voidstar78
Veteran Member
I was "into computers" by 1984 with the Color Computer 2 (typing in BASIC programs from magazines). I wouldn't say I was "bullied", but I do remember being made fun of for having any interest in computers. Bad jokes along the line of "what do you insert into the disk drive?"
In 1988, on the last day of school, I was walking home (along a dirt road at the back of the school, towards the apartments next door where my parents had moved us to the year before). I'm not sure what caught my eye, but for whatever reason, I noticed a computer in a dumpster (its side door had been left open).
I had never seen a computer with a fixed "attached monitor" before, so it was "exotic" to me at that time. It was a Commodore PET 4016. It had the black cassette tape and a "red" programming book (that included assembly). The dumpster was for cardboard, so everything therein was relatively clean and intact (and fortunately no rain that week). I pulled the system all out, and realized it was way too heavy to carry home. Kids were getting picked up, since it was end of the school day.
I ran back to the classroom, asked the teacher to borrow the room phone, to call my mother (at work) and ask permission to bring it home. In hindsight, I imagine the request sounded very funny to her "Mom, I found a PET computer! Can I keep it?" She said Yes, and had to get back to work.
Then I noticed one of my friends from school was about to get picked up. So, I ran over to them and asked his father if he'd help drive the computer to our apartment. (a little more background: my friends' father, the one I had just asked -- earlier in the year he had given me a copy of Turbo Pascal 3.0 since he had heard I was interested in "moving beyond BASIC programming" -- another older friend had given me this 600+ page Pascal book {I recall it reeked of smoke and was missing the front cover}, but I didn't have the actual compiler yet and had just been reading about it, so now I finally had the software and was learning structured programming). He followed me over to the dumpster and then understood what I was asking.
So, we loaded the PET into his trunk. Now, as a kid I normally walked home, and didn't quite know the driving directions. But as mentioned, the apartment was right next door the school, so that limited it to a few choices. My friends father drove around and found our complex without much trouble.
I spent the summer reading that "red" book, and learning about assembly programming, very fascinating to learn the more fundamentals of how a computer actually works (instructions sets and logic). In the next year of school, I asked our Science Teacher if I could bring my "PET computer" to class. I'm not sure if she understood what I meant - but she said "Sure!" My father helped me cart it over from our apartment building. Over the summer I had written a "fake BBS" program, that emulated logging into a defense network. So, I brought that program to class and loaded it up on the PET one day from tape. The whole class gathered around, to watch the login and viewing various menu options ("Status arsenal", "Open silo doors", etc). But eventually one of them wised up and said "wait, the only cable is the power plug, where is the phone line?" He knew enough that a modem worked over a phone line, and at the time (1989) we hadn't even imagined "wireless networks." Saved by the bell - it rang and we all were off to our next class.
(even in 1989, our classrooms were still littered with "left over" TRS-80 Model 3's; nobody by then ever used them -- I remember being annoyed to turn them on and had to answer a few questions before you could actually use them, haha! a lot of class peers still didn't have computers in their home by then -- so the "computer in every home" ideal didn't really happen, in my opinion, till almost 1990; for some, it was a cost issue, they were still expensive... for others it was a philosophical issue, that's a bit hard to explain -- even if the system isn't networked or connected, some concern of the digital system somehow corrupting or degrading one life, which was a concern even in the 1970s and at least in a small way there was some wisdom in that sentiment {i.e. by being globally networked, we've lost a kind of diversity of thought that we used to have})
In 1988, on the last day of school, I was walking home (along a dirt road at the back of the school, towards the apartments next door where my parents had moved us to the year before). I'm not sure what caught my eye, but for whatever reason, I noticed a computer in a dumpster (its side door had been left open).
I had never seen a computer with a fixed "attached monitor" before, so it was "exotic" to me at that time. It was a Commodore PET 4016. It had the black cassette tape and a "red" programming book (that included assembly). The dumpster was for cardboard, so everything therein was relatively clean and intact (and fortunately no rain that week). I pulled the system all out, and realized it was way too heavy to carry home. Kids were getting picked up, since it was end of the school day.
I ran back to the classroom, asked the teacher to borrow the room phone, to call my mother (at work) and ask permission to bring it home. In hindsight, I imagine the request sounded very funny to her "Mom, I found a PET computer! Can I keep it?" She said Yes, and had to get back to work.
Then I noticed one of my friends from school was about to get picked up. So, I ran over to them and asked his father if he'd help drive the computer to our apartment. (a little more background: my friends' father, the one I had just asked -- earlier in the year he had given me a copy of Turbo Pascal 3.0 since he had heard I was interested in "moving beyond BASIC programming" -- another older friend had given me this 600+ page Pascal book {I recall it reeked of smoke and was missing the front cover}, but I didn't have the actual compiler yet and had just been reading about it, so now I finally had the software and was learning structured programming). He followed me over to the dumpster and then understood what I was asking.
So, we loaded the PET into his trunk. Now, as a kid I normally walked home, and didn't quite know the driving directions. But as mentioned, the apartment was right next door the school, so that limited it to a few choices. My friends father drove around and found our complex without much trouble.
I spent the summer reading that "red" book, and learning about assembly programming, very fascinating to learn the more fundamentals of how a computer actually works (instructions sets and logic). In the next year of school, I asked our Science Teacher if I could bring my "PET computer" to class. I'm not sure if she understood what I meant - but she said "Sure!" My father helped me cart it over from our apartment building. Over the summer I had written a "fake BBS" program, that emulated logging into a defense network. So, I brought that program to class and loaded it up on the PET one day from tape. The whole class gathered around, to watch the login and viewing various menu options ("Status arsenal", "Open silo doors", etc). But eventually one of them wised up and said "wait, the only cable is the power plug, where is the phone line?" He knew enough that a modem worked over a phone line, and at the time (1989) we hadn't even imagined "wireless networks." Saved by the bell - it rang and we all were off to our next class.
(even in 1989, our classrooms were still littered with "left over" TRS-80 Model 3's; nobody by then ever used them -- I remember being annoyed to turn them on and had to answer a few questions before you could actually use them, haha! a lot of class peers still didn't have computers in their home by then -- so the "computer in every home" ideal didn't really happen, in my opinion, till almost 1990; for some, it was a cost issue, they were still expensive... for others it was a philosophical issue, that's a bit hard to explain -- even if the system isn't networked or connected, some concern of the digital system somehow corrupting or degrading one life, which was a concern even in the 1970s and at least in a small way there was some wisdom in that sentiment {i.e. by being globally networked, we've lost a kind of diversity of thought that we used to have})
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Went to the library and began reading every computer book I could find (that was the internet then folks). Started a computer repair dept. at the local Community College. We worked on/installed anything to do with computers. IBM PCs (DOS 1.0 and the Mountain Drives), Apple IIs, mainframe terminals. It was wild. Saved like mad for an Atari 800xl and a tape drive, built the Antic EPROM Burner which got me a job as assistant to the head engineer of a small company that worked with the news industry. Worked with everything from current loop (28.8 BAUD) to 9.6 (Various protocols).. Kept learning and building protocols, software, hardware, networking. Now doing quality assurance on Software Designed networks (8x800gig LAGs). What a long strange trips it's been. Lots of untold stories. But one common factor. Constant learning! Technology doesn't stick around for very long.
