Computers

While sitting in te garden this evening and chatting away about nothing much really; the conversation went onto computers and I asked Wendy what our first computer was.

Do you know?

I'll tell you it was a Texas Instruments Ti 99 4/a and is the only computer I have made money on.
I bought it in 1982 from Argos in Brighton got it home and after a couple of days it busted.
Lukily, Texas Instruments had thought it a great idea to offer a £50 cash back on the purchase of the Ti99 4/a so I'd already sent off the voucher.

I returned the machine to Argos who refunded my money, no questions asked, and a couple of weeks later we got a cheque for £50 from TI. We of course sent the cheque to Argos. ;-)

This little aside got us reminiscing about other computers we'd had and I couldn't really remember what we bought to replace the 99 4/a. I think it may well have been a BBC Model B and soon after fitted a SOLIDISK external drive chip to the mother board. Very adventurous !!!!

Favorite game on this was (and still is) ELITE. Marvelous space trading game that I've not seen the like of since. I seem to remember that we had an analogue joystick. Yes analogue. None of your modern digital rubbish. What would it be like to have a digital accelerator peddle on your car. Rubbish !!!

I think we then moved onto a Sinclair Spectrum and after that it all gets a little blurred and I think we may have had the Spectrum before the BBC.

I know at one point after moving to Victoria Road we had an Intel 8086 PC that I used to send type setting via modem to a firm in Bournemouth whp would do the setting and return it the next day via DX mail and I'd collect it from the Solicitors office in Shoreham.
I remember I was spending about £250 a month on that little baby. And that's how I got involved with Macs. Never needed to look back!