First personal computer nostalgia

1979: Several of us went to Montana to see the solar eclipse in February. A friend's father brought his brand new TRS-80 (Model I, Level I, 4K). We didn't get much sleep. 1980: The first machine I owned was a Heathkit 6800 processor trainer. Not the fancy one that was expandable to include BASIC and disks, but a short-lived low-end version with half the memory in a cardboard box. It's good thing it worked the first time; I probably couldn't have fixed it. I still have it, it still works. Also about this time I started doing data entry for an accounting firm running on a Burroughs B800. I eventually managed to scrounge a full-screen editor and a COBOL compiler. The high school got a good deal on Commodore PETs (buy 5 get 1 free, IIRC), so there were a bunch of them around. The chess club had a TRS-80 Model I, which eventually sprouted Level II BASIC, an expansion module, and diskette drives. 1981: Did some futzing about with a Billings microcomputer owned by a company for which a friend work. It was my first encounter with CP/M. Went to college, where the main student machines were a Burroughs B6800 and a VAX 11/780. Started using the university's homebrew 8" CP/M machines. Taught BASIC programming labs for EE; this was timeshared on a pair of PDP-8s (one /e and one /m; one had core and one didn't. You could tell which was which in the spring and fall when the thunderstorms roared through). 1982: Started working for Dept. of Climatology using the VAX and some of the university's homebrew 8" CP/M machines. I first encountered an Osborne I here. Also did some work with the Apple II in here. 1983: Someone asked me to translate a FORTRAN model to run on his brand new TRS-80 Model 16. The only programming language available for the Model 16 at the time was COBOL. Fortunately, summer intervened before I got too far along. Spent the summer in California at the Naval Weapons Center. Here's where I met the PDP-11 and did some work with the DG Eclipse (which ran rings around the VAX-11/780 for certain small jobs). Started writing VMS device drivers. Encountered the VAX-11/730; heard rumors about MicroVAX I. 1984: Back from summer job, got hired on to do VMS work. The company did lots of stuff for DEC , so lots more PDP-11 and VAX work. They also had lost of CP/M machines: a couple of DigiLogs, some Televideo TS-802s, and some TS-803s. About this time I bought my first 'pc' PC, a surplus 8" CP/M machine from the university. I now have several of them. A few years later I put together an 11/03 from spare parts hanging around at work. Eventually it dawned on me that the PDP-8 was an elegant architecture and I picked up a surplus PDP-8/e from the university. About 1990 or so I picked up a surplus PDP-11/34 from Evans & Sutherland. -- Roger Ivie rivie(a)teraglobal.com Not speaking for TeraGlobal Communications Corporation