We spent some time this past weekend clearing out some junk out of our garage. It was time - - we’ve accumulated tons of stuff… most of it useless. Chris and I are both serious pack rats - for whatever reason, we both have a difficult time letting go of the trinkets that make up our own personal history - a/k/a our baggage.
Found in a box buried deep in the garage is this gem I have pictured here. For those of you who are too young to remember what it is by just looking at the picture - it is a Commodore 1541 disk drive - the disk drive used for the wildly poular Commodore 64 computer system. The floppy disks enabled you to store up to 144 programs, holding 1MB on each disk. Back in the day, your computer didn’t store programs.. your floppy disks did.
It’s in the original box it came in, complete with the power cord and user manual. Should I Ebay it? Heh.
My first love affair with computers began in high school when I was programming silly computer games in BASIC, in my spare time. And yea, before you ask, I walked to school 10 miles both ways.. barefoot .. in the snow.
Sounds like we’re very similar in this...
12:34 pm on October 23rd, 2006
Sitting on my shelf in my office are an 8-1/2″ floppy disk and a slide rule; only the former was ever actively used by me in my youth.
My older brother, who at that time was a student at RPI, build a Z-80 breadboard with two floppy disks running CP/M. Its featured apps were WordStar and ZORK, and it even had an acoustic-coupler modem. When new staffers join our team, mostly in their 20s, the looks of disbelief at my antiques is amusing.
And, like you, I walked both ways in the school to school, too: and it was uphill both ways, too!
12:52 pm on October 23rd, 2006
We also tossed out two 1200 baud, one 2400 baud and one 14k modem from the garage - but I think your acoustic-coupler has us beat on the modem end!
I remember my first 56K - I thought that was the shit! I remember thinking to myself.. “why would anyone need to go faster than this, ever?” - - today? I wouldn’t tolerate 56K, it would drive me insane!
2:26 pm on October 23rd, 2006
HAHAHA, I spent a good portion of time in front of a C64 addicted to Little Computer People!!!
2:36 pm on October 23rd, 2006
Little Computer People!! House-On-A-Disk! Man, that brings back memories lol
It’s like old-school SIMS lol
4:45 pm on October 24th, 2006
I never liked the Commodore 64, though later in life I did have an Amiga. I was an early Apple convert, learned to program on a Apple II+ and eventually owned an Apple IIgs when they came out. Also got really into the old Radio Shack Color Computer for a while!
Ah the good old days…
11:06 pm on October 29th, 2006
Yep, I remember the 8 1/4″ floppys too… and the 1200 baud modem that blew me away. Yep, it makes me feel almost as old as Lisa…
5:52 pm on November 14th, 2006
Started on an ACER 8mhz pc with an amazing 640k and 20 meg drive. Of course most of programs fit on a 360k disk (lotus and write)
I remember my father had an original PC that came with 1.0 DOS and they thru in a couple of (newer 3.1) PC DOS disks. It had an amazing 2 360k disk drives and a 63watt power supply. A funny buy yet “cool” green monitor. I put a “captain” board in it and a huge 20 meg hardcard (anybody remember those) basically hard drive on a card.
Mike…