OMG – My First Computer Purchase!

[Chet Swanson]

I was cleaning up my store room today and tossing out boxes full of old papers I hadn’t looked at for years. One caught my eye; an invoice from Computershop Business Centers in Seattle, Washington dated November 11, 1982, for my very first computer system, an Osborne OSB-CC1 (http://oldcomputers.net/osborne.html) computer and accessories.

For a grand total of $2,511.31, I bought the Osborne 1, an Epson 80FT dot matrix printer, a BMC B&W monitor (actually amber), a converter so the monitor could read the Osborne video signal and 2 boxes of 5 ¼” 91K diskettes.

The Osborne 1 is considered by many to have been the first truly functional PORTABLE, business computer, using the CP/M language. Another site with some information is Dave's First Computer! (http://www.davemathews.com/osborne.html)

Nothing like the computers we have nowadays?

Chet

[pangea33]

Something smells kinda like potted meat.

*edit*
Don't get me wrong though. Golf clap for originality, and I clicked a bunch of links for good measure. For crying out loud, when did I become such a cynic?
*edit*

[saphalline]

Ahh the good ol' days. Gotta love the Zilog 80 - the best CPU to ever die a sudden death.

[Mini-Me]

Unreal!
:D

I've looked up some of my old computers, like the Atari and Commodore.
...and not forgetting the Sinclair ZX81 - a computer with 1kb of RAM!!!!
:D


MM.

[david eaton]

forgetting the Sinclair ZX81 - a computer with 1kb of RAM!!!!
Personally, I always remember the 16k Rampack on the back which had to be secured with a rubber band!

[Mini-Me]

Yeah, I had one of those packs too, but I could never get it too work at all.
Plug it in, and the machine refuse to boot.
Perhaps it was a crook pack - I bought it 2nd hand at the time.
:)

There were quite a few electronic project at the time, that used the ZX81 as the controller. A nice idea, but the machine was so unreliable - did you ever manage to load back programs saved on the tape deck?

Nowdays, you can program your own microcontroller PIC chip do do specific tasks, and they are cheap as peanuts, compared to using a computer to do the work.
As those of you who know about PIC's know, they are essentially a self-contained computer anyway...

My favourite PIC's are PICAXE (www.picaxe.co.uk).
They are very cheap, and are programmed using a BASIC language, so no horrible assembly language to learn!


MM.