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My first hands-on computer

Ole Juul

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After posting on Ian's anniversary thread I got to thinking that my first hands-on experience was actually funny. Although I had and academic interest that went back about a decade, I didn't get my hands dirty until some time in the late 80's. We'd had (IIRC) an XT-286 where I used WordPerfect, but I didn't dare open it up. So when someone gave me a broken XT I was greatly pleased and it being a fliptop, I immediately dove in. I should probably be embarrassed to admit my hardware ignorance at such a late stage, but I've certainly made up for it since.

So, I had the system unit, keyboard, and screen, plugged in. But it didn't work. I was told it didn't work. What now? Luckily I had some friends that I could ask about these things. The first thing that I learnt is that I need a boot disk, and that it had to be a working one. The next lesson was how the floppy cable works with the A and B drive. It took a couple of days to get all that sorted, at which point I learnt another couple of lessons - courtesy of the original owner. The extra lessons were, don't overwrite the boot disk, and don't fiddle with the cables unless you know how they go. At this point, if someone were to give me a machine like that, I don't think that I would even notice that it was "broken". :p

One more thing about that early "hacking". I didn't have all the DOS utilities and one that was missing was the format. For quite a while I got around that by keeping a working disk that I would just diskcopy. So there was another great lesson. There's more than one way to skin a cat - and in the digital domain, you can do it more than once!
 
Gosh,

I knew far too little about electronics and machines were way too expensive for klutzs like me to fiddle with in my early days of computing. I never opened my System 80. I did modify it but I got other people to do that. I don't think it was until the mid 1990s when I plucked up enough courage to actually install a card or two in a PC!

In 2007, I started to collect computers. Of course if you want them all working you have to fix and maintain them. They are less mysterious to me now, but just as much fun.

Tez
 
My second job around 1963 or so was programming and operating a Burroughs B260, the first one sold in Canada; definitely hands-on, does that count? A whopping 4800 bytes of memory; punched cards, spinning mag tapes, lots of blinkenlights, just like in the old movies...

First one I actually owned was a 2001-8 PET around 1977 or so.
 
My second job around 1963 or so was programming and operating a Burroughs B260, the first one sold in Canada; definitely hands-on, does that count? A whopping 4800 bytes of memory; punched cards, spinning mag tapes, lots of blinkenlights, just like in the old movies..

Gasp! So you were one of those high priests and shadowy figures I used to see moving behind the fogged glass where the card drop off holes were Mike. Oh how us young students locked on the outside used to wonder what mysteries lay within .. :)

Tez
 
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My second job around 1963 or so was programming and operating a Burroughs B260, the first one sold in Canada; definitely hands-on, does that count? A whopping 4800 bytes of memory; punched cards, spinning mag tapes, lots of blinkenlights, just like in the old movies...

First one I actually owned was a 2001-8 PET around 1977 or so.

You obviously discovered at a much earlier age than me, that you had to have a bootable disk to start a 2 floppy PC.
 
My first hands-on computer was an HP 3000 mini computer in a computer repair class I took in college in 1976. We only had the computer itself, no monitor, printer, paper tape, etc... We would write little test programs to test the computer and had to enter them in Octal via the front panel switches, hit run, then interpret the lights on the front panel to determine if there was a problem. I couldn't believe how useless computers were based on that class.

It wasn't until 1984 that I actually touched a PC and the very first thing I did, before I learned my first DOS command, was to open it up and add RAM to expand the memory from 128K to 256K because the guy I shared the PC with wanted to run Lotus 1-2-3 and was scared to death to open the case. He planned to call in a CE to expand the memory.
 
My first hands on was with an HP 1000 mini computer built in to an aircraft electronics test stand. It used a Beehive terminal as the display and an HP 7905 disk drive. Part of my job was to repair/rebuild the 7905 if the drive crashed. It was a challenge to change the drive heads and then do an alignment on that drive.
 
I think we often give ourselves more credit than due with our early years in computing ;-) I was a kid when the personal home computer was starting to gain traction and while I wasn't THAT sufficient I did have a huge interest in what the computer did. I wasn't really sure as I guess at that point I probably hadn't even used a calculator in school but my dad was really excited about our first computer at home and with that so was I. I think it was 1985 though so things had come along, IBM was the corporate leader in the office computing market still and with that wonderful price tag we weren't about to get one of those and bought a Zenith with two floppies. I sat on the carpeted floor and just watched him type stuff in and "do work" which at that age meant nothing more than the words. Computers did work. Sounded neat. Eventually he bought a few games (probably once the holiness wore off) and allowed myself and younger brother (with supervision) to play on the computer sometimes. Watched him and was with him buying a RAM expansion board (AST Six Pack Plus) as well as eventually adding a hard drive.. I *think* we must have added a 40MB, I don't recall if that was the first or if we would have had something smaller then upgraded again later.

Anyway once I could read and realized the two manuals were sitting on the computer desk shelf, I started reading and asking about the (Zenith) DOS Command Guide which was awesome as it had ALL the commands in dos with all the arguments just spelled out. Later I tried and failed a few times to get programming down, but that wasn't until we moved to a larger city which had a computer class (Apple II) which I tried to figure out how to do the same programs we did in class at home with little success, but it did help me figure out other basic commands and write other software at home for fun and personal entertainment.

I think a lot of us were blessed with finally getting our hands of older gear once it was obsolete. That's when nobody really cared much if you opened it up or broke it. Lots of learning happened then, a lot was good and smart, a lot wasn't. I know my friends and I played with upgrading 386 and 486 systems a lot, testing out new processors, not at first realizing the clock and multiplier jumpers needed to be reset for some and finding that some faster processors were slower which didn't make sense at the time. It was a quick learning curve but again mostly with expendable gear once that computer wasn't the primary computer of the house.

If it had been my own money and new equipment yes I would have been quite hesitant opening things up without someone else there.
 
Well my first "hands on" computer was made in the school science labs. I got to use it in 1970/71. It had screw in cycle lamp bulbs to display memory. It was a serial machine so you could fill it using a "0" and "1" bell push.

The second was an IBM 1620 at what is now Teeside University. As school children we were allowed to play once a term...

Oddly when I went to work as a programmer I was never allowed near the computer. I did punch cards on a manual hand punch, but gave them to ops to run. It was only when I became a systems programmer that I was allowed to "touch"....
 
My first hands-on computer was a Sinclair ZX81 purchased in 1981 in kit form. The kit was just £49 compared to the £99 price tag for the assembled model. And to my surprise it mostly worked... I say mostly, as I did have to send it back to Sinclair for a £25 repair job as I had soldered in a resister pack the wrong way around - resulting in a few key functions becoming transposed. I spent many a late night learning how to shoe horn z80 programs (usually games) into 1K of RAM.

That led to my first CP/M machine, shortly followed by systems running CP/M-86 and its later derivatives in my first computer programming job. Nowadays the day job consists of System-i (formerly AS/400, iSeries, or whatever IBM wants to call it) and Lotus Notes/Domino programming.

Steve
 
First computer I ever got handsy with was a Frankensteined 486DX/25 machine (formerly a Compaq 386, I believe) some friends had upgraded from. It actually ran pretty well, until my brother and I decided to see what the voltage switch on the power supply did... :/
 
First computer I used a lot / owned - Amstra CPC464 - mmmm tapes
Still remember being excited in the store (my parents got it for me, to edumicate my brains)

Before that I might have used a Commodore 64 at my school, but I can't remember which came first.
 
The first one I used at home was my Gateway 2000 Pentuim I with Windows 95. The first one I used in school was a Macintosh LC II. And today I've got an LC II.
 
I still have my 1st, a Compaq Presario 5202. I feel so new, as it's a 350 MHz AMD K6-II, 4.5 GB Seagate HDD, 128 MB ram and Windows 98 FE. That thing was so slow, you would turn it on and wait 20 minutes before you could use it. Don't know why it took so long, nor have I powered it on in the last 2 years.

My 1st real vintage computer was a Gateway 2000 P5-100, 980 MB HDD, CD-ROM, 32 MB ram, no sound card and Windows 95. The hard drive died, I had no idea what the problem was back then, so I gutted it. I sure wish I hadn't done it as I would love to have that system back again, it felt so fast.

My 1st REALLY old computer was 2 Tandy's, a Tandy 1000 RL and a Tandy 1000 RLX. Both need new power supplies, but as far as I know they work and they cost $1 for both of them, $5 for the monitor for the 1000 RL lol.
 
IIRC, my first computer was a woven horsehair string with knots tied in it. I didn't get the optional printer though cause it was only available in cuneiform, and I only knew hieroglyphics in those days. (If only we'd had like, a Rosetta Stone or sum'n)...

Then, somewhere along the way (in the 20th century I think), I had a brief love/hate relationship with a Commodore Vic 20 (I hated it, but the salesman loved me) before I finally decided that those new-fangled contraptions were totally useless. It did nothing but sit there! Didn't make my work any easier, save me time, organize the wife's recipes, NOTHING! It did absolutely nothing to enhance my life in any way. What a rip-off! Luckily, I found some other fool and managed to get almost what I paid for it out of him. (He said it was used, but I pointed out that it was actually smarter due to experience (after all, they do learn, don't they?)). Swore I'd never touch one of those things again. Prolly wouldn't have had to, 'cept the kids needed help with homework and such. Things just went downhill from there...now look at me...see what they've driven me to?

--T
 
Very insightful post barythrin.

I think we often give ourselves more credit than due with our early years in computing ;-)

Indeed, many of us have early experiences that only involve exposure, minimal use, or just the operation of applications in a work environment.

Anyway once I could read and realized the two manuals were sitting on the computer desk shelf, I started reading and asking about the (Zenith) DOS Command Guide which was awesome as it had ALL the commands in dos with all the arguments just spelled out.

That's how I really got somewhere. I got a list of utilities and the commands that they would take. Those early manuals were incredibly educational in teaching OS basics. I would take one command, and even though I didn't have any real perspective, try to see what I could use it for. Sometimes I wonder if a resistance (or lack of exposure) to those basics is what drives the menu and GUI crowd.

I think a lot of us were blessed with finally getting our hands of older gear once it was obsolete. That's when nobody really cared much if you opened it up or broke it. Lots of learning happened then, a lot was good and smart, a lot wasn't.

Exactly the key point. Once you open one up and "take the plunge" into arranging the basic physical components, then you've got a toe-hold on the machine. Castaway computers were the key for many of us.
 
You obviously discovered at a much earlier age than me, that you had to have a bootable disk to start a 2 floppy PC.
No diskettes on the B260; you booted it with punched cards.

Speaking of my distant past, here are a few episodes of a couple of TV shows about personal computers I worked on back in the 80's; lots of oldies, and if you look closely and don't blink you may even see my name in the credits ;-)

Also a treat for Jim Butterfield fans:

http://ww3.tvo.org/program/120129/bits-and-bytes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFZ38Oj22tE
 
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Got a brand spankers 286(clam shell case) and promptly del *.* at the C:>, then went for help as I didn't have a system disk. Lesson learnt. It ended up being a P133 or some such over half a decade later using cast off components.

First upgrade was remove the on board ram and fit 4 1meg sipps, co-pro and replace the 40 meg hdd with a 240meg or there abouts hdd. I installed DrDos 6 and GeoWorks Pro v1.2. Still have the software but hardware is long gone.

Edit: No the panasonic 9 pin dot matrix printer is up in the roof space.
Edit2: Just looked though the ISA cards and I've still got the Adlib clone.
 
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A Tandy 1000 SX!

Oh god how cruel I was to that thing - forcing it to run Ultima VI: The False Prophet after using Radio Shack's outdated catalogs to upgrade it to 640K RAM from 384K (I was shocked Tandy still HAD memory upgrades on an 8088 in 1997). Used to make all sorts of BASIC programs that would give a normal person epileptic seizures and migraines playing with the codes I found in the "Using BASIC" Guidebook. Managed to make the most spaghetti coded BASIC text adventure ever, called High SChool Cheerleader Rescue....It was like a cheesy teenage ripoff of Colassal Cave set in a school. It eventually died when the 8250 chip died - ERROR I/O of 8253 on screen at bootup.
 
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