Kudos To Commodore November 29, 2009
Posted by lizp4 in Uncategorized.trackback
You know you’re old when you can reminisce about your first computer, and it was over twenty years ago.
LOL! Like any narcissist worth their salt, I was browsing the Sourdough’s archives and enjoying reading some of my old stuff, and discovered this old article, an ode to Commodore computers and the simple magnetism of geekery.
I hope you enjoy reading this little offering, and realize that even though it is due for some serious updating, it still expresses my wonderment at the joys of life on the internet, and the fun of “getting” geekery.
I even wish I had my old 128 back. It was the only computer that could play Castles of Dr. Creep, the absolute best game ever designed for computers. I don’t know why it has never been released in PC format, but if it ever was, I’m sure it would be just as popular as the original, provided it kept story line, characters, and events as close to the original as possible. A smoother video/updated visuals wouldn’t be bad. But too much departure from the original would kill the spontaneous fun of the game.
I KNOW I’m getting old now. Imagine an old lady reminiscing about a video game…
Dr Creep, my butt. It had the capability to play M.U.L.E. (Multi-Use Labor Element) (so did the 64) and I held onto a 64 until I bought a 386 just so we could play that game. Four player action on one machine! Simultaneously! I can still hear the earworm that played during the movement phase…
It is also how we make new friends over the Internet. Who knew that this was going to be so huge back when Al Gore (LOL) first invented it?
I first got e-mail in the mid-80s, but the only other person I knew who had an e-mail address was my cousin who worked for IBM, and I did not want to send anything to him. So what could it possibly be good for? I have since learned.
Looks like I can’t write — “I was also had …”
Oh, well, another problem of computers in old age.
I have always admired programmers. I still believe to this day that they saved us from a horrible mess when 1999 turned over to 2000. I can remember reading about the coders being LOCKED IN their offices until they completed workarounds and fixes.
I remember the TRS-80. Tandy/Radio Shack. Esoteric as all get-out. LOL! Almost as bad as Commodore for that. But it was a new field. Desktop computing was obviously never going to replace mainframes, punch cards, and peripherals.
Well, for what I need these days, this glorified typewriter works well enough. My kids are always trying to get me to upgrade to one thing or another: “Mom! You really need to get one of these laptops!” (Had one. Used it up, wore it out, threw it away.)
But homebuilt Fang II (Homebuilt Fang I went to the boneyard long ago), replaced another homebuilt, is also a homebuilt, after the homebuilt which followed the Baby, which was followed by an HP. Seems like there is always a new computer in my future these days. LOL!
It’s amazing what a thousand dollars bought back then, and what it buys now. By the time I got my spiffy new homebuilts home, they were well on the trail to obsolescence. But I wouldn’t be without a computer nowadays. It’s how I keep in touch with my kids, read my news, communicate with my friends, listen to music, and do dumb stuff like keep a blog page.
Just 24 years ago? You are just getting started then, aren’t you, Liz?
My first computer was an Apple II, before they added the +. It had a whopping 4k of ram, and ran an integer only version of Apple Basic. It was a real strain to write programs small enough to go into it and still be able to do anything! It was expandable, and soon I had it expanded all the way out to the max, 48k of ram. All this happened about 1977 or ’78, as close as I can recall.
I moved from that to a Radio Shack TRS-80 because it had a version of Fortran, and I knew Fortan and also I could get several disk drives to operate simultaneously on it. At one time, I had 4 external 5-1/4″ disk drives on my TRS-80. I had wires all over the table top!
I changed employers, and my new employer liked Apple and the TRS-80 was giving my trouble, so I bought an Apple II+ that I kept for several years. I did a lot of work on that machine, including writing my first textbook. I was also had an HP-85 portable, rather like a huge laptop, that weighed about 30 lbs. I used the HP for all manner of technical calculations because it was particularly suited to that with a very fine version of BASIC and a lot of built-in hardware processors. It was a great machine that I used until it literally wore out; the printer was failing, the keyboard was failing, the tape drive would no longer read reliably, it was worn out!
It was at that point that I first started buying MS-DOS machines with Intell processors and hating them ever since. On the one hand, Bill Gates did a fine thing with his first operating system, but on the other hand, when he built his giant monopoly, he did not do such a great thing. Unfortunately, we (the whole world) are stuck with him. If anyone comes up with a good competitive idea, Gates will (1) buy them out, or (2) freeze them out of the market. Apple is the only one who has been able to hold on against them at all, and their survival is always in question, day to day. Such is life in the computer world.
When I had to abandon the HP-85 and go to an MS-DOS machine, I wanted a version of BASIC that was similar to what I had been using on the HP-85. It was really powerful, and I had grown to really rely on it. I looked around quite a while, studied everything I could find, and was about to by GW BASIC as the best alternative, although it did not look like a good substitute. By chance, I came across an ad for something called True BASIC, that sounded really good, but it was from True BASIC, Inc., and I had never heard of them. They were offering a limited term trial (a disk that would self destruct after 15 days, as I recall) for $10, that amount to be applied toward the purchase price if you actually bought the product. I decided it was worth the $10, so I sent in my request for the trial disk.
This was the beginning of my love affair with True BASIC. The trial disk performed magnificently. By that time, I already had an MS-DOS machine, so I set up a series of what I thought of at that time as difficult numerical problems, and timed the calculations. I recall that the largest matrix I was able to invert without running out of memory was 130×130, but that could be done in about 10 seconds. I was pretty impressed with that. Today that would be nothing special at all, but at that time, that was very impressive. I bought the whole package, and I became one of their most avid users. I began to strongly recommend True BASIC to all of my engineering students, and consequently a lot of other copies were sold as well. I became well known at TBI, and if I called for help, I usually got it because I was sending them a lot of business. True BASIC always focused on the K-12 educational market, and they never did real well. I continued to use it for engineering calculations throughout my career, and I still do today (I was writing some TB code just yesterday for a problem). About 2006 roughly, the company semi-folded up. They still have some visibility, but there seems to be no one there any more. All of the people that I used to deal with are gone, and the company exists just to sell product that was on the shelves. This is really sad because this was a superior product that simply was never properly marketed, never given the backing it needed to take-off. Oh well …
So, Liz, you reminisce about video games, I reminisce about old software. I suppose this is just a part of old age. I don’t recall either of my grandfathers doing this, however.