Siliconhell Forum - View Single Post

**billie114** · 14-01-2008, 02:13 PM

I was surfing the net when I came across a site on old computers and it really brought back memories.

I remember buying my first 'computer' and getting so very excited about it as I was the only one in the office to actually own my own pc. I don't know if anyone out there still remembers the good old 48k ZX Spectrum. The only competition in those days was whether you were a speccy owner or a commodore 64 owner and let me tell you there was extreme rivalry to the point where you wouldn't talk to someone that owned the rival pc.

I remember the hassle of connecting the keyboard/pc to the tv and loading the programs with a normal tape recorder. Sitting with a screwdriver to get the tone exactly right...nothing would load unless the speed was exact. All the games and software were stored on a normal tape cassette and it took forever to load. No saving facilities so you either had to leave the game running or start from the beginning each time. Later I bought a device called a Plus-D and I put all my programs onto those big floppies.

There was no Microsoft Word, only a program called Tasword and if you didn't get the right printer, it would print everything backwards. And of course I had the latest dot matrix printer that printed everything backwards. But that was the fun of it all writing programs in machine code and basic to try and rectify it.

The most fun I got out of my Speccy was the monthly magazines where they gave you games written in 'Basic' for you to write onto tape yourself and what fun when it actually worked. I wrote a few of my own simple games myself.

To this day whenever someone says 'next', I always respond with 'X'...this was one of the most common commands in writing 'Basic ' programs.

Needless to say the speccy got put in the cupboard when I got my first Intel Pentium 386 and then all the fun, problems and upgrades started with a vengeance.

Anyone else out there have memories of their first pc?

14-01-2008, 02:13 PM	#1 (permalink)
billie114 Regular Poster Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: South Africa Posts: 63 Credits: 325 Nominated 0 Times in 0 Posts TOTW/F/M Award(s): 0	Old computers... I was surfing the net when I came across a site on old computers and it really brought back memories. I remember buying my first 'computer' and getting so very excited about it as I was the only one in the office to actually own my own pc. I don't know if anyone out there still remembers the good old 48k ZX Spectrum. The only competition in those days was whether you were a speccy owner or a commodore 64 owner and let me tell you there was extreme rivalry to the point where you wouldn't talk to someone that owned the rival pc. I remember the hassle of connecting the keyboard/pc to the tv and loading the programs with a normal tape recorder. Sitting with a screwdriver to get the tone exactly right...nothing would load unless the speed was exact. All the games and software were stored on a normal tape cassette and it took forever to load. No saving facilities so you either had to leave the game running or start from the beginning each time. Later I bought a device called a Plus-D and I put all my programs onto those big floppies. There was no Microsoft Word, only a program called Tasword and if you didn't get the right printer, it would print everything backwards. And of course I had the latest dot matrix printer that printed everything backwards. But that was the fun of it all writing programs in machine code and basic to try and rectify it. The most fun I got out of my Speccy was the monthly magazines where they gave you games written in 'Basic' for you to write onto tape yourself and what fun when it actually worked. I wrote a few of my own simple games myself. To this day whenever someone says 'next', I always respond with 'X'...this was one of the most common commands in writing 'Basic ' programs. Needless to say the speccy got put in the cupboard when I got my first Intel Pentium 386 and then all the fun, problems and upgrades started with a vengeance. Anyone else out there have memories of their first pc?