You're right! My memory was playing tricks on me.
We've come a long way baby - world wide web and technology
- Thread starter Data's Cat
- Start date
I used those when they were still called Burroughs ICONs - 1984-5ish. I remember using its Paint-like program to draw a picture of the Enterprise orbiting a planet.
Most of our class work was still done on Commodore PETs, though.
Our first computer was a 386, 25mhz, 40mb hard-drive, with Windows 3.1. It was second-hand and cost us $1150 (about $1900 in today's money). It used 3.5 disks.
We used it mainly for games. Games were expensive and not that easy to locate in Hobart. To get shareware games I used to have to catch two buses to a store where I look through list of games and the man would download programs onto the 3.5 disks I provided.
Eventually I came across a catalog of games I could order by post.
I did buy some games and other games were given to me by my sister after her children had played them (Monkey Island 1 and 2 for example).
There were some games I paid full price for. One was Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss which I loved. It took me ages to play all 9 dungeons and rescue the princess. I only needed tWo talismen to get out of the dungeon but at the point one of my sons took the game off so that he could put another game on. I was quite annoyed by that.
My family loved Castle of the Winds and we got the first part as shareware (from the mail order place) but for a long time I wasn't able to find the second part which which we so much wanted to play. One day, when I was down to my last few dollars, I saw it in a bargain bin for $8. It bought it but it meant we had to fo without bread but my kids were happy to do that.
In about 1997 we bought a 486 with a CD-Rom but it wasn't until 2000 that I got a Pentium and we went on the internet (dial-up).
We used it mainly for games. Games were expensive and not that easy to locate in Hobart. To get shareware games I used to have to catch two buses to a store where I look through list of games and the man would download programs onto the 3.5 disks I provided.
Eventually I came across a catalog of games I could order by post.
I did buy some games and other games were given to me by my sister after her children had played them (Monkey Island 1 and 2 for example).
There were some games I paid full price for. One was Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss which I loved. It took me ages to play all 9 dungeons and rescue the princess. I only needed tWo talismen to get out of the dungeon but at the point one of my sons took the game off so that he could put another game on. I was quite annoyed by that.
My family loved Castle of the Winds and we got the first part as shareware (from the mail order place) but for a long time I wasn't able to find the second part which which we so much wanted to play. One day, when I was down to my last few dollars, I saw it in a bargain bin for $8. It bought it but it meant we had to fo without bread but my kids were happy to do that.
In about 1997 we bought a 486 with a CD-Rom but it wasn't until 2000 that I got a Pentium and we went on the internet (dial-up).
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Do you remember what year that was?
We used to have a terminal at home, connecting via dial-up to the mainframe at my father's workplace. So, no games for me at home. However, I remember using some text-browser to read things on-line (nothing much though). We got our first PC in 1997, it was a 133mhz, 2GB hard-drive one. My father got hold of a beta version of Windows 98 to install.
I remember using some software to split .zip files because .mp3s began to appear and they often could not fit into one hard-disk!
^^^It was 1993, the year my number 2 son started high school.
I used those when they were still called Burroughs ICONs - 1984-5ish. I remember using its Paint-like program to draw a picture of the Enterprise orbiting a planet.
We never got near PETs, though maybe that's more due to the different timeframe? The ICONs were generally slow as molasses. They felt very clunky to use. I was more happy when we didn't have to use them even though I loved computer class.
Heh, I just love the wide-eyed optimism of the early days of the Internet as shown in this video:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWy1YGNlNEU[/yt]
And slightly different is a retro-futuristic view of an interconnected system as viewed from the 60's:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjrk4-uuTZo[/yt]
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My earliest computer memories are of my cousin's PC that only ran on MS-DOS, and if you couldn't remember or find the path you needed to type for the game you wanted to play you were screwed.
You guys are all way, way too young. My first computer memories all involve TRS-80 Model 3s (aka Trash 80), cassette tape drives, monochromatic displays, and televisions used as monitors due to cost of monitors.
I didn't have my first computer until I was in my 40s. I got a refurbished Gateway PC with windows and a floppy drive (which cost twice as much as the new pc I'm on now and was a fraction as good). My 12 year old (at that time) niece showed me enough about using it to get me started. From that point I had to figure it out by myself.
That same niece is now assistant manager at a Walmart and being trained to be a manager and I'm pretty darn good with a computer.
The first time I learned about the internet was in 1973 when I read about it in Science Digest (no longer published). I wanted to get on the internet sooooooooooo bad, but only the rich could afford a home computer at that time, and the cost to connect to the internet was VERY expensive.
It was over 20 years before I FINALLY got that first computer and got on the internet, and of course the World Wide Web had come along by then.
^ That sounds pretty familiar too. The first PC that I bought for myself cost me about half again what I paid for this one and had about one quarter of this one's capability (this one is my first laptop).
Current pc (the one I'm posting with):
1 Tb hard drive
6 Gb RAM
CD/DVD Player/Burner
You couldn't even get anything like that the first time I got a computer.
And by shopping through one of my rewards programs, this NEW (not refurbished) was only $350 + free shipping.
My other good computer also has 1Tb HD and the CD/DVD Player/Burner but only 4Gb RAM. I paid $298 + free shipping for that one.
Laptop 500Gb HD, I think it has either 2 or 3G RAM. I don't remember how much it was, something under $400.
I also have an old computer (was new when I bought it) that has something like a 80G HD and about half a G RAM. I don't remember how much it was, but it cost more than any one of the above. I was proud of it when I got it, now it's one step above a door stop (I no longer use it for anything except printing coupons).
That very first computer I got was primitive by today's standards. It only had a 3 GB HD and something like 64 or 128 Mb memory. It was refurbished and cost $800 (IIRC).
Pffft, MS-DOS, 640K and "what the fuck is a hard drive and dial-up?" baby!
I remember the DOS games... played them when I was four...
We played many DOS games on our first computer (the 386). I remember then well because I was well and truly an adult at the time.
I was playing on... I remember it had game cartridges too... But I also remember my parents being amazed when I did the commands myself.