From: Andy Brobston <BROBSTONA(a)wartburg.edu> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers

Subject: Re: Introduction Date: Sunday, June 08, 1997 9:03 PM >My story mirrors yours. I, too, learned on the Aquarius, and I loved >it. I then moved on to the Apple ][+. I have few regrets in my life, >but of the more nerdy ones, I regret ever selling my Aquarius to finance

>the purchase of my Apple ][+. I had all the peripherals for it >(including the thermal printer and datasette, and of course the

I didn't have quite as much for it, probably. I had the mini-expander with controls, and four cassettes, which I think were D&D Treasures of Tarmin, Utopia, Night Stalker, and Biorhythms. I got Chess later as a gift. I didn't have the "official" data recorder, but I got a regular tape recorder to work once in a while for storage. I remember writing programs for it. I remember also typing in that what-seemed-so-long "Digital Clock" program from the manual. I left out all the REM statements because they were "optional," I thought from my programming experience and what the manual said. I didn't realize that all the branching statements went to those REM's. Eventually, I got it to work, and I thought it was really neat. I was easily entertained at age seven. When my parents' friends came over, their two kids and I had Utopia tournaments. Often, they got very mean, and we'd end up fighting because "you broke the agreement about not sinking my fishing boat," and one of us would retaliate by putting rebels on the other's island with all our money until the game got pointless because no one had anything left. I may still have the price list around somewhere - I know I had it a long time after buying anything would have been an option, but I don't know if it got thrown out or not. I bugged my parents about getting me a printer for it, but they never did, and I didn't have any money of my own (I was only between about six and eight). In my original list of computers, I forgot my Atari 2600, possibly because I didn't consider it a computer, but rather a video game machine. (Wasn't there a keyboard setup of some sort that you could get for it? I could be wrong about that.) I still have that at home, too. I don't remember all the games I had for it. I remember being really mad that the "Indy 500" "driving controls" wouldn't work as paddles with Warlords, and I never got the real paddle controls. I think we took Warlords back to the store. (I could, again, be mistaken about all these titles...) I hear ya! -- Andy Brobston brobstona(a)wartburg.edu http://www.wartburg.edu/personalPages/BrobstonA/home.html My opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Wartburg College as a whole.