How does this light switch work?

[SUNRAY]

My first work computer was an Amstrad 9512, running Locoscript which was loaded up from disk every time.

As was my fathers first, I inherited it and it was my 'business machine' when I went self employed. It's still in the loft, just in case I need to refer back to documents early noughties.

 

[SUNRAY]

My first work computer was an Amstrad 9512, running Locoscript which was loaded up from disk every time.

As was my fathers first, I inherited it and it was my 'business machine' when I went self employed. It's still in the loft, just in case I need to refer back to documents early noughties.

My firsts were ZX81 (X2), Amiga 600, 286 (which I upgraded to 2GB HDD).
Sadly the Amiga was stolen in a burglary1994 and just recently I found someone who still runs one and was able to check through my files disks. He let me dump some of the other disks on him.

 

[JohnW2]

My first work computer was an Amstrad 9512, running Locoscript which was loaded up from disk every time.

I was talking about best part of a decade before the 9512 appeared. My first one had to be 'loaded' from an (audio) cassette player - it was a few years before I had any sort of (floppy) disk drive.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Nostalgic memories .... Intel 4004 .... those were the days.

The 4004 pre-dates me by a bit. My first experience was Z80-based, in the late 70s (but that was 8-bit, so 'one up' on the 4004 ). I still have the machine and, when I last tried ( a few years ago) it still worked! I had to write an 'operating system' for it directly in Z80 machine code, which took me a long time!

Kind Regards, John

 

[SUNRAY]

The 4004 pre-dates me by a bit. My first experience was Z80-based, in the late 70s (but that was 8-bit, so 'one up' on the 4004 ). I still have the machine and, when I last tried ( a few years ago) it still worked! I had to write an 'operating system' for it directly in Z80 machine code, which took me a long time!

Kind Regards, John

All my college work was 8080 based and we even persuaded the college to create another 1/2 unit of HTC to build a computer as we all understood the classic Data bus, Address bus, boxes in between labelled RAM, Rom, CPU etc, but didn't know how that related to the real thing.
The lab tech designed a PCB for it laid out exactly like the classic drawing.

I should still have it in my junk.

 

[bernardgreen]

My first home computor was the Texas Instruments TI 99/4A.

Programs in cartridges, TV used for the display using an RF modulator into the aerial socket The chess game was good.

Still have it.

 

[JohnW2]

Programs in cartridges, TV used for the display using an RF modulator into the aerial socket The chess game was good. Still have it.

All exactly the same (including the 'still have it') with my home-brew Z80 machine.

Kind Regards, John

 

[securespark]

My Amstrad accompanied me into self-employment, too!

It did drive me nuts several times by scrambling text sent to print so invoices and estimates looked like complete gobbledegook!
I also had a ZX81 which I supplemented with a 16K memory pack and a printer.
The memory pack was a PITA, as you could be merrily typing lines of BASIC then the next minute the thing would crash, as the connection to the PCB was less than reliable.

 

[JohnW2]

My initial problem (until |I upgrdaed to the 32K RAM, at great expense) was that I then had only a total of 8K of RAM to play with for everything (programmes and 'workspace'). It was quite a challenge to write a rudimentary 'word-processor' (again, in Z80 machine code) small enough to fit and still leaving enough space within the 8K for the document being 'processed'! When I look at the size of software applications these days (commonly hundreds of MB), I can't help but think that the programmers of today must be 'using space because they can'!

Kind Regards, John