Way back in the 'day'...I built my own first computer: An Apple of all things: came in a kit!
16 K of screening RAM and a green VDT!
No mouse; limited key-board access; no printer! Awsome stuff back then!
...
Then I bought (in 1982) an Apple II. Awsome: plenty of ports(slots back then) for a printer,external drive(s) and
even a 'mouse' which came later and an Image-writer printer. (I won't say it was the worst printer ever but.....???)
For Dot-matrix it was the best in it's day....
In 1984 upgraded to the Apple II-E (enhanced) version. Not much more except...
Upgraded to the dual-disk drive...Wow! Things took off from there on...untill...
I realized two 5-1/4 flp's weren't just making it: Even with all the cool games back then...
...
Bought my first modem; 1200 back then; lasted a month then went to 2400...oh my gosh! Looking back..how slow!
...
Then 'they' tried 4800 but I wasn't buying it: I waited...waited...waited...9600: Gosh Almighty!
...
Of course the Apple wouldn't 'swallow' all that data in 'real' time and would lock up; meaning the disk-drives
would overheat and or ask for a 'new' disk but by then it was to late....
...
Then I saved up some money and bought an IBM-XT from of all people, Mike Dell! Go figure....with the box running
at an amazing 3mhz(couldn't change the crystal back then..but I did) running the 8086 chip then upgraded to the
8088.
"Wow!" I'm styling now says I...
First thing was an upgrade? Funny now that I think back about that time, the XT came with 640 onboard.
The 512 (or AT) only came with 512 and they were double stacked 64 k chips soldered together upon each other.
...
Once you got the hang of the 512 you could expand the volitile memory by adding an additional slot board in the
(at the time either the eight or sixteen slot slot...).
Back it the day(1987/89) I upgraded the crystal from 6 mhz to 12 mhz: the machine bogged down...
backed off to 10 mhz and she ran like a fine tuned machine!
...
Then came the add-in 'ram'. At first it was a one or two meg ram card: and here's the rub that most of
you don't know: shared ram or (what kinda ram?).
...
Dropped the 512 and went back to the XT. Joy stick/mouse/printer and upgraded to VGA.
Now I'm livin'n large! I've got 640/a 20 meg hard-drive/and 6 megs of memory on slot cards....
....
Playing 'Wing-Commander' with my son and loving it! Ah, the old days...
16 K of screening RAM and a green VDT!
No mouse; limited key-board access; no printer! Awsome stuff back then!
...
Then I bought (in 1982) an Apple II. Awsome: plenty of ports(slots back then) for a printer,external drive(s) and
even a 'mouse' which came later and an Image-writer printer. (I won't say it was the worst printer ever but.....???)
For Dot-matrix it was the best in it's day....
In 1984 upgraded to the Apple II-E (enhanced) version. Not much more except...
Upgraded to the dual-disk drive...Wow! Things took off from there on...untill...
I realized two 5-1/4 flp's weren't just making it: Even with all the cool games back then...
...
Bought my first modem; 1200 back then; lasted a month then went to 2400...oh my gosh! Looking back..how slow!
...
Then 'they' tried 4800 but I wasn't buying it: I waited...waited...waited...9600: Gosh Almighty!
...
Of course the Apple wouldn't 'swallow' all that data in 'real' time and would lock up; meaning the disk-drives
would overheat and or ask for a 'new' disk but by then it was to late....
...
Then I saved up some money and bought an IBM-XT from of all people, Mike Dell! Go figure....with the box running
at an amazing 3mhz(couldn't change the crystal back then..but I did) running the 8086 chip then upgraded to the
8088.
"Wow!" I'm styling now says I...
First thing was an upgrade? Funny now that I think back about that time, the XT came with 640 onboard.
The 512 (or AT) only came with 512 and they were double stacked 64 k chips soldered together upon each other.
...
Once you got the hang of the 512 you could expand the volitile memory by adding an additional slot board in the
(at the time either the eight or sixteen slot slot...).
Back it the day(1987/89) I upgraded the crystal from 6 mhz to 12 mhz: the machine bogged down...
backed off to 10 mhz and she ran like a fine tuned machine!
...
Then came the add-in 'ram'. At first it was a one or two meg ram card: and here's the rub that most of
you don't know: shared ram or (what kinda ram?).
...
Dropped the 512 and went back to the XT. Joy stick/mouse/printer and upgraded to VGA.
Now I'm livin'n large! I've got 640/a 20 meg hard-drive/and 6 megs of memory on slot cards....
....
Playing 'Wing-Commander' with my son and loving it! Ah, the old days...
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