Do I Need To Upgrade?

[Zeli]

This is a forum game.
It's an image/info scavenger hunt.
Simply post a pic of an old computer and if you can, include the techie info:

I'll go first:





1983 • Lisa

The first personal computer to use a GUI (Graphical User Interface). It contained a Motorola 68000 Processor running at 5 Mhz, 1 MB of RAM, two 5.25" 871k floppy drives, an external 5 MB hard drive, and a built-in 12" 720 x 360 monochrome monitor. Initial cost: $9,995.

[Winin]

Vax!

32 bit processing.

All the power of a palm pilot in a room the size of your kitchen. (required air conditioning not included).

Did my first email and chatting on a Vax.

[Zeli]

The Osborne O1; created in 1981 by Adam Osborne.

The Osborne was the first personal computer that came with all of the software needed to be up and running in the new era of Personal Computing. A Word Processor, Wordstar; Spreadsheet, SuperCalc; Database, dBase III; and Operating System, CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) were all included in the $1795 retail price. This price was strategic as it made the computer inexpensive enough for a credit card purchase.

As computers were barely found in businesses and almost never in houses the portability of the Osborne was unique as well. This nearly 25 pound package could be snapped shut and carried home, or it would fit underneath an airline seat making it suitable for travel. The great expense of a PC at the time could be justified since the machine could be taken anywhere you went!

The 5-inch internal, 40-column, black and white screen was the source of many "where is the monitor" jokes; but an 80-column upgrade and external monitor made the system complete. To make the 40-column internal screen usable for spreadsheets and word processing, a virtual window allowed the tiny glass tube to be scrolled in all directions!

For the digital age, no computer was complete without a modem. A 300 baud pulse-dial modem slid conveniently into the left 5 1/4" floppy disk drive storage pocket allowing PC to PC connectivity, BBS or Bulletin Board System use, or Telex mail ability!

Ad that sold me on it:

[GrilledCheese28 (aka Aruth)]

This in an oldy that I actually owned! 'Twas my first computer:



The Timex Sinclair 1000 (TS1000) was the first computer produced by Timex Sinclair, a joint-venture between Timex Corporation and Sinclair Research. It was launched in July 1982.

The TS1000 was a slightly modified Sinclair ZX81 with an NTSC RF modulator instead of a UK PAL (Units sold in Portugal have a PAL RF modulator) device and the onboard RAM doubled to two kilobytes. The TS1000's casing had slightly more internal shielding but remained the same as Sinclair's, including the much-reviled membrane keyboard. It had no sound and black and white graphics. It was followed by an improved version, the Timex Sinclair 1500.

Like the Sinclair ZX81, the TS1000 used a form of BASIC as its primary interface and programming language. To make the membrane keyboard less obnoxious for program entry, the TS1000 used a shortcut system of one-letter "keywords" for most commands (i.e. pressing "P" would generate the keyword "PRINT"). Some keywords required a short sequence of keystrokes (e.g. SHIFT-ENTER S would generate the keyword "LPRINT"). The TS1000 clued the user in on what to expect by changing the cursor to reflect the current input mode.

Displays were limited to black and white displays with 32 columns and 24 lines (22 of which were normally accessible for display and 2 reserved for data entry and error messages). The limited graphics were based on geometric shapes contained within the operating system's non-ASCII character set.

The TS1000 sold for $99.95 in the US when it debuted, making it the cheapest home computer to date at the time of its launch. Its initial sales were very high, but the system was not popular with users. Reliability was very low and the only form of long term storage was through an (often unreliable) tape cassette recorder interface built into the unit. The 16K memory expansion sold from $50 to over $250. A shortage of the memory expansions coupled with a lack of software which ran within 2K meant that the system had little use for anything other than an introduction to programming. Home computer magazines such as Compute! of the era showed enthusiasts how to interface the computer with various kinds of equipment, providing the opportunity of learning about early speech synthesis technology through a Speak & Spell, robotics control through the memory port, and scrolling text displays for advertising.

Over time, the TS1000 spawned an enormous cottage industry of third-party add-ons designed to help remedy its limitations. Full-size keyboards, speech synthesizers, sound generators, disk drives, and memory expansions (up to 64K) were a few of the options available. Languages like Forth and Pascal as well as BASIC compilers, and assemblers augmented the TS1000's programming possibilities.


Edit: And I did Vax support at my first job in the IT field. That was right before programming binary load lifters, very similiar to your moisture vaporators in most respects!

[Aberrant]

Edit: And I did Vax support at my first job in the IT field. That was right before programming binary load lifters, very similiar to your moisture vaporators in most respects!

Ok, I just spit out my popcorn laughing at that.

[Zeli]

Now people in my office want to know what I'm laughing at! great! I can't admit to any of this!!!!

[Zeli]

The IBM 610 Auto-Point Computer

The IBM 610 Auto-Point Computer was designed in the portholed attic of Watson Lab at Columbia University by John Lentz between 1948 and 1954 as the Personal Automatic Computer (PAC) and announced by IBM as the 610 Auto-Point in 1957¹. The IBM 610 was the first personal computer, in the sense that it was the first computer intended for use by one person (e.g. in an office) and controlled from a keyboard². The large cabinet contains a magnetic drum, the arithmetic control circuitry, a control panel, and separate paper-tape readers and punches for program and data (according to one former user, Russ Jensen, "The machine was programmed by a punched paper tape which duplicated itself in order to perform extra passes through the code". The IBM electric typewriter printed the output at 18 characters per second; the other device was the operator's keyboard for control and data entry, which incorporated a small cathode ray tube (two inches, 32×10 pixels) that could display the contents of any register [4]. A "register" is any of 84 drum locations (31 digits plus sign). The control panel provides additional programming control (e.g. for creating subroutines, typically for trigonometric or other mathematical functions). Price: $55,000.00 (or rental at $1150/month, $460 academic). 180 units were produced.

[Winin]

TI-99/4A

We had one of these. Right after the Atari (pre 2600) and just before the IBM PCjr.

My friend had the Timex Sinclair. I gave him shit because he had a paltry 2k of memory. I had the state of the art 16k.

The best was the cassette tape recorder drive. You needed that for the "big" games.

It did have a voice synthesizer that was cool for games.

www.99er.net/

[Aduras]

We had one of those when I was kid Winin! I ruled on Parsec.

[Kaarenyth]

The ENIAC the "First" computer that brought us into the computing age - was 40 Panels wide (picture is 1/10's its scale)

About as much processing power as found in a $3 (Canadian) calculator.


Also - really cool - page.mi.fu-berlin.de/~zoppke/D/ is a 'Eniac' simulator - where you have to wire up your ports and make the processor do the math - I about crapped my drawers looking at that - imagine playing wow on that sucker... "yea one minute have to run to the other end of the football field to move a connector then you'll get your heal...."

[Winin]

Yeah, I think you have a team of people working for you.

Nice one, Aruth, I missed it until Ab pointed it out.