1987 - for sale, latest greatest Computer

[RDN]

Intel 80286 DX CPU
20MB Seagate HD
3.5" floppy drive
2MB SIMM RAM
Windows 2.0
I/O 2 serial, 1 parallel port
VESA Bus

Sale price advertised in Computer Shopper $ ????

Remember how much fun we had?

 

[Wim Zefat]

Argh, suddenly I feel old..

My first computer (1978) is still somewehere up in the attic. This was an
'Elf II', which came in the form of a printed circuit board, two wooden
blocks (on which you could mount the board), a plastic bag full of
electronic components, a plastic bag full of keys for the on-board
hexadecimal input keyboard and a stack of bad photocopies explaining how to
assemble and how to program the thing.

It had an 1802 processor and all of 256 bytes (yes: bytes - no kilo or
anything in front of it) of memory - and part of that was used as video
memory.. It had no external storage whatsoever and in fact, it didn't even
have a BIOS. (A couple of months later I added an extension with a BIOS, a
cassette interface and a whopping 16 kB memory. Still later I expanded the
memory to an 'enormous' 64 kB and added a color video display, a 'real'
keyboard and even a printer - an Epson which you'd better not drop - not
that it would have damaged the printer, but it would probably have damaged
the floor..)

And yes, I had lots of fun with it. I still have the listing somewhere of
the game of Life I wrote for it, which fitted (easily) in 128 bytes and
used the remaining 128 bytes as video memory.

Wim


Op Thu, 17 Nov 2005 16:14:50 -0500 schreef RDN:

 

[Bob Smith]

Intel 80286 DX CPU
20MB Seagate HD
3.5" floppy drive
2MB SIMM RAM
Windows 2.0
I/O 2 serial, 1 parallel port
VESA Bus

Sale price advertised in Computer Shopper $ ????

Remember how much fun we had?

I did not think there was a 286 DX? And VLB came in on 468 mobos?

I have a (UK) Computer Shopper laying about somewhere from 1992 or 1993 -
The largest HDD you could get was a 80 meg (yes MEG) one for £300. When I
bought my 486 DX40 (AMD made one, Intel did not) around that time for £130,
the latest thing was the 486 DX-100 coming in at over £700!

Yikes!

Bob

 

[wizzzer]

I remember an ad for a 286 computer system which said it was for "Power
Users"
Bahahaha. How ridiculous is that now.

My first computer was an Franklin Ace 1200, which was an Apple II+
compatible. I loved it at first, but after the beginning I was sorely
aware of its limitations and always wishing for more capabilities. Coin
op arcade machines had much better games, and the big supercomputers
had 3D graphics that blew away the Apple II's and IBM PC's. Yes I had
some fun, but it was limited fun. To a large extent computers sucked
back then. I have much more fun with my latest computer system with an
AMD cpu. Now I'm more pleased with what the computer can do and not
wishing as much for more capabilities.

 

[Larry Hodges]

Intel 80286 DX CPU
20MB Seagate HD
3.5" floppy drive
2MB SIMM RAM
Windows 2.0
I/O 2 serial, 1 parallel port
VESA Bus

Sale price advertised in Computer Shopper $ ????

Remember how much fun we had?

The first one I worked on was an 8088 IMB dual floppy in 1982....I think.
The first one I bought was a Compaq 286 suitcase computer running at a
whopping 6mhz in 1985. It cost me $7,200 and weight about 40+ lbs. You
could call it the first laptop. It even had a 10mb HD.

I still remember going into Egghead Software in Portland (now Newegg) to buy
software, and they had me set it up just to see it boot up. I'll never
forget, one of the salesman said "what do you need all that power for?".
Good times.......

 

[Randy Howard]

(e-mail address removed) wrote
(in article

I remember an ad for a 286 computer system which said it was for "Power
Users"
Bahahaha. How ridiculous is that now.

About as ridiculous as calling a dual-core Athlon 64 "for Power
users" will look 20 years from now.

 

[Doug Lynn]

HI, got you all beat probably, 1978 Heathkit H8 with Z80 cpu upgrade, . 2M
disk drives, 3 hard sector 5 1/4 floppies, $10000. Also Heathkit H89 with
Magnolia 2M floppies, 64M memory, $25000. I kicked myself I gave away my
1972 Altair computer for free....

doug
www.lynncomp.com

 

[imploder]

Thats a Cadillac!
My first computer in 1980 or so was an Atari 800 with 16k ram!(later
expanded to 64k!) It had a tape drive and also loaded programs like basic
from cartridges. I had a rinky dink 1200 baud modem. I dont remember exactly
but am pretty sure we paid around 800 bucks for it. Later I got an actual
floppy drive! Highest resolution was something like 640x480 B&W or 320x240
256 color. Ther was a funky 160x480 16 shade 1 color mode with rectangular
pixels.
Great fun though. Star Raiders! The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy game
which would lock itself up and call you a dummy if you didnt finish it fast
enough! BBSes!

 

[MIB037]

Ironically I need to find a PC of this era caple of reading an old MFM harddisk. Legacy data needs to be transferred they got stuck in a timewarp somewhere...