On Tuesday, December 23, 2003, at 02:46 PM, Pete Holsberg wrote:
> OK. My first owned machine was the IMSAI 8080 -- 256 bytes
> of memory and a front panel! Added 4K RAM, a Z-80 board, a
> terminal, eventually expanded to the full 64K. And the hard
> drive!!! 5MB -- 16" platters, 220VAC, many amps. But -
> wow!! -- 5 megabytes! :-)
I almost bought an IMSAI at one point. Dual 8" drives, woohoo!!
The first one I bought was an Apple II, I mean ][, back in Aug. '79, I
still have the receipt, but I sold the computer back in '80 or '81.
16K of RAM, but I splurged and maxed it out at 48K. Couldn't afford a
floppy though; the 80K (or was it 90?) drive was an additional $650
(and disks were $10 each!), so I decided a cassette would do just fine.
And it did.
The Commodore PET and the TRS-80 looked reasonable, but I knew one of
the Engineering professors at U Louisville, and he had an Apple ][ and
some software he had written for it (including some assembler
animations that really pushed what the machine could do, at the time.)
Now, of course, my son's Gameboy has more computing power. And far
better graphics, sound...
David
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