Hi from southeast US
Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:29 am
Hi, I've posted a few times but never did an intro post.
I started playing with 8-bit computers in elementary school (Coco 1 and then Apple II) and when the TS1000 hit $50 at Kmart, I finally got my own computer. The 16k pack was another $50 so that had to wait. I learned some BASIC and kept myself entertained with the kind of dumb programs a pre-teen would write. I had a couple of books that kept me going.
Later my dad picked up a TI-99/4a when IT got blown out at Kmart for $50, so he learned some programming and we booked a bit over that. Next was an IBM PCjr found at a tent sale for $100 new in box. That was about 20% of the going rate at the time so it was a major score. Learned a different kind of BASIC but mainly just played around with it. The user manuals were excellent.
In my teens I saved my pennies and traded stuff and went through an Atari 520STfm, Amiga 500, Tandy 1000EX, XT frankenclone, Atari 800XL, Atari 130XE, and others. I started learning C and Pascal. I entered college with the A500 and left with a 486 clone running Slackware Linux and a solid education in computer science. The rest is even more boring to this audience.
Assuming you're still reading, a couple of years ago I found and digitized my old TS1000 tapes, converted to P files, and ran my old dumb first programs on an emulator. I started lurking in the community on and off then a few months ago I decided to jump back in. After some rehab, my original TS1000 is now fully functional UNTIL the ULA overheats after about 10 minutes of usage. I bought another unit off eBay and it's now fully functional with a ZXpand+, composite mod, and tactile keyboard.
Now that I have been edumacated in computer organization and (non-Z80) assembly programming, I'm slowly figuring out what was under the hood of the ZX81 all along that I couldn't even begin to comprehend as an 9-year-old BASIC coder. It's a neat way to spend time when I have it!
Here's another gratuitous picture. I painted the monitor black to match the black and silver theme.
I started playing with 8-bit computers in elementary school (Coco 1 and then Apple II) and when the TS1000 hit $50 at Kmart, I finally got my own computer. The 16k pack was another $50 so that had to wait. I learned some BASIC and kept myself entertained with the kind of dumb programs a pre-teen would write. I had a couple of books that kept me going.
Later my dad picked up a TI-99/4a when IT got blown out at Kmart for $50, so he learned some programming and we booked a bit over that. Next was an IBM PCjr found at a tent sale for $100 new in box. That was about 20% of the going rate at the time so it was a major score. Learned a different kind of BASIC but mainly just played around with it. The user manuals were excellent.
In my teens I saved my pennies and traded stuff and went through an Atari 520STfm, Amiga 500, Tandy 1000EX, XT frankenclone, Atari 800XL, Atari 130XE, and others. I started learning C and Pascal. I entered college with the A500 and left with a 486 clone running Slackware Linux and a solid education in computer science. The rest is even more boring to this audience.
Assuming you're still reading, a couple of years ago I found and digitized my old TS1000 tapes, converted to P files, and ran my old dumb first programs on an emulator. I started lurking in the community on and off then a few months ago I decided to jump back in. After some rehab, my original TS1000 is now fully functional UNTIL the ULA overheats after about 10 minutes of usage. I bought another unit off eBay and it's now fully functional with a ZXpand+, composite mod, and tactile keyboard.
Now that I have been edumacated in computer organization and (non-Z80) assembly programming, I'm slowly figuring out what was under the hood of the ZX81 all along that I couldn't even begin to comprehend as an 9-year-old BASIC coder. It's a neat way to spend time when I have it!
Here's another gratuitous picture. I painted the monitor black to match the black and silver theme.