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Author Topic: 25 years  (Read 1716 times)

Offline castle261

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #14 on: December 06, 2022, 11:04:25 PM »
I leant the computer when Southern TV announced that anyone can learn. So I went to a building opposite
Rochester Airfield - to learn to change a car number plate - by computer. We had two hours for this session.
After that - once a week - then we could use the Library computers for 75 minutes a day. I was making posters
in no time - as the Library had the best ART material installed.
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Offline MartinR

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #13 on: December 05, 2022, 04:01:51 PM »
Hmm, and the photographer works worst of all! :-[
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Offline MartinR

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2022, 04:01:18 PM »
Time to fire up history.  The ZX80 works better than the analogue TV!
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Offline John Walker

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #11 on: December 05, 2022, 03:02:32 PM »
I've found some photos of my Games shop - Canterbury Software and Games.  As well as computer software and hardware, I also sold Dungeons and Dragons games and figures.  Mainly Games Workshop products which were mail-ordering only until then.  I managed to get a deal with them to enable me to retail.  Another great success.  We were re-ordering weekly and had a visit from one of the owners of Games Workshop.  It wasn't long after that they started opening their own shops.  I had closed the business before they opened their Canterbury branch so there was no conflict.

The photo of the strange sandwich board man in the High Street, is me with a mask, etc.  It brought in a lot of business as my shop was just off the main shopping areas.
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Offline John Walker

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2022, 02:38:30 PM »
MartinR.  Yes, I would have been rich to own a Pet in those days but it wasn't mine.   However, the owner was rich but hadn't a clue what to do with it (Rich man's toy) so loaned it to me for quite some time.


Johnfilmer.  A great photo of those times.  I would have been familiar with most of those items in 1988.
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Offline johnfilmer

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #9 on: December 04, 2022, 05:58:47 PM »
Searching for something completely unrelated I found this photo. It shows my son playing space invaders on the Kaypro.Note the Sage instruction booklet to the left of the computer, and the box of floppy disks left again. A mains powered, printout calculator was an essential as was the super wide fan-fold printer. The blue plastic folders contained the pink, bottom, copy of our NCR receipts, an example of which is pinned, with its jobsheet to the wall above.
Usefully the year planner on the right says 1988 - saves a lot of guessing
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Illegitimus nil carborundum

Offline MartinR

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #8 on: December 03, 2022, 05:35:56 PM »
Wow, John, you must have been rich to afford a Pet.  I used a little desktop machine at school briefly (1973/4), then did a bit of BASIC on a PDP-11 in 1974.  1976-7 Ihad access to the NUMAC system, an IBM 360/70 IIRC.  Access was initially by punch card, later we had access to golfball terminals and video terminals if you could get the postgrads off them.  A few years after that I built a 8080 based machine with hex pad input, 7 segment display (both ex-calculator) and a whopping 64 bytes of RAM.  When the ZX80 came out I bought one, then moved on to a Spectrum before starting work with DEC machines.
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Offline johnfilmer

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #7 on: December 03, 2022, 05:34:30 PM »
We started out with a Kaypro K10, that’s a 10mb hard drive, in 1984 as a business machine. It ran CPM, an early Microsoft product I think, Wordstar, our database on FoxPlus and SuperCalc spreadsheet that I still prefer to Excel.
The magic thing was that it was portable. The keyboard fastened over the front of the metal case covering the small, green, screen and the floppy disk drive. That was the large, really floppy, discs.
We upgraded to a 286 PC a little later and the Kaypro was used for the accounts using the very first Sage software. That was at home and my sons played space invaders on it.
Some years and a few more upgraded computers later, I was doing my party trick in the office, showing someone what BT speak for “go forth and multiply” looked like if you ask for broadband at my home, and it basically asked when would I like it! That rattled a few cages down the pub, as many had been asking for it, but no one had it, and they were a mile closer to the exchange.
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Illegitimus nil carborundum

Offline John Walker

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2022, 03:08:05 PM »
Interesting thread.

I was a fairly early starter.  I taught myself BASIC on a Commodore Pet (see photo).  I had my music shop (Socodi Music Let) and Jeff Richardson from the Canterbury Band, Caravan used to come in most days.  He also had a Commodore Pet and we learned from each other, swapping ideas and discoveries.  I then had a ZX81.  When the Spectrum came out I could see a future in the games market.  Two lads from Liverpool (Imagine Games) had written a couple of advanced games for the Spectrum and their sales rocketed.  I decided that a games retail shop could work so agreed to a bulk purchase of the Imagine games and programs from various other up-and-coming games writers.  Most of them thought that retail wouldn't work and it would continue to be mail-order only.  Anyway, it did work out and I had many years of success selling computer games.  I also started selling hardware. Most of the well-known home computers and accessories.  This was way before Boots and Smiths stepped in.  I thought they would finish smaller retail shops but many customers preferred the personal and knowledgeable service that I gave.

After some years the PC began to take over but I was unable to get any profitable retail deals so closed that side of the business.

I've continued to try and stay abreast of technology developments but it's gotten more of a struggle each year.
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Offline Lutonman

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #5 on: December 03, 2022, 02:07:56 PM »
I started with a 16K spectrum around 1984 and used some downloads on the BBC radio recorded onto cassette.
Then upgraded memory to 48K! then to a 128k version. Then a Amstrad PCW


[size=78%]Before Later getting a PC from a company called "Time" advertised on the back of a Sunday paper.[/size]




My current PC is a self-built PC and upgraded quite a few times. 
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Offline grandarog

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #4 on: December 03, 2022, 09:25:40 AM »
I was a late starter compared to you lot.I bought my first computor in 2001,purely so I could sort out my family tree,so it's just celebrated its 21st birthday . Self taught with a 2 Meg hard drive and a few k of memory. Floppy disc to save a few k of data.  Dial up wait for 10 minutes to connect. Ages to send a small photo on an E-mail.

How things have changed.
Now umpteen G solid state hard drive.Super fast Broadband connection.Stream films ,Zoom meetings etc etc.
My father sawearly cars on the roads, the first Aeroplanes flying the First tanks go into action in France WW1 birth of Radio and TV and the advance of technology up to my kids with a Commodor 64 before he died in 1986.
At the speed tech is developing now, would have really amazed him.We are lucky to have seen so much advancement in our lifetimes.
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Offline stuartwaters

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2022, 08:41:10 AM »
I'm a year behind you mmitch. I had been working in IT for a few years up to that point, had seen what it had to offer at work and decided to take the plunge at home. I built a computer using components bought from Maplins and copies of various software including Windows95 "borrowed" from work. It had a dialup connection but this was quicky replaced with Telewest fibre optics.
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Offline MartinR

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Re: 25 years
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2022, 01:58:23 PM »
I started with Freeserve, which was free, but they recouped their money from the dial-up charges.  At that time I was using DEC computers, indeed worked for them for a while until they were taken over.
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Offline mmitch

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25 years
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2022, 10:49:26 AM »
25 years ago today I ventured onto the Internet! I joined CIX which then was mostly newsgroups each on a different subject. I started after 6pm because the dial up phone rate was cheaper and after 1 hour you were disconnected! My first email was to my brother who was a software engineer with DEC. He had a computer terminal at his home. Now days we speak on Skype every week and he is able to see his daughter and her family who live in Luxembourg!  Good and bad have come from it as I suppose most things?
mmitch.
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