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Archiver > GEN-NEWBIE > 2001-10 > 1001919932


From: Peg Shambo <>
Subject: Re: Instructions re programs
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 02:05:32 -0500
In-Reply-To: <00bf01c14a40$25c1ba20$e1a61718@alex1.va.home.com>


At 01:13 10/1/2001, ETM wrote:
>Reminded me of my first portable computer <grin>.

My first home computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer that I got in '80 or
'81, although I'd been playing with computers for many years before then.

You can see it at http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/coco1.html

The CoCo hooked up to the TV. It had 16K of memory and a "Chicklet"
keyboard. Cassette tape for storage of programs and data - and oftentimes
the programs and data were unretrivabl from the tapes! argh! I upgraded
it to a whopping 64K, got a new keyboard for it, and bought a floppy drive
for it. I taught myself to program in BASIC, mostly by copying programs
from computer magazines, then fixing them because the listings were wrong,
then modified them to do other things I want them to do. I later took an
Introduction to Data Processing course at the local community college. It
turned out it was mostly about programming in BASIC. My CoCo was having
some problems, so I used a terminal at work in my off hours to write my
programs and test them. I aced the course. :-)

In 1985, I bought a "real" computer, a Compaq 8086 DeskPro. Woohoo! It
had 2 floppy drives (5.25"). I installed a modem, then bought and
installed a 20 meg hard drive. Thought to myself "I'll NEVER fill this
thing up!" LOL I quickly became conversant in DOS and picked up some
useful programs, taught myself to use spreadsheets, word processor
software, database software, and communications software. I used an
interesting integrated package called Enable that was pretty much ahead of
everyone else.

In those days, I used to work as a computer operator for GE's TIPO
(Telecommunications and Information Processing Operations, later to become
part of GEISCO) in Schenectady, NY. We had the largest data center I've
ever known. A huge place. I took every course the company offered that I
could get permission from management, as well as some courses at local
colleges. After 7 years as an operator, I managed to get a position with
another GE subsidiary, GE Consulting Services where my programming skills
were developed further

My boyfriend took me on a tour of where he works today. He is manager of
the computer department of the company he works for. He showed me their
computer room, including where the mainframe "used to be". I had to
laugh. It was so *small*! He works for a manufacturing company.. The data
center I had worked at took up most of the ENTIRE building they're in. Two
big Honeywell systems with about 50 tape drives each, a rather big test
system (bigger than what my boyfriend's company had!), an IBM mainframe
system, a huge farm of about 100+ disk drives (they were each about the
size of a washing machine), all kinds of printers for different tasks, etc.

My children became quite proficient with computers at an early age because
we had a computer at home. My son became good with telecommunications
because he liked searching for games and downloading them from bulletin
boards. He'd also play Dungeons and Dragons online at night. My daughter
loved chatting online with many friends, plus taught herself to touch type
and posted a great deal of her poetry on one system we used to access. She
has since designed a set of web pages (she's now 32, my son is 29) for
herself, always tinkering with them. My son composes music on his computer.

Those were the good old days, for sure, but I'm happy with what we've got
going these days with PC's. :-)

[Sorry for the long posting, but Elaine's discussion brought back a lot of
memories!]


Peg
_____________________________________________
Peg Shambo
Davenport, Iowa, USA

ICQ: 20093563
_____________________________________________
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by each
experience in which you really stop to look fear in the
face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived
through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes
along.' "
--Eleanor Roosevelt

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good men to do nothing."
--Edmund Burke




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