When computers were sexy: Hilarious vintage ads from the early days of the PC (LOTS of graphics)

The Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | April 1, 2012

[Telepathic Intruder]

386, that is.

[prisoner6]

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Wooo...HOT!

[RingerSIX]

Those were some good times. I ran a FidoNet BBS all through the 90’s, and had a ton of fun.

[MikeSteelBe]

We used to play “Tunnels Of Doom” on my friends TRS-80 back then.

I can’t believe how cool we thought it was, compared to what they have now.

I had to take a programming class for my college engineering curriculum, and I learned Pascal on an old “Osbourne Executive” computer in the early 80s.

[Moltke]

I just bought an 8Gb flash thumb drive for 10 bucks. That is $1.9 X 10-9 per Mb.

I make that $1.25 x 10^-3 per Mb...but still cheap, no?

[Salgak]

I bought a different one of those DAK systems, but was using that Packard Bell printer until I couldn’t find ribbons for it anymore. . . late 90s. . .

[Erasmus]

It came with a blazing 1.77 MHz Motorola 65C02 microprocessor [...]

Well, close. The 6502 was MOS Technology. But the architecture was similar to the Motorola 6800, from which the 6502 was copied by the designer who had jumped ship from Mot to MOS Tech.

[shove_it]

Here's a CDC 3800 console. The CDC 3000 series computers from Control Data Corporation were mid-1960s follow-ons to the CDC 1604 and CDC 924 systems. Over time, a range of machines were produced - divided into the 'upper 3000 series' and the 'lower 3000 series'. CDC phased out production of the 3000 series in the early 1970s. The 3000 series were the 'cash cows' of Control Data during the 1960s.

That coffee table you posted was likely a peripheral to this main frame.

[Erasmus]

You are both probably right.

Speaking of the processor chips themselves, the 8086 was out first.

Then they designed the 8088, which had all the 8086 internals but was in a smaller package with fewer pins and a narrower external bus. This allowed designers to make a cheaper system overall, at the expense of a slower bus and thus lower performance.

The first IBM PC was basically a cookbook design from Intel’s literature, using the 8088.

[dfwgator]

[andyk]

My very first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000

Mine too. Here I am on the right, with brother martyk on the left, in 1983, opening our new Timex at Christmas! Please note the hip 70's mirrored vertical blinds.

[Telepathic Intruder]

I also bought my 8088 when the 286 was already out by then, so I’m one step right after bcsco.

[andyk]

Its real value was the education in MSDOS

I think it was my education in MSDOS that allowed me to transition to linux later in life without resistance, unlike some of my younger peers.

[ROTB]

Finally the powers that be agreed to a memory upgrade ... Productivity soared. Technology is truly amazing.

***

Still holds true today. My “algorithm” for buying a computer is:

1) biggest monitor
2) the most RAM right now, and later

... everything else is secondary.

[cameraeye]

I was the champ!!

[bert]

——Which model of CoCo?-—

It had to be model 1.0. It was brand new on the market from Radio Shack and was only available with 4k memory

I had no idea it is still around.

I learned to program in Basic and developed a program on it that actually ran on the model III at the office. It would input the number and length of pieces and calculate the number of 21 ‘ stock lengths of each extrusion required. It was a tremendous benefit for such a mundane calculation.

That was the end of my programming

My young son would devour the Hot Coco magazine and did all sorts of neat stuff.

[citizen]

Great thread!! bump

[ken in texas]

Yeah, the EGA monitor was wonderful. I couldn't quite afford VGA yet. I'd forgotten about the Turbo button, that really made it fly.

I do remember sitting at the kitchen table, grounding precautions everywhere, painstakingly adding chips to fill out the memory board. Then a new version of DOS came along with support for Expanded Memory. Spent much time editing boot files to get the "LoadHigh" stuff in the right order.

[JoeProBono]

[Dan Cooper]

I see you had a digital watch too. Was it red LED that you pressed a button to read? My first computer was a Timex Sinclair too. I still have it around here somewhere. I remember typing in programs from the monthly magazine and wishing I has the optional 4K add-on memory module that attached to the back.