110 replies to this topic

[carmel_andrews]

Atari's main stronghold (in the UK that is) was in the midlands and the north...That's why more Atari retailers and software houses were based there...down south (like London/home counties) you only had mastertronic= so so games and a small number of independent supporters, not as many as up north and also sillica shop and that was about it

[pps]

IMHO the 800 XE was made in 1987 - at least my German manual has a copyright then.

In the GDR it was not so hard to get the usual hardware (computer + taperecorder). If you had some "Valuta Mark" (aka DM) you could even go to "Intershop" and by a 800XL.

Intershop was a shopping center where you could by many things from the "Western Bloc" - as inhabitant of GDR you had to change your DM into so called "Forum Schecks" that where only for shopping in these shops. These stores where intended from the GDR to get some more DM, as there where many things on sales prices if you´re from FRG or West Berlin. Most Intershops where located in areas no GDR inhabitant could reach.

For some thousands of GDR Mark you also could get hold of the Hardware.

Software usualy was copied on big copy parties. In Halle and Leipzig whole areas of universities where taken for that. In GDR no one cares about copyright, there where no software sellers. The usual storage medium was tape, but with updated hardware, to load faster and - everyone knows the lack of Atari tape format - saver.

Disc drive was also there, but not in so high rate. The floppies where not so easy to get and they where very expensive too.

btw My 800XE was bought in Essen by a cousin of my mom and it arrives in a simple package via post. The package was opened by Stasi but they let it through

[Almost Rice]

The 1st Computer that I used was my Grandmother's Xerox (maybe a 820) with dual 8" floppies. My uncle convinced her to get it for her business. I remember a text based Jumpman type game.

The Atari 400 with a 410 in 1982 was my 1st experience with a computer at home. Another uncle bought that one. Didn't do much programming. Just played Pacman, Shamus and Star Raiders.

My 1st computer was a 600xl with the 410 above in 1984. I started to program from the magazine articles.

800xl with 1050 in 85. 130xe and XF551 in 87.

[mrnukem]

[quote name='doctorclu' date='Sat Apr 19, 2008 7:11 PM' post='1504366']
This is a lot of fun. I liked Warerat's subtile hints of the newspaper articles to get the 800 (an expensive machine back then), and good to see Cybernoid started on a 400. I think a lot of us did.

However, I believe I have about everyone beat in a computer that predated everyone else's computer and uniqueness. Ladies and gentlemen, I started on a Sol Terminal 20.



I actually have one of these. Got it last year for cost of shipping (around $100) from a fella who was moving and had no room for it. It included 2 huge disk drives and all the documentation but it does not function, boots to garbage characters on the screen. Even though it does not boot it is still my prize vintage computer item in my collection. (My wife thought I was nuts when it arrived. Said I was not that excited about our kids coming home after being born..she just does not understand what a SOL 20 is to the collector)....

Edited by mrnukem, Mon Apr 21, 2008 10:30 PM.

[joeventura]

Sinclair ZX-80 with 1K of RAM, took 3 months to get bored with that, went right to an 800 with and 810
Parents paid $1200 for the pair.

[PacMan]

Acorn Atom, 1MHz 6502, 2K RAM for both program and graphics. Expanded it to a massive 5K RAM program memory and 6K RAM graphic memory.... oh oh and a tape recorder of course. Oooooh the memories.

[FastRobPlus]

North Star Horizon

[Mirage]

After having a 2600 for a couple years, I wanted a computer badly. Somehow, I finally got a Vic-20. But, by that time, the C64 was out, so it was already getting hard to get Vic stuff. Still, I had a lot of fun with it. Around Christmas in a couple years, I wanted to upgrade to something better, and got my dad to get me an Atari 800XL at a clearance store for $99. I brought it home and was pretty disappointed. I think I was just so used to the Vic and had tried the 64 in stores, so I was comfortable with that. I didn't give the 800XL much of a chance. I got him to return it and somehow got a refurb or clearance C64 which (sorry!) was and still is my favorite computer of all time. Had that through Jr. High and the first two years of High School.

Now, among all the other machines, I have an 800 with Happy 810, and I appreciate it a lot more, but I still have the 64 set up permanently...

[goblin072]

My Uncle died and we drove from MI to FL to get some of his things. It turns out he was a major geek, ex CIA. He had some really cool stuff, I snatched up a timex sinclair and later got the 16k upgrade. It got so hot you could cook eggs on it. I learned basic programming on that thing.

Next was the 400, then 800, 800xe, 520ST hacked piggy backed the ram to 1040, lots of solder). then Mega STe. I finally got a PC when they where 486 66. I was only impressed by 80 columb text and not the graphics. Atari was ahead of the game for years.

hellrazor, on Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:11 PM, said:

What was your first rig? i got my start on a timex-sinclair 1000... 16k...w/ the expansion cart!
not sure of the year,,,1981-2 maybe
c ya
greg

[Fräulein]

A timex-sinclair 1000.
My mother had gone to the radio shack for something or other and brought home a bag of goodies. They sometimes had a clearance table, and on the table was a "grab bag". the guy had told her, that the computer thing was a fad. She got it for thirty bucks. She had thought I could mess around with it.
I learned how to program my first game and I was soooo excited. And that first game was very much like Haunted House.

I think that children in school today should have to start learning computers on those. They can learn how their computer works. And maybe how to open a file when the mouse does not work.

[ClausB]

Fräulein, on Thu Apr 24, 2008 3:15 PM, said:

A timex-sinclair 1000.

That Sinclair/Timex was a great little machine! Sure it was built cheap but the design was very clever and it really made the most of what it had. I built a ZX81 kit and had a good time discovering its inner wonders.

My first and favorite is still Atari, though.

[doctorclu]

FastRobPlus, on Tue Apr 22, 2008 3:23 PM, said:

North Star Horizon

North Star eh? The Sol Terminal 20 ran that operating system. What was the Horizon like? A S100 machine I'd imagine, but what else?

[doctorclu]

mrnukem, on Mon Apr 21, 2008 6:19 PM, said:

I actually have one of these. Got it last year for cost of shipping (around $100) from a fella who was moving and had no room for it. It included 2 huge disk drives and all the documentation but it does not function, boots to garbage characters on the screen. Even though it does not boot it is still my prize vintage computer item in my collection. (My wife thought I was nuts when it arrived. Said I was not that excited about our kids coming home after being born..she just does not understand what a SOL 20 is to the collector)....

Oh that is nice!! $100 is not bad at all. What is not booting on it?

[FastRobPlus]

doctorclu, on Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:40 AM, said:

FastRobPlus, on Tue Apr 22, 2008 3:23 PM, said:

North Star Horizon

North Star eh? The Sol Terminal 20 ran that operating system. What was the Horizon like? A S100 machine I'd imagine, but what else?

It ran CP/M by the time I got it. I seem to remember that it had its own DOS but sadly I never saw it (or don't remember if I did)
It's an S100 bus machine. The one we had was heavy aluminum or steel and wood(!) with two massive 5.25" drives, but I think there was a version that was all metal.
I have wracked my brain but I can’t remember what we used as a terminal. Nothing as fancy as a Sol.

I remember wanting the Advantage when it came out. It had a resolutioN of 640x200 or somehting amazing (to me!)

[jonfin826]

I'm 14 (15 May 3rd! Yay!) and when i turned 14 i bought an Atari 800 as my first computer. I got a fully loaded (ram-wise) system, a cassete drive, a disk drive, 17 cassete programs, 24 cartridge programs, 20 floppy disk programs, 10 unique controllers, manuals for 28 of the programs, boxes for 43 of the programs, a tv switchbox, 2 connector cables, 2 atari power adapters, "Inside Atari Basic" by Bill Carris, "A Shortcut Through Adventureland" by some people, and some 80's book on how to beat the most popular games of the day (can't find it right now). All this cost me $100 (supplied by my parentals, cuz I'm a lazy teenager who doesn't wanna go get a job :])

[classics]

My first computer was actually a TI/99, which had some kind of video problem and quickly went back to the store and was exchanged for a Vic-20 with a few carts, Adventureland and Pirate Adventure I think.

I had a great time typing in programs on the VIC and got my first sweet taste of interactive fiction there. I didn't have a tape or disk drive, so it got stale pretty quickly. Then I upgraded to a C-64 with a 1541, which I hated, so I traded it to a buddy of mine for his 'old' Atari 800 and 810 disk drive.

Been hooked on Atari ever since. :-)

Steve

[carmel_andrews]

How did you fare with 'Parsec' on the TI/99...I remember playing it in a shop...not a bad game (have you seen the xl portover...almost exactly like the TI version)

classics, on Sat Apr 26, 2008 9:44 AM, said:

My first computer was actually a TI/99, which had some kind of video problem and quickly went back to the store and was exchanged for a Vic-20 with a few carts, Adventureland and Pirate Adventure I think.

I had a great time typing in programs on the VIC and got my first sweet taste of interactive fiction there. I didn't have a tape or disk drive, so it got stale pretty quickly. Then I upgraded to a C-64 with a 1541, which I hated, so I traded it to a buddy of mine for his 'old' Atari 800 and 810 disk drive.

Been hooked on Atari ever since. :-)

Steve

[Lynxman]

C64 -> Plus4 -> 520STM -> 1040STFM -> 1040STE -> Falcon030 -> different PCs

[ClausB]

ClausB, on Mon Mar 31, 2008 4:20 PM, said:

A TI SR-56 programmable calculator, with a whopping 160 bytes (100 program steps + 10 12-digit memory registers).

I've been rebuilding my collection of 70's calculators. These are the ones I had then:



Only my original TI-59 survives now but I recently scored an SR-56 on eBay. It's been great fun revisiting this old friend. I was wrong above - it has 240 bytes of RAM! 180 bytes are user-programmable: 100 program steps + 10 memory registers (13 BCD digits plus 2 exponent digits each). It has a 64-bit (serial) ALU and runs at 225 kHz. See here.

I now have 5 programmable TIs and 2 programmable HPs (and more on the way).

[snicklin]

My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 with 1K and a 16K wobbly RAM pack at the age of 6 (1984).

By Christmas 1987 I moved onto my Atari 65XE.

[oky2000]

My first computer was a VIC20 but I changed that with a part exchange at full price for a C64 on day of launch months later. First ever computing console was of course the VCS.

[lykewyse]

My family had an Apple II when I was growing up, which was eventually replaced with various IBM PC clones running various versions of Windows... I didn't get into 'vintage' machines until 1998 or so when I got an Atari 800 at Goodwill with various accessories.

[StaxX28]

My first computer was a Atari 800XL (of course !) at the end of 1983, with 1010 cassette recorder... then 1050 a few months later.

Edited by StaxX28, Sat Feb 20, 2010 1:14 PM.

[wood_jl]

1980 - Atari 400 (8k/CTIA)
1982 - Atari 800 (48k)
1984 - Atari 800XL
1985 - Atari 130XE
1986 - Atari 520ST
1987 - Atari 1040ST
1990 - IBM PS2/30-286 (yuck) then a successive string of PCs.

[flashjazzcat]

My first computer was a 65XE in 1987-88 (forget exactly, but I was about fifteen at the time), and I still have its replacement here (the first one died after about three years). I got an XF551 in about 1990 (it's still working and in mint condition: I still remember the excitement waiting for that to arrive), followed closely by SpartaDOS X, ICD Printer Connection, and a 128K upgrade. I wrote all my college assignments, University coursework and dissertation (the latter on Apects of the Femme Fatale!) on the 65XE during the nineties (using TextPro and Daisy Dot II, since The Last Word didn't exist at the time), and the A8 was my main computer for everyday use until 2001. You'd think I'd have moved onto an ST at that point, but actually I got a 286 PC...

Edited by flashjazzcat, Sat Feb 20, 2010 1:25 PM.