First Computers ...

[alilister]

The UK was behind America in computer adoption. Ignoring games consoles, my first computer was an Amstrad word processor with TWIN floppy drives! Whoo hoo! Then I had a Samsung XT IBM clone that was practically space-age. It had - are you ready - 1 mb RAM! And - wait for it - a 20 mb hard disk! This was revolutionary - even Bill Gates didn't have that much RAM! The computer cost me over £1000 even in 1986 and it was so well-made I kept it until it died from the millenium bug. I remember sending two back at first because "random numbers" kept appearing on boot up. I had no idea it was counting its RAM. My next PC was built by an extraordinary company called DAN that made computers to order from excellent parts. No dodgy memory. No tinny speakers. Once, when I had a live broadcast to do for CompuServe, and what I suspected was a faulty cable, they sent an engineer on a hundred mile drive to deliver a new one to me, just in time. In fact, he brought two - just in case. Needless to say, with that level of customer service they soon went broke. So sad.

I had absolutely no idea what software was, or that it was necessary to computing. The PC came with something called DOS 3.1, and I thought that was it. For two years I wrote all my letters in Edlin, thinking that was a word processor! Overkill to PROGRAM one's correspondence, but it did teach me DOS. I used to make batch files to take the effort out of some of the typing!

My first PC changed our lives forever. I bought a two dollar shareware program from the States, called Amy's First Primer, and used it to teach my autistic son to read. Until that point he had no method of communication. Then, suddenly, he could write. A computer is a great teacher for a child who cannot bear to look at faces.

Computers are great, full stop. They are just amazing. Especially when you give them some software!

[zaphodeist]

A good news story about computers! Nice one!

[Scotty]

Hi Again,
Thanks alister that was also one of my computers Amstrad...cost me $3000 canadian dollars here in Canada.
JimM

[alilister]

Wow. That is expensive.

I can't believe how comparatively cheap computing is nowadays, thank goodness. Good hardware costs a lot less. But the addiction to software -that gets expensive...!

Ali

[joel]

I bought this computer in 1981 to run some basic office functions, mostly billing and insurance form generation. It was made by Digital Equipment Corporation. I had the option to replace the two 8 inch floppy drives with a 10 MB ( that's megabytes! ) Winchester hard drive for $10,000, that's a lot of money now...it was even more money than...I elected not to do that. Backing up was important as those 8 inch floppies had a very high rate of failure. It instilled in me the importance of multiple backups for maintaining the integrity of my data.