Age

To help keep the median age down: I became on 1971 (34) First PC was a VIC-20 in early 1982, because my Dad would not let me buy an Atari 2600. Fate just seemed like a mean Dad back then. Paid for it myself. $300 got me the unit, 2 games, no storage. Played the games, put it in a box, and forgot about it until late '83, where I found my 7th grade homeroom filled with VIC-20's. The math teacher (it was his room) took me under his wing, showed me the PET 8032's in the high school with a 300 bps direct connect TNW-103 modem. Dialed my first BBS at the time. That was the start of the love affair. Bought a 64 in 1984/5, and used it until my senior year in college, 1992, where I had to break down and get a PC. The University of Illinois got me exposure to Sequent (undergrad accounts) IBM RT-11, RS-6000, and PLATO, for those who know what that is. Used to dial into the local modem bank to the machines from the C64 using Novaterm to do homework, and had a PLATO emulator for the 64, but can't find it anymore. I also developed a taste for UNIX in college. I managed a student lab at one point. Before I took over, we swapped out some funky 80186 3Com server hardware running the lab for OS/2 1.3 (No workplace shell). Later, MS came and talked to us about the greatness they felt was Windows NT for powering the labs. Left UIUC with a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, but software jobs paid more, so went that route. I skipped the Amiga train (paid for AmigaWorld magazine for years, but never got an actual unit), so mainly I collect CBM 8-bit stuff. I had some Northstar stuff for a while, but never got into it. I try not to buy new PCs, creating Linux boxen at the house from parts I get upgrading other's people's PCs. They make great peripherals for my CBM units. I've never seen a real PDP of any vintage, though I did get a private tour of the NCSA building with the Cray and the Thinking Machines hardware (NCSA hired undergrads to admin the boxes) Jim -- Jim Brain, Brain Innovations brain at jbrain.com http://www.jbrain.com Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!