Your first computer

CaldRail · Post by **CaldRail** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 9:48 am

My First Computer? A Dragon 32. One of those acorn rivals with a 6800 processor. Not the most capable creation but once you'd figured out what all the memory locations in reserved memory were for you could play all sorts of tricks with it. There was an extension cartridge you could buy that made it a joy to program. Apart from the need to load from cassette tapes that is.

Anonymizeruk · Post by **Anonymizeruk** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:39 am

CaptainBazza wrote:....and don't bother to tell me how great the Amigas were, either.

Played some decent games with it, and it's soundchip wasnt half bad

Speaking of which, just in case any of you have fond memories of the MOS6581/8580 SID chip (soundchip) from the Commodore 64 - I have 2 of each inside my PC

Great fun for writing synth music.

Cheers

Gaz

darren10000 · Post by **darren10000** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:48 pm

I used to have an Acorn Electron

0.25Mhz 6502 8 Bit processor, 32k Ram, and BBC Basic

GRRRRRREAT!!!

But the first Computer I ever used at school, back in 1982 was the Research Machines RM Link 480z

Even Better as it had Vector Graphics and Analogue colour controller.

Darren

Home of the LCDR

Anonymizeruk · Post by **Anonymizeruk** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:45 pm

This is a photo directly from the website of HardSID (they make the PCI cards that hold the C64 soundchips)

Excellent pic of the 'beefed up' Electron. A friend of mine had a +3 expansion with a disc drive (I only ever had the basic Electron and tape!)

Sorry if this seems to be going a bit off topic, but its an interesting discussion about the computers of yesteryear

Cheers

Gaz

darren10000 · Post by **darren10000** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:02 pm

Anonymizeruk wrote:This is a photo directly from the website of HardSID (they make the PCI cards that hold the C64 soundchips)

Excellent pic of the 'beefed up' Electron. A friend of mine had a +3 expansion with a disc drive (I only ever had the basic Electron and tape!)

Sorry if this seems to be going a bit off topic, but its an interesting discussion about the computers of yesteryear

Cheers

Gaz

How much are these, and where??? and do they come with the C64 Sound Chips or do you have to get them seperately and chuck em in yerself???

ajax103 · Post by **ajax103** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:08 pm

My very first computer was a Acorn which I had fun with.

Acorn
BBC Micro
PC
iMac
Acorn Archimedes

As you can see, I've used a number of systems over the years and I'm only 22, not bad if I don't say so myself.

darren10000 · Post by **darren10000** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:09 pm

ajax103 wrote:My very first computer was a Acorn which I had fun with.

Acorn
BBC Micro
PC
iMac
Acorn Archimedes

As you can see, I've used a number of systems over the years and I'm only 22, not bad if I don't say so myself.

when you say "Acorn" is that an electron or the Atom

Darren

Home of the LCDR

Anonymizeruk · Post by **Anonymizeruk** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:17 pm

I don't think I've done too bad at 24. Never owned a Beeb, but both primary and secondary school had them (one of the beebs at secondary school had a 'tube' second cpu with it:)

I also remember the Econet, where the entire file library was contained on 2 x single sided 3.5in floppies.

As for the HardSID - http://www.hardsid.com
I paid something like £120 for mine. You can have 2 SID chips with it if you pay extra, but I sourced mine by buying broken C64s, then harvesting the SID chips.

I have a single SID chip ISA version lying about too, although thats useless to me now, as I dont have a system with an ISA slot.

Cheers

Gaz

darren10000 · Post by **darren10000** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:27 pm

Anonymizeruk wrote:I don't think I've done too bad at 24. Never owned a Beeb, but both primary and secondary school had them (one of the beebs at secondary school had a 'tube' second cpu with it:)

I also remember the Econet, where the entire file library was contained on 2 x single sided 3.5in floppies.

As for the HardSID - http://www.hardsid.com
I paid something like £120 for mine. You can have 2 SID chips with it if you pay extra, but I sourced mine by buying broken C64s, then harvesting the SID chips.

I have a single SID chip ISA version lying about too, although thats useless to me now, as I dont have a system with an ISA slot.

Cheers

Gaz

We had Beebs at primary school, but as I left to go onto Grammar school they were installing the Doomsday Project whereby a 12" Laser Disc Video system was tied into the Beeb using a primative sort of Genlock, and all sorts of Data was available on the 4 LD's. I remember at the time it seemed like Sci-Fi to be able to have Photo's and Video Clips on a computer, let alone a BBC B.

The Tube was able to support an extra 3 MHz 6502, 4 MHz WDC65C102, a 4 MHz Zilog Z80 for e.g. CP/M, an NS32016, an ARM1, and others as well as a 5 Dimentional Controller called a 'Bitstick'. There was an upgraded version of ELITE for 2 Processors as well!!!

Darren

Home of the LCDR

Anonymizeruk · Post by **Anonymizeruk** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:29 pm

Anyone ever have an Einstein?

My cousin had one (made by Tatung). Never got chance to use it much myself, but it looked like a beast!

Cheers

Gaz

ajax103 · Post by **ajax103** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:34 pm

darren10000 wrote:
ajax103 wrote:My very first computer was a Acorn which I had fun with.

Acorn
BBC Micro
PC
iMac
Acorn Archimedes

As you can see, I've used a number of systems over the years and I'm only 22, not bad if I don't say so myself.
when you say "Acorn" is that an electron or the Atom

Darren

Home of the LCDR

No but it looked liked the archimedes but with a 4 letter code.

darren10000 · Post by **darren10000** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:35 pm

I remember the curries or dixons on our high st. had one and there was a demo on it with a little Einstein cartoon character jumping around. It also had 4 channel sound. If I remember rightly it ran MSX compatible software, MSX being a system which 3 or 4 manufacturers agreed too, in order to have software compatability, but it never worked properly. Nothing to do with MS funny that...as MS doesn't work too well either

Crimpsal · Post by **Crimpsal** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:39 pm

Darren, "We had Beebs at primary school"

When I was at primary school, the smallest computer was as big as a 2 bed bungalow.

darren10000 · Post by **darren10000** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:42 pm

ajax103 wrote:
darren10000 wrote:
ajax103 wrote:My very first computer was a Acorn which I had fun with.

Acorn
BBC Micro
PC
iMac
Acorn Archimedes

As you can see, I've used a number of systems over the years and I'm only 22, not bad if I don't say so myself.
when you say "Acorn" is that an electron or the Atom

Darren

Home of the LCDR
No but it looked liked the archimedes but with a 4 letter code.

It Did'nt look like this did it

Darren

Home of the LCDR & Dodgy 8 Bit Dinosaurs

darren10000 · Post by **darren10000** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 3:47 pm

Crimpsal wrote:Darren, "We had Beebs at primary school"

When I was at primary school, the smallest computer was as big as a 2 bed bungalow.

The smallest computers we had were 16k ZX Spectrums which we used to play JetPac and Boris in the Underworld on in Computer Club. ahh 1984, those were the days

Darren

Home of the LCDR