ClownFish
Post Laureate
Reged: 04/26/05
Posts: 5599
Loc: Islamabad, Pakistan
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Back in 1977 I was given a whole 8K of RAM and 32K of tape storage at Dartmouth college's Kiewit computer lab. This was the same lab John Kemeny invented BASIC at ... long before Bill Gates was out of diapers, but by the time I was there the language was very well fine tuned, although there was no commercial instruction manuals. While I was leaning BASIC (on a revolutionary time-share system on a Honeywell 66/40A) most of our computers used a PRINTER instead of a screen.. and what monitors we did have only displayed text. Still... we had adventure games (Adventure - XYZZY) and even a multiplayer StarTrek game called Multiwar! Remember.. this was 1977! My contribution to Multiwar was to add the transporter and cloaking device.. the whole module took 2K! Boy those where fun days!
Then I moved to England and bought a Tandy Radio Shack desktop computer with 16K of ram... and used a regular audio cassette recorder to save files.. yes I remember "CLOAD"! Every computer magazine out there (3?) included BASIC and Assembler program listings that you had to manually enter to get some free software.. that was the highlight of the magazines! What few companies were selling software.. often packaged it on a cassette tape wrapped in a sandwich baggie!
Then in 1981 I saw an Apple ][ and I haven't looked back since. Oh yes.. the floppy drive, costing me $650 was a marvel at the time. While my employers always went with PC's (MDOS and then Windows) I followed the Apple route in my home. To be able to watch how the technology went from Mac to PC with about a 1 year lag was amazing. Apple would commercialize some technology... and within 1 or 2 years MS or some PC manufacturer would include it too. Mice, windows, 3.5" disks, CDROM, High resolution color graphics (although Atari pushed those limits, sound too), personal laser printers, video etc...
All in all.. it's been a fun ride and now with the duel OS Macs (non-emulation OSX / Windows) just around the corner (hackers have done this already on the new Intel Macs) I can't wait to see the next 10 years will bring.
CF
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Learn all about POLAR ALIGNMENT with my Drift Method Tutorial and simulator!! Or visit my Foreign Service Blog!
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Hillbilly_Gazer
Court Jester
Reged: 11/17/04
Posts: 1775
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Quote:
Anybody here ever use, play or own a KIM-1? We used several in college.
Never heard of that one. I had to look it up. Found this
and this
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Orion XT-8
Orion Scenix 10x50 WA Binoculars
And not a whole lot else!
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16397
Loc: Brooker, FL
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Quote:
Anybody here ever use, play or own a KIM-1? We used several in college.
Nope the first computer I ever programmed was a Univac - in GOTRAN....1960.
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N11GPS Fastar
TOA-130S
MK66 Std
Vintage C5
Megrez II 80mm ED Triplet APO
SolarMax 40
NJP Temma II
Sirius EQ-G
ST8XE/CFW-8(LRGBHa)/AO-7/DF-2/STV Dlx/ST237a/350D (Unmodded)/Mallincam Color Hyper Plus/DSI III Color/DSI II Pro
Two not-spoiled Golden Retrievers - Maggie and Casey
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. - Arthur C. Clarke
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ngc6475
Fearless Spectator
Reged: 03/02/02
Posts: 4790
Loc: Northern Sierra Foothills
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I had friends with Commodore 64 and Atari computers, but I held out for a 486-33 that my brother in law pieced together from parts he salvaged from dumpsters behind a VA hospital!
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Walter
"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
-Mark Twain
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rboe
Numbfinger
Reged: 03/16/02
Posts: 39690
Loc: Phx, AZ
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Quote:
Quote:
Anybody here ever use, play or own a KIM-1? We used several in college.
Never heard of that one. I had to look it up. Found this
and this
Yup, that's the one. A couple students had built them using surplus naval gear. Normally we loaded software via RadioShack cassett deck (the professor admonishing us not to use them for playing music as it ruined the player). Each player had a number on it which you wrote on the cassett tape after recording a program since it was sensitive for some reason. Use a different tape player and you stood a good chance of not loading the program.
I installed a program by hand a few times using that hex key pad.  Better than fortran cards - by a wee bit.
We used it for Milikans Oil drop experiment (measuring the charge of an electron) and recording numbers off a counter hooked up to a gieger-mueller tube for a Half life of silver experiment.
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Ron
NS11GPS
Pronto
16" dob
15X70 Obies
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Kev_Is_Soaked
member
Reged: 02/26/06
Posts: 20
Loc: Toronto
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Started in the early 80's with the Sinclear z81, then the Spectrum 16k, 48k, then a Spectrum+. I got into Amstrad for a little while but went back to my Spectrum after being honestly dis-satisfied with it's performance.
In 88 I got my first PC. It was a Tandy 1000SL, (8086) ran at a whopping 4mhz or could be boosted with the turbo to 8!!! It came with EGA as standard (16 color). No hard drive, one 360k floppy, and a 300baud USR modem 
Graphics were expensive back then, so my jump to a more powerful 16Mhz machine came with a loss of color... was back to the good old amber monitor, which I later traded off for a green one. This puppy had a full meg of ram
I later updated my Tandy with a 30meg hard drive, a VGA adapter, a VGA monitor, and a 1200 baud modem for a whopping $1400  It lasted me until my first 286. I've owned several 286's, two 386's, and two 486's. I think I had a Pentium 66Mhz machine, then jumped to a Cyrix 166 next. After that was my AMD 350, then my AMD 500, 800, and 1.2 Duron. A few years ago I had my AMD 2500+ which lasted me a while, now I'm running the AMD64 4000+
I don't want to think about another upgrade for a while.... but hey, computers are my addiction as astronomy is to many of you guys
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Steve Landry
professor emeritus
Reged: 04/25/02
Posts: 609
Loc: Graham, Washington
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Commodore 64
Commodore 128
486 DX/2 66
Pentium II 400mhz
Currently P4
I remember the 1st Strike Eagle game. Man, I spent years on that thing. DOS 5.0, windows 3.1. Ah, those were the days
The 486 actually traveled to Iceland and back with me when I was stationed there. I remember having to wipe the entire motherboard with alcohol because of the salt deposits! 
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Orion ED80
Orion ED100
Celestron C4R
Orion 120/F5
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Sarah88
sage
Reged: 11/18/05
Posts: 354
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When I was about 10 or 11 ('98 or '99) I 'inherited' my dad's old 266mhz Celeron, when he built himself an AMD K6 500mhz. (I eventually got that too)
Celeron 266 - 4gb hdd - 32mb ram - Win 95
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ED100, OD250L
15x70, 10x50, 7x50
54.7N 2.7W
Edited by Sarah88 (04/09/06 08:19 AM)
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miniventures
Something Else
Reged: 09/13/03
Posts: 11054
Loc: Powell Butte, Central Oregon
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Hmm, I remember the first computer I worked with was an Apple II-C (???) I learned a little bit of Basic on that machine. The first I owned was an IBM PC with the two floppy drives. I remember paying a whole bunch of money for that. The thing that stands out most in my memories of that computer was playing a D & D type role playing game called British Legends on Compuserve at 300 baud. That connection cost $6.00/hour. When Compuserve boosted its baud rate to 1200, BOY was that FAST FWIW, I won that game but I won't share how much it cost over the 8 months it took to win but there were several 24 hour connections towards the end of my run. 
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LarryC
Volunteer
http://www.sunrivernaturecenter.org
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Beast
sage
Reged: 01/31/05
Posts: 296
Loc: Belgium, Westmeerbeek
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Let's see, the first one at home was a no name 80386SX at an incredible 20MHz with 1Mbyte RAM and a huge 40Mbyte Hard drive. Oh yes, a keybaord and mouse (3 button) and a real color display with 256 diferent colors (can you believe that, they were all different) and yes it had sound, it said beep. Life with a computer was simple in those days no hassle with virusses or spyware, fast and reliable (usualy).
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Happy hunting and clear skies.
Beast
Helios Evostar 120 f/8.3 achro (flocked dewshield, blackened lensedges, flocked internally, Baader Crayford, TV Everbrite 2", 8x50 RACI, heavy duty wooden tripod with hydraulic height system and wheels, tuned eq5 RA-motor, intelliscope system)
Orion Skyquest XT6 classic (curved spider, 8x50 RACI, GSO crayford, fully flocked)
Stellarvue Nighthawk original(Telepod style altaz mount)
Meade ETX70 (grab-n-go)
TS Optics 10x50 & 15x70
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desertstars
Deja moo
Reged: 11/05/03
Posts: 30019
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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My first computer had wooden beads on strings. Made cool clacking sounds when I used it, though...
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Tom W.
SVP8 'She turned me into a 3-legged Newt' EQ
Ralph, the All-Purpose 102mm Refractor
Under the Desert Stars
"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going." Professor Irwin Corey
Edited by desertstars (04/14/06 03:05 PM)
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Joe Ogiba
Post Laureate
Reged: 02/14/02
Posts: 3358
Loc: NJ USA
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My first computers were Commodore 64 ,Radio Shack Color Computer II and III before purchasing a used IBM AT in the mid 80's. I upgraded the AT and have been building my own ever since. My next upgrade will be for Vista in early 2007.
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Pentax PF-80ED
Meade 102ED APO
Orion EON 72
120ST
Apex 127
C6 XLT
CR150
C9.25
XT10
Zeiss 7x42 FL
Canon 10x42L IS WP
15x50 IS
12x36 IS II
Garrett Optical 28x110 HD-WP Signature Series
Oberwerk BT-80 45
Apogee RA-88-SA
Denk II Power x Switch binoviewer w/13mm Ethos, 20mm Pentax XW's, 20mm Widescan III's.
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van
member
Reged: 08/13/05
Posts: 16
Loc: wa
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1982 - radio shack color computer. Long gone !
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ClemmonsHoo
sage
Reged: 11/18/04
Posts: 443
Loc: NC
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I started with a Vic 20, then took a great leap all the way to a dual floppy Leading Edge Model D sans HD (cause it cost more than the puter)!
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Meade LX90 UHTC, WO Megrez-II 80mm ED Triple, Vixen GP-DX 2K, Canon G2, Canon Rebel XT
NAD C720BEE, NAD C542, Polk Audio LSi9s
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kentak
sage
Reged: 07/09/03
Posts: 449
Loc: Colorado, USA
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My first computer was a PDP-11 with a teletype, paper tape, DECtape, and a removable hard disk platter. I think it had 16K of RAM. That was a long time ago in a college far, far away...
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Ken
N8i
80ED
C8-NGT
Celestron 25x100
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Relativist
Post Laureate
Reged: 10/11/03
Posts: 3026
Loc: OC, CA, USA
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I also started with at Commodor Vic 20. Instead of a floppy drive, I used a tape drive. It was amazing when I moved up to a Commodor 64 and got a floppy drive!
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.......Curtis
20mm T2 Nagler, 10mm SW 82degrees, 5-8 SW Zoom:
All of the above replaced with WO Binoviewers!!!
Siebert OCA 1.25x-3.5x
10" OPT Starhunter (flocked & upgraded focuser)
10x50 & 15x70 Celestron Bino's
2" 2x GSO Barlow
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F.Meiresonne
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 12/22/03
Posts: 2956
Loc: Eeklo,Belgium
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Radio Shack TRS 80 Model I
16 k at first
Later came the expansion interface (48k) and floppy drive which could hold an incredible 90K, or something in that range....
Those were the days....
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Freddy Meiresonne
Obsession 18 inch #1638
Orion Optics 8 inch F/4.5 -1/8 wave optics -Vixen GP-E
20x80 Helios Stellar Binos
10x60 Helios Quantum 4(= Obie Mariner)
10x50 Helios Nature sport plus
8x40 Helios Nature sport plus
Eyepieces in use :Pan 35,24,19, N13T6, Pentax 10 XW, N9T6, Ultrascopic 7.5, TV2, baader ortho 12.5 and 9 mm
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Thomas Pfleger
super member
Reged: 04/25/06
Posts: 109
Loc: Hennef, Germany
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Depends on what you consider a "real" computer:
my first "device" was a Z80 (8 bit processor) based computer by "Schneider", a german company formerly producing TV sets and audio stuff. It came with 64kB of RAM and a green CRT with 640*200 pixels resolution. Mass storage was made on a tape recorder. With built in BASIC, I began programming ephemeris topics. Later upgrades to a 5 1/4" floppy drive and CP/M operating system. Language was Turbo Pascal 2.x, that really boosted productivity 
1985 I bought an Atari MegaST II with a 68k CPU und 2MBs of RAM. The 20 MB (not GB!) hard drive cost about 500$ that time. The machine enabled me to program in Pascal, Modula-2 and Fortran 77, typeset with LaTeX and there were some nice astronomy programs. The book "Astronomy on the Personal Computer" (Springer; by O. Montenbruck and myself) was worked out on this machine.
Happy computing,
Tom
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djeber2
sage
Reged: 07/02/04
Posts: 493
Loc: Ohio
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In 84 I purchased a commodore 64. In 86 I upgraded to an 8088 PC, 640k, 2 floppy drives, no HD, MSDOS v2.
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Don
1 Dob: Hardin DSH10
4 Small scopes: Celestron ED80, Meade 114NT/500 4.5", Orion 102 Mak, Orion 100mm Astroview
2 Classic Scopes: 4.25" Edmunds reflector, Sears 60mm Discovery
4 Binoculars: 15x70 Celestron skymaster, 10x42 Celestron Regal, 8x40 Nikon Action, 10x50 Orion Binoculars
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