Harry Krause wrote:
John Gaquin wrote:

"Harry Krause" wrote in message

I remember when I bought my first IBM PC, in 83 or 84. It came with
one floppy drive, and a second floppy was $300. Sheesh. No hard drive
in that first unit, but you could get a TAPE drive.


Yup.... I recall our first in 82. Sprang for the extra floppy; also
sprang for additional memory (512K), a color monitor (extra $300,
iirc) so my little girl might be more interested. All that and a
wide-carriage d/m printer, and the tab topped out just under $5K. A
couple of years later, a guy I was building houses with bought an XT
........ with a built-in hard drive of -- ready? -- 5 megabytes!!!!
Brave New World!!! Overwhelming technology run rampant!!!

My next PC was an 8086-based unit from "Eagle," and it had a 10-meg hard
drive. Wow!

My first home computer was an 8086 IBM that work sold off as surplus.
It didn't even have a harddrive.

"Don White" wrote in message
...
Harry Krause wrote:
John Gaquin wrote:

"Harry Krause" wrote in message

I remember when I bought my first IBM PC, in 83 or 84. It came with one
floppy drive, and a second floppy was $300. Sheesh. No hard drive in
that first unit, but you could get a TAPE drive.


Yup.... I recall our first in 82. Sprang for the extra floppy; also
sprang for additional memory (512K), a color monitor (extra $300, iirc)
so my little girl might be more interested. All that and a
wide-carriage d/m printer, and the tab topped out just under $5K. A
couple of years later, a guy I was building houses with bought an XT
........ with a built-in hard drive of -- ready? -- 5 megabytes!!!!
Brave New World!!! Overwhelming technology run rampant!!!

My next PC was an 8086-based unit from "Eagle," and it had a 10-meg hard
drive. Wow!

My first home computer was an 8086 IBM that work sold off as surplus. It
didn't even have a harddrive.

How about this *handy* device from 1973........the original cell phone:

Name: Motorola Dyna-Tac
Size: 9 x 5 x 1.75 inches
Weight: 2.5 pounds
Display: None
Number of Circuit Boards: 30
Talk time: 35 minutes
Recharge Time: 10 hours
Features: Talk, listen, dial

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April2003/Brick.jpg

" *JimH*" wrote ...

How about this *handy* device from 1973........the original cell phone:

Name: Motorola Dyna-Tac
Size: 9 x 5 x 1.75 inches
Weight: 2.5 pounds
Display: None
Number of Circuit Boards: 30
Talk time: 35 minutes
Recharge Time: 10 hours
Features: Talk, listen, dial

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April2003/Brick.jpg

That's a picture of Marty Cooper with an early mock-up of the first *portable*
cell phone. We didn't get it into production until the early eighties and what
a PITA that was. I still have some prototypes of the various ceramic hybrid
modules (~20) that plugged into the main motherboard. As I recall it cost ~$400
just to produce a functional logic module in the early days. The first units
sold for about $4500.

Funny story: One of the major difficulties was getting it to pass a 4' drop test
without breaking internal modules. To celebrate initial production the group had
a big get together at a local bar and presented Marty with a gold plated unit.
As it was passed around and admired one of my rather bold and compulsive
co-workers held it at shoulder height, proclaimed that "If it's a production
unit it should pass the drop test" and dropped it on the floor. There was
stunned silence for a few seconds followed by nervous laughter as it was picked
up and determined to still work. The look on Marty's face was priceless. I
think Gerry might have suffered consequences had he not been so brilliant. He
was a very early proponent of digital voice encoding.

-rick-

"-rick-" wrote in message
...

" *JimH*" wrote ...

How about this *handy* device from 1973........the original cell phone:

Name: Motorola Dyna-Tac
Size: 9 x 5 x 1.75 inches
Weight: 2.5 pounds
Display: None
Number of Circuit Boards: 30
Talk time: 35 minutes
Recharge Time: 10 hours
Features: Talk, listen, dial

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April2003/Brick.jpg

That's a picture of Marty Cooper with an early mock-up of the first
*portable* cell phone. We didn't get it into production until the early
eighties and what a PITA that was. I still have some prototypes of the
various ceramic hybrid modules (~20) that plugged into the main
motherboard. As I recall it cost ~$400 just to produce a functional logic
module in the early days. The first units sold for about $4500.

Funny story: One of the major difficulties was getting it to pass a 4'
drop test without breaking internal modules. To celebrate initial
production the group had a big get together at a local bar and presented
Marty with a gold plated unit. As it was passed around and admired one of
my rather bold and compulsive co-workers held it at shoulder height,
proclaimed that "If it's a production unit it should pass the drop test"
and dropped it on the floor. There was stunned silence for a few seconds
followed by nervous laughter as it was picked up and determined to still
work. The look on Marty's face was priceless. I think Gerry might have
suffered consequences had he not been so brilliant. He was a very early
proponent of digital voice encoding.

-rick-



Nice story and how wonderful to have been part of history.