How did you get started?

How did I get started . . . I remember playing around with TRS-80's in school, and Apples, CoCo's and Vic's/C64's in computer stores and other places, but I had bought a TI 99/4A. Remember, this was the early-mid 80's, when most of these machines would cost you at least $400 or so. At those prices, you became quite the advocate for what you had bought: you wanted to defend your investment . . . Fast forward to late 1990. I'm standing in a flea market in Southern California, looking around for a packet radio (special modem used in ham radio) when I see someone selling a Radio Shack Color Computer for $10. Now, the Color Computer has a special place in my heart because that's the computer I learned to program on (I spent far too much time in my highschool days, hanging around Radio Shack, playing with this machine!) Of course, that machine cost around $600 back in early 1981 . . .and now I can have it for $10? I snapped it up, took it home, hooked it up to the TV, and enjoyed the nostalgia rush. I even loaded up a cassette full of old BASIC programs I had written . . . During the next few months, I bought an Atari 800, a BBC Model B, an Aquarius (was really given to me free!), a NEC 6001, a Franklin Ace Apple Clone (needed it to run my Alphasyntauri music synthesizer, which I also got at the flea market), and eventually, a Commodore 128 (never wanted a 64, BASIC was too minimal . ..) This was in addition to the TI 99/4A, the Apple IIe, and the Amiga 1000 that I also obtained new. I still have all of these machines, and currently have the TI, the Amiga and the Alphasyntauri connected to a mixer, for electronic music projects. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Charles P. Hobbs __ __ ____ ___ ___ ____ transit(a)primenet.com /__)/__) / / / / /_ /\ / /_ / / / \ / / / / /__ / \/ /___ / -------------------------------------------------------------------------------