switchtech
New Member
I grew up in the 60's and 70's so everything I knew about computers came from Star Trek and various PBS specials. Tandy came out with their TRS-80 personal computer in the late 70's and I played with one in their store. Then the science teacher at my high school got an Apple ][ and I spent way too much of my TA time working on the PC instead of cleaning up the science lab. I got a book on BASIC and learned what I could.
After high school I went off to college - Michigan State University - and got to key punch cards for their time share machine (by Control Data Corp., if I remember correctly). The class I took was on Fortran 77. I didn't make it past my freshman year at State, though.
At this point I started a course through National Technical Schools and ended up building a Heath H-89 (that's it in my Avatar). At this point finding software was a serious challenge for a financially strapped McDonald's employee - and I was living out in the sticks where there were no computer groups to trade with. Major programs I wrote were a Bowling Score program and a Check Book register - in BASIC.
Meanwhlie I joined the military - and on my expanded pay I was able to afford a Commodore 128 when they were released - got mine from Sears! Magazines and software were plentiful, easily available, and affordable. BASIC 7 as implemented on the 128 was very nice and I rewrote the check book program for the C=128. I also wrote my own "DRAW" program and a bunch of other little things.
Then I saw a Tandy 1000 SX demoed at the Base Exchange. I'd been using a Zenith Z-100 (I think) at the office I worked in, using various shades of PeachTree software, a "dumb tube" connected to a miniframe (I'll remember the machine type eventually, I'm sure), and the computer based phone system (that I was a technician for). Anyway, I saved up my money for several months and finally got the Tandy late in 1986. I really got into surfing the BBS system local to my area (couldn't afford too many long distance charges at that time). After I got out of the military and moved to San Antonio, I got hooked up with CompuServe, Delphi and PC-Link (PC-Link eventually evolved into AOL).
I picked up a Tandy 3000 NL in 1991 - it was already obsolete by then - but it did the job - it could run Windows.
After that I got into assembling my own machines by buying parts and putting them together - a 86SX/20 ... AMD 486DX120 ... AMD K6-300 to my current AMD K6-2 500. I did get an IBM PC300PL (400 MHz Pentium II) through a technology refresh at work (they upgraded to faster machines and made the old ones available to the employees). I also have a laptop, IBM Thinkpad 240x, for college work.
http://users2.ev1.net/~switchtech/index.html
(it's an old picture).
After high school I went off to college - Michigan State University - and got to key punch cards for their time share machine (by Control Data Corp., if I remember correctly). The class I took was on Fortran 77. I didn't make it past my freshman year at State, though.
At this point I started a course through National Technical Schools and ended up building a Heath H-89 (that's it in my Avatar). At this point finding software was a serious challenge for a financially strapped McDonald's employee - and I was living out in the sticks where there were no computer groups to trade with. Major programs I wrote were a Bowling Score program and a Check Book register - in BASIC.
Meanwhlie I joined the military - and on my expanded pay I was able to afford a Commodore 128 when they were released - got mine from Sears! Magazines and software were plentiful, easily available, and affordable. BASIC 7 as implemented on the 128 was very nice and I rewrote the check book program for the C=128. I also wrote my own "DRAW" program and a bunch of other little things.
Then I saw a Tandy 1000 SX demoed at the Base Exchange. I'd been using a Zenith Z-100 (I think) at the office I worked in, using various shades of PeachTree software, a "dumb tube" connected to a miniframe (I'll remember the machine type eventually, I'm sure), and the computer based phone system (that I was a technician for). Anyway, I saved up my money for several months and finally got the Tandy late in 1986. I really got into surfing the BBS system local to my area (couldn't afford too many long distance charges at that time). After I got out of the military and moved to San Antonio, I got hooked up with CompuServe, Delphi and PC-Link (PC-Link eventually evolved into AOL).
I picked up a Tandy 3000 NL in 1991 - it was already obsolete by then - but it did the job - it could run Windows.
After that I got into assembling my own machines by buying parts and putting them together - a 86SX/20 ... AMD 486DX120 ... AMD K6-300 to my current AMD K6-2 500. I did get an IBM PC300PL (400 MHz Pentium II) through a technology refresh at work (they upgraded to faster machines and made the old ones available to the employees). I also have a laptop, IBM Thinkpad 240x, for college work.
http://users2.ev1.net/~switchtech/index.html
