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The Previous Generation: Older Computer Advertisements

Posted By Paul\HellNoire In Category: Computer

Jul
18
2010

So it’s Sunday again, meaning that I’m going to post something completely unusual by many standards. Today’s topic: the computers of yesteryear. For those of us born after 1994, you’ve certainly missed many magical advancements in computers, especially the advancement in the price tags. I mention this because of the legendary computers of old, you simply couldn’t pull any parts you wanted off the shelf and put it together unless you were a tried and true geek, because it simply was too complex for most people. Even though today, many people look on building your own computer being something for geeks, a lot more people that I know of are able to put their own computers together with little to no help from geeks. A great example comes from a couple who’s computer recently died on them and had called me over to help them recover the data. I gladly did so, and was invited back twice more this week to help them pick out new hardware, and to overwatch them put it together. And I didn’t need to step in once to stop them from making a mistake, thanks to those loving manuals!

So today, I kindly offer a trip to the past to youngsters that have no idea what they missed, as well as offering a retro trip to those who have grown up around computers and have advanced a large amount since then.

Image thanks to Blakespot
The Commodore 64 was my first computer that I ever used. My dad bought it back before I was born and set it up for us to use when I was about 6 or 7. It remains in my mind one of the best systems ever made, especially because it taught me about some commands I can use today, such as DIR and CD under the Linux or the Windows command line interface. However, in Linux, most times, you would be using the LS command instead of DIR. I still have fond memories of playing BattleChess, Lemonade Stand, and one other game that I can’t remember it’s name… it was an unusual one though, I know that much! Took place in a hospital and you had to get into the patient’s brain to cure them?

The Timex Sinclair was also a popular model back in the day, and I have the internet to thank for saving this advertisement. It was the computer he had looked at before the Commodore 64 I grew up with, and ended up getting it as a loaned gift from my grandparents, but he used it rarely, so I’m told. However, I never had a chance to interact with this computer myself as it was used by my father and my mother only, as much as I wish I could say that I was allowed to use it. Apparently, my mother had used it to post on the BBS systems of old. Unfortunately, I can’t say too much about it other then what I’ve said because I never got to use it.

I don’t have an image for the last legacy machine that I used, however, it was an old Compaq computer with a P3, 700Mhz processor, with 256 mb of RAM and 4 gigs of hard drive space. This old beast used to run Windows 98 and a few old games at the same time, like End of the World 2, and (perish the thought) Solitare. It was ugly, slow, and made too much noise, but it worked beautifully which the same can not be said for many computers as old as it was. Sadly, it burned up recently (last week, sadly) as I tried to put Puppy Linux onto it, trying to make it usable again. Due to improper storage, there was some dust that managed to get into one of the RAM slots, so when I added a second stick of RAM, I accidentally pinned the dust in, which burned and roasted the two RAM slots.

We all have legacy systems, older computers we don’t want or can’t use anymore, but that’s one type of computer I find can never be frowned on: our first computers and the real beasts that started us down this road to geekdom. I wish you all the best and hope to see you on Monday, when I’ll have (hopefully) a pleasant surprise for you, dear readers, especially you Windows users!

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joel

I like the…a powerful new computer. I mean I like the word.
sitiomar

very true, Raymond. I learned computer only because I have to use it in office. Initially I was afraid even to punch a button lest I push the wrong button. hahaha..my sister finally put some sense into my head.
Val

I had trouble entering this article. I had to disable Kaspersky PURE for it to work.
Anyway, you’re so right. I paid a good amount of money for my computer two years ago, and now you can get 4 times as good specs for the same price!
Lee

My first computer was the ZX81.

I did by for myself when I was 16/17 a sinclair spectrum.

I had 3 more, one without peripherals, one with floppy

and one with cassette drive.

ZX81 was great for me when I was 14.
http://fftempoclub.org Grant

Back in the day, my family got a Gateway computer with Windows 95, a Pentium 133 mHz CPU, 32 mb RAM, etc. (I can’t remember any more specs) for only $1700! However, it did come with a dot-matrix printer, a CRT monitor, and speakers (they actually were pretty nice speakers… I would still be using them if I could find the power adapter)!

Imagine what computer $1700 would get you today… Or $2300 if you take inflation into account…
Guy Smat

They bring back memories. Got my very own personal desktop system up and running in ’98. Cost me approximately $1200. Had an 8Gb HDD; can’t remember the rest of the specs but it sure helped me learn.
Merlin

I started out on an TI 99-4A. After some time I switched to a C-64 and later to a C-128.
Both the TI 99-4A and the C-128 are still sitting in the attick.
Through the user-port I connected a dot matrix printer and also connected self-constructed joysticks to them.

Those were the days. The personal computing starting days.
Jim

Although just a few years older than you, I also started with the Commodore C64. Then worked with the Vic20 for a bit (Yeah, I know, a downgrade. Man were those tape decks with the programs slow) We often joked that we could tell the computer to load a program then we could go upstairs, make a sandwich and tea then come downstairs and the program “might” be loaded. A friend of mine and myself taught ourselves some machine language with the C-64. Then the other machine languages came out. Basic was hard enough but Fortran, C+, C++ and the many others just told me I was getting too old. My friend took a MS course in Basic and eventually ended up being the teckie. He has kept me up to date and out of trouble for more than 25 years. My system could use an upgrade but I can’t justify it. (Yet ! ) I’ve been an XP hold out but am leaning towards Windows 7, although there are things that it does that make a guy like me just want to take someone out behind the woodshed.
Anyways, thanks for the trip down memory lane.
azmi abdullah

I still have my Commodore 64 but my floppy disk drive and printer has gone kaput.I still kept a box of games.Sentiment I guess.For the console games,I still have my Atari.Those were the days.
blue

Ever wonder what things will be like in 20 years? How hard they’ll be laughing at today’s technology? Wise to keep that in mind when looking backward.

We should look at today with appreciation and at tomorrow with amazement, not at yesterday with smug superiority.

Just sayin’
Sasa_RI

Well,mine first was Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K+ when i was 7 years old! Who can forget the time spent on adjusting the magnetic head on the tape-recorder with miniature screwdriver :-) Those where the times! Games smaller than todays mails and one BIG difference – NO BUGS and NO DRIVERS!!
Then came C64+ (ah,the sound and colours!) and then my first PC,an AMD 5×86 133MHz overclocked to 166MHz :-) with 128Mb SDRAM,ATI RageIIc 4Mb and WD 1Gb HDD – Win98
http://therube.com TheRube

Paul! Thanks for sending me down Nostalgia Road!
I was afraid of using a computer UNTIL My boss “requested” that I use one on the job.
I had a Wonderful Boss, Jackie, and because of her I now can’t stay Off The Internet!

I was so Green at first that I didn’t know where the power button was located to start the computer!

Anyway, My first computer was a Dell Laptop (in June of 2002). It was XP Professional [running 512 RAM and 1.4 GHZ). Later I bought a Sony Vaio with Vista which I hated so much that I asked the computer technician to give me back XP – - which I am still using. I love XP and my Sony!!!

Paul and Raymond I look forward to your daily articles and the care and concern you have for your viewers!
Keep On Delivering and when I am able will donate to this Fantastic Website!!!

with much appreciation,

TheRube.
Cyber MSX

My first computer was the CP 400 (a brazilian clone of TRS-Color) and the second was the Hotbit HB-8000 (brazilian MSX 1). Even today it’s working very well.
RootyToot

I had a comodor 64. I remembered spending all day copying code from a gamers magazine just so my husband could play a new game when he got home.

But the computer I learned most from was as small IBM and I don’t remember the modle. But I had to put in a 5″ floppy before I turned it on so DOS could load, then I took it out and put in another floppy to run the software I wanted to use at the time….Yes I loved my manuals
Asif Saeed

1983: My first experience with “COMPUTER” was in the form of a handheld calculator from CASIO: FX702P. It had 1680 kb of memory and used abbreviated BASIC. I used to save/retrieve data from regular audio cassettes through a hardware interface which hooked into mic input of any regular cassette recorder/player.

1984: Then I got Commodore C64 with a dedicated cassette recorder unit, also from Commodore. It is still lying somewhere at home, in mint condition.

1992: Then bought AT 386 SX, 4mb RAM, 60 MB HDD, SVGA colour monitor and Panasonic dot matrix printer, MSDOS 3.1 and Windows 3.1.
Dave

Wow! That brings on nostalgia :)

I got into computers later age wise, my first experience was with a Unisys system at the police department where I was a police officer. We used the Unisys terminal to access RCIC (Ohio’s Regional Crime Information Computer) & NCIC (National Crime Information Computer). My chief got a PC, then one of my fellow officers, so I became interested.

I started reading Computer Shopper & various PC magazines & sometime around 1991, finally settled on a custom clone 386SX 25 MHz based system with 4mb of RAM. It had a 150mb hard drive, a 9600 Bd modem & cost $2400. I didn’t get a 14.4 modem till late 1993. I think it came with DOS 5.0, but it could have been 4.x & I later upgraded to 5.0. It came with a menu system the name of which escapes me now. I paid extra to get Windows 3.0 with it, but it wasn’t even installed on the system. I later upgraded to Windows 3.1 & that’s when I installed Windows for the first time.

One of the memory sticks failed & due to an error on the part of the white box manufacturer, I received 2 separate shipments of four 1 mb sticks, so had a whopping 8mb of RAM! The system actually had 8 30-pin slots, so I could take advantage of all of that RAM.

I upgraded that same case to a 486, I think a 486SX 25, then a clock doubled 486DX of some type, I think a DX266.

I wish I could remember the name of the company I bought the PC from; they had excellent customer service back in the day. They are of course long defunct.
Jon

Thanks for that trip down memory lane Paul. This takes me back to lunch break computer classes at school, circa 1983 :o :-)

Usually Lunch break was just about long enough for a game to load, then I would have to head back to class without actually getting to play it :-D

I built my latest PC for around £500 ($765 usd) 4 X improvement in spec, to my previous build, £200 ($306 usd) cheaper, and it was only 2 years apart.

I even have a phone now, that has a 1GHz CPU, and significantly greater spec than my first ever build :-D and with technology advancing at a seemingly unstoppable force, I can only wonder what I will be getting for my money in 2 years time.
http://www.frontiernet.net/~noprob_01 noprob

Salutations Paul\HellNoire and readers of this blog…

I remember my first computer,it was a 5×86 Cyrix IBM cpu clocked at a blazing 87 Mhz which I learned to over clock via the motherboard to allow 100Mhz,8MB 72 pin edo ram with an included Conner 999MB hard drive running winDOwS 95B on dialup.

Price tag was $815 delivered including monitor,mouse and keyboard. (delivery date was 02-17-97)

AOL 4 came out soon afterwards and I couldn’t install because the specs called for a Pentium processor (6×86) so I searched the www/internet and found a software program on a ftp site that allowed me to change the registers within the cpu to have it pretend to be a Pentium class processor to my delight.

Thx. for the walk down computer memory lane.

enjoy your weekend…

I’ve also owned a few Commodore 64′s and a Vic 20,but most of my computing has been on Windows operating systems.
Sparky

@Lee, My first computer was also the ZX81, a machine so far ahead of it’s time due to the fact that only recently can you connect your computer to a TV. Go to 10
jwils876

My first computer was a Tandy Color Computer 3 (coco3), good stuff :)
Chris

I still have the Osborne 1 my dad brought home one day when I was a kid. One of the first “portable” computers with a blazing 4 MHz processor, 64K of memory, two 5.25″ floppy drives, and a gargantuan 5″ 52×24 character screen. It was darn near $2000 when he got it in ’81 or ’82 and weighs about 24 pounds. But it was the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life…until he brought home a C64.
Paul\HellNoire

I’m glad everyone enjoyed this as I enjoyed the trip down memory road just as much as everyone else did.
D.Gary Jones

My first computer was a Commodore PET which came with a tape drive built-in, and had a wonderful 9″ screen.
Then I upgraded to a Commodore 64 and started to monkey around building them. The ’64′ had a built-in 5.25″ floppy and a 15″ screen. I was ready to buy stock in the company, but that all changed when it was exposed that a Manager of Commodore couldn’t keep his hands off of the female workers. I don’t know what happened to the company after that.
Swhite

My 1st computer was the Atari 800xl with external floppy drive. Got a few various versions of the Atari 8-bit then the 1991 IBM PS1 computer. Dx2 50 mhz with a 20 meg internal hdd. Still got those things in boxes here somewhere and I keep those 5 1/4 inch floppys on the shelf up high out of light. Microprose, SSI, and Ultima Exodus 3 and Ultima Avatar 4 were it back then. No one could beat the Atari Joystick F15 Strike Eagle on the Atari was never matched by any other computer. Silent Serivce 1 on the Atari 800xl was never matched either no one came close to repoduction of it.
bagbagoo

HI Raymond

I’ve been reading your blog since an old time and I always enjoy reading your usefull articles.

But I’m too lazy to type so I mostly read than write.

I remember my first computer was a comodor 64.I remember I had a book of codes and a tape drive.I used to write thousands of lines of code to draw something.

then I bought a pentium 1 233 MMX with 32 MB of ram and 6.4 GB of HDD.it had a trident 9750 with 4 MB of ram(GRAPHIC CARD) and a creative sound blaster that was installed on an ISA Slot.

I still have this computer and I hope I can show it to my childrens and tell them it was my first computer .I still have my commodore 64 too.
Terry Lee

My first computer was a Sinclair 1K computer at $100, my next was a Timex- Sinclair that was expandable to 16K. There were no programs availible, you had to write your own in Basic then convert them in to Machine. After that I puchased the Timex-Sinclair that was exactly like the Sinclair 2068, but that was before Timex and Sinclair seperated. It had a place to insert a cartirtage program, but none where availible, it was the only reasonably priced computer that came it color. This was from the late 70′s to early 80′s.
Terry Lee

Just looked it up, my first computer was the Sinclair ZX80 and sold for $200 in 1980, and was only availible from England.
John B

I miss my turbo button. Nothing can compare to the feeling of unbridled power that you get when you boost from 25MHz to 30MHz. Awesome.
Gus

Yeah, I gotta chuckle..turbo switch. I’d forgotten about that button.
My first system was an Apple][+ 48k with a 16k ram card. I modified the floppy with a toggle switch to enable/disable write protect so I could use the back side of my single sided disks without having to use a hole punch. Later on I burned myself an F8 rom so I could capture 0page or whatever else I wanted instead of the normal 'reset'. I played around with the Pets and even hopped on an Apple ]I[ Lisa once. My friends and I had the ][+, an Osborn, a Kaypro, Vic20 and as time progressed C64, C128, Atari400/800 and on up the line. At school we had Trash80 with a tape drive (oops.. TRS-80), Coco's, ][e, ][c.
I even have an original Apple logo'd (multicolor) Mug still.
http://markcsc.blogspot.com mark chan san choon

Damn … raymond you brought me back to the past!
haha
love you bro,…. anyway got my first of everything out of the 386 machine …

Geek i am but not as good as you.
As time progresses how i wish i could be as good or even better than you..

With this comment thank you so much for bringing those sweet memories back !!!
http://computersgenerations.blogspot.com/ Junaid

Nice… inffoo

Raymond.CC Blog

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Posted By Paul\HellNoire In Category: Computer

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