory expansion cartridge with enough memory to hold Super Star Trek. I spent many nights getting too little sleep trying to debug programs. And when I went to bed they would keep running through my head in an endless GOTO loop.
After a year or so the small screen on the VIC-20 didn't cut it and I acquired a used Commodore CBM 80. Eventually I got a disk drive a modem and a dot matrix printer for it. And I was finally able to do something really productive when I found a copy of Electric Pencil on a local database.
Every month I would await the latest COMPUTE! magazine so I could soak up some more information from Commodore Guru Jim Butterfield. I would enter every BASIC program listing compatible with my CBM. I seldom played any of the games. The challenge was getting them to run.
I never worked with the Commadore 64. As a teacher my wife got a special deal on the IBM PCjr and I moved to DOS and later Windows machines. But I always had find memories of my Commodore days.
The other day on Craig's List I ran across a Commodore 64, disk drive, monitor and printer. My mate is getting it for me for Christmas (although she is grumbling about the space it will require. I'm retired now so I'll have lots of time to learn all about the 64. I think it's gonna be fun!
That was something of a challenge to me so I started studying the home computing field. Most of the machines available in thise days cost well over $1000. And if you went to a bank to try to get a loan to purchase one they would just laugh at you. But I did manage to get some computer access. A local attorney had an HP85 that he loaned me for several days at a time. But the best source was the local high school. My wife was the business teacher and for some reason the school invested in a half dozen Commodore PETs -- one of the first schools in the state to have computers available for student use. I would go down to the school in the evening with my mate and play with the PETS while she graded papers. I learned a little about BASIC programming and wanted to learn more.
Didn't have a lot of money but finally managed to order a Timex-Sinclair computer. When it arrived it didn't work which turned out to be great because at about the same time the VIC-20 was released. I sent back the Timex, bought a VIC-20 and was on my way. Armed with a copy of BASIC Computer Games by David Ahl I started typing them into the VIC-20. But I soon learned that no program with more than 100 lines of text would fit. It was expensive in those days but I managed to finance a memory expansion cartridge with enough memory to hold Super Star Trek. I spent many nights getting too little sleep trying to debug programs. And when I went to bed they would keep running through my head in an endless GOTO loop.
After a year or so the small screen on the VIC-20 didn't cut it and I acquired a used Commodore CBM 80. Eventually I got a disk drive a modem and a dot matrix printer for it. And I was finally able to do something really productive when I found a copy of Electric Pencil on a local database.
Every month I would await the latest COMPUTE! magazine so I could soak up some more information from Commodore Guru Jim Butterfield. I would enter every BASIC program listing compatible with my CBM. I seldom played any of the games. The challenge was getting them to run.
I never worked with the Commadore 64. As a teacher my wife got a special deal on the IBM PCjr and I moved to DOS and later Windows machines. But I always had find memories of my Commodore days.
The other day on Craig's List I ran across a Commodore 64, disk drive, monitor and printer. My mate is getting it for me for Christmas (although she is grumbling about the space it will require. I'm retired now so I'll have lots of time to learn all about the 64. I think it's gonna be fun!
