My History With Computers
Mid 1980s - The Atari 130XE is the computer that I started out with. Back
then the BASIC prompt came up when you booted. I spent many the day sitting
in absolute wonder and amazement that I could type instructions into a
machine and have it do what I wanted. This was the beginning of my love of
programming. This machine had 128K of RAM and ran at about 1.7MHz and could
do a resolution of 320x192 (256 colors). It had no harddrive, everything
done from 5.25" floppies. I had a XM301 300 baud modem with which I would
connect to local BBSs.
Late 1980s - Next came the Amiga 2000. I really loved this computer, it
took my computing to a new level. I was heavily into programming with a
language called "AMOS". This system had 1M of RAM and ran at about 8MHz and
could do a resolution of 640x480 (4096 colors in special HAM mode). I now
had a 14400 baud modem and a 30Meg harddrive. The pirated games for this
system flowed like a mountain stream, and that was ok for me as I didn't
have money and Amiga software was hard to come by where I lived.
Early 1990s - During my time at university I finally gave up on the dying
Amiga and got a 386 running MS-DOS which I absolutely hated. It felt like
downgrading from a Porche to a Lada. Anyway, much of the 1990s was spent
waiting for the next new and improved PC. Next I had a 486, which I hated a
little less, then a Pentium 133 running Win95, upgraded later to 200MHz.
Close to the end of the century I was using a Celeron 366 running Win98.
2000 to 2003 - Had a 1.4GHz PC running Linux and my computer had become fun
again. Adjusting to Linux on the desktop had been a bit of battle sometimes
but it's worth it. Open-source is the future.
2004 and onward - Now using a 2.0GHz AMD PC running Linux and my computer is
still fun.
then the BASIC prompt came up when you booted. I spent many the day sitting
in absolute wonder and amazement that I could type instructions into a
machine and have it do what I wanted. This was the beginning of my love of
programming. This machine had 128K of RAM and ran at about 1.7MHz and could
do a resolution of 320x192 (256 colors). It had no harddrive, everything
done from 5.25" floppies. I had a XM301 300 baud modem with which I would
connect to local BBSs.
Late 1980s - Next came the Amiga 2000. I really loved this computer, it
took my computing to a new level. I was heavily into programming with a
language called "AMOS". This system had 1M of RAM and ran at about 8MHz and
could do a resolution of 640x480 (4096 colors in special HAM mode). I now
had a 14400 baud modem and a 30Meg harddrive. The pirated games for this
system flowed like a mountain stream, and that was ok for me as I didn't
have money and Amiga software was hard to come by where I lived.
Early 1990s - During my time at university I finally gave up on the dying
Amiga and got a 386 running MS-DOS which I absolutely hated. It felt like
downgrading from a Porche to a Lada. Anyway, much of the 1990s was spent
waiting for the next new and improved PC. Next I had a 486, which I hated a
little less, then a Pentium 133 running Win95, upgraded later to 200MHz.
Close to the end of the century I was using a Celeron 366 running Win98.
2000 to 2003 - Had a 1.4GHz PC running Linux and my computer had become fun
again. Adjusting to Linux on the desktop had been a bit of battle sometimes
but it's worth it. Open-source is the future.
2004 and onward - Now using a 2.0GHz AMD PC running Linux and my computer is
still fun.