"Calif Bill" wrote in message
ink.net...



TI-99. I think it is still in the gargage. Had the best game for kids.
Alpiner. My daughters loved that game. Tandy had one of the best early
PC's. Had the much superior Motorola 68000 and ran SCO Unix. I think it
was the 16B. We used it to develop a multi computer hook up disk
subsystem with 8 megabytes of Cache. When 8 Megs cost a couple of
thousand dollars.


That was it - a TI-99. Best thing about it was that you had to learn how to
write stuff in Basic, although I think it was called "TI-Basic". I
remember doing the examples from the manual - the little stick figure that
walked around and the program that was supposed to emit ultrasonic
frequencies to keep mice away. I kept looking at the dog to see if he
noticed. He didn't.

My oldest son (now 32 yo) was about 4 or 5 at the time. He decided to drop
a dime into one of the air vents on the TI-99 and it went up in smoke.

RCE

RCE wrote:
"Calif Bill" wrote in message
ink.net...



TI-99. I think it is still in the gargage. Had the best game for kids.
Alpiner. My daughters loved that game. Tandy had one of the best early
PC's. Had the much superior Motorola 68000 and ran SCO Unix. I think it
was the 16B. We used it to develop a multi computer hook up disk
subsystem with 8 megabytes of Cache. When 8 Megs cost a couple of
thousand dollars.


That was it - a TI-99. Best thing about it was that you had to learn how to
write stuff in Basic, although I think it was called "TI-Basic". I
remember doing the examples from the manual - the little stick figure that
walked around and the program that was supposed to emit ultrasonic
frequencies to keep mice away. I kept looking at the dog to see if he
noticed. He didn't.

My oldest son (now 32 yo) was about 4 or 5 at the time. He decided to drop
a dime into one of the air vents on the TI-99 and it went up in smoke.

RCE

My very first computer was a Sinclair, you hooked it to the T.V. It
only had internal memory, no drive, so if you wrote a simple basic
program with it, you had to re-enter it if you turned it off.

wrote in message
oups.com...


My very first computer was a Sinclair, you hooked it to the T.V. It
only had internal memory, no drive, so if you wrote a simple basic
program with it, you had to re-enter it if you turned it off.


Little black miniature keyboard with plugs on the back? Yep. Had one of
those too.
In fact, it's dawning on me that my whole life has been a series of gadgets
with wires. No wonder Mrs.E likes horses.

RCE

RCE wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...


My very first computer was a Sinclair, you hooked it to the T.V. It
only had internal memory, no drive, so if you wrote a simple basic
program with it, you had to re-enter it if you turned it off.


Little black miniature keyboard with plugs on the back? Yep. Had one of
those too.
In fact, it's dawning on me that my whole life has been a series of gadgets
with wires. No wonder Mrs.E likes horses.

RCE

Exactly! The wire you hooked to the TV had a slide switch on it, to
switch between channels 2 and 3, in case you received one, you'd slide
the switch to the other!