Anyone else here old enough to remember and have one of these???

We were poor, so our first game was the Odessy. It had a keyboard, and they said that they were going to come out with software that never happened. Then we got the Vic 20 with a tape drive. BUt I lived in an area where there was way to much to do, rather than sit in front of a computer. So I never learned much.

Move the letters around and it says XBIZ.

Everyone had to start somewhere.. .. haha

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/...asp?st=1&c=222

this machine has some spec;

NAME ZX SPECTRUM +3
MANUFACTURER Sinclair
TYPE Home Computer
ORIGIN United Kingdom
YEAR 1987
BUILT IN LANGUAGE 48K Spectrum BASIC (compatibility mode) and 128K Spectrum ZX+3 BASIC, integrated with +3 DOS
KEYBOARD Full-stroke keyboard, QWERTY, 58 keys, arrow keys
TRUE VIDEO, INV VIDEO, DELETE, GRAPH, EXTEND MODE, EDIT, CAPS SHIFT (x2), CAPS LOCK, SYMB SHIFT (x2), BREAK
CPU Zilog Z80 A
SPEED 3.5469 MHz
RAM 128 kb (8 x 16k pages)
ROM 64 kb (4 x 16k pages)
TEXT MODES 32 x 24
GRAPHIC MODES 256 x 192
COLORS 8 with two tones each (normal and bright)
SOUND 3 channels, 8 octaves (Yamaha AY-3-8912)
SIZE / WEIGHT 440 x 174 x 50 mm / 1,65 kg
I/O PORTS UHF PAL TV port, Serial interface (RS232) port, Parallel Printer port (8 bit), Auxiliary interface port, RGB Monitor (and PERITEL TV) port, MIDI output port, Two Joystick ports, Audio Out/Cassette port, Second Disk Drive port, Expansion I/O port (full Z80 bus)
BUILT IN MEDIA 3'' Hitachi Floppy Disk Drive, single sided (40 track, 9 sector, 512 bytes/sector), CP/M compatible structure
Volatile RAM Drive
OS +3DOS
POWER SUPPLY External PSU (5V @ 2A, +12V @ 700mA, -12V @ 50mA)
Same as Spectrum +2A/B PSU
PRICE £249 (UK, 1987) ($473)!!!!!!!


I got a floppy these days

My first comp didnt have tapes, but it was an 8086

I didn't. Just before my time.

was NO such thing as color TV when I was 7

I went into the Army right after Kennedy was shot

that tape deck was slo as hell

Yep and always crashed before finishing loading Bomb Jack

wow a superbrain thats nice to see one again yeah i had friends that had a trs too, i started out with a ti99/4a pretty high tech for then

Got the same memory as the average Xbiz Poster

shee-it! havn't seen one of thoes in years. I had on as my second system. I loved the daisy wheel. Made decent looking docs for the time.

It broke and I gave it to a EE who also happened to be a recovering crack addict and needed something to keep his hands busy and off the pipe.

my first was an apple IIc

Well - I guess you remember we didnt even know what a microwave oven was and a CD hadnt even been thought of

I remember the first time I got to see a color TV was when I was around 12 or so - but they didnt have too many shows that were color at the time.

I got a kick out of a girl I worked with on a project - she had her masters degree from a large La. college in computer science - I was talking to a colleague about the old 45s we used to have the special inserts for to play on a regular turntable - she walks up in the middle of it and asks why we always are talking about guns LOL - she had never seen a 45 let alone heard of them. Of course to her alma-maters credit she also thought Alaska was an island just like Hawaii

I grew up around computers as my dad was one of the honchos with Sperry Univac at the time - and the tape drives and punch tapes and cards were my first playtime to write programs to display a naked chick on a printout

Coleco Vision Rocked! Donkey Kong, Kaboom, frogger, Pitfall

First computer I had was commodore 64.. That thing rocked!

i remember the tape drive! and making stupid logic games that took hours to program only to do simple functions like "guess a number between 1 and 100"

I am not that old, i dont remember any of those.

i still have my own commodore 64

well then you must remember CDC 6600 ...that's taking it way back
haha i forgot all about those punch cards, i was real little then but my Dad was a professor at IU he would take me on campus with him and i'd play with those cards while he was messing around with the computers, the was the early 70's i was too young to make naked chick printouts, but i remember playing with those cards, those computers were HUGE

You should have seen the first "portable" computer I used in the early 80's. The Osborne 1 weighed a fuckin' ton.

Check out the screen on the Osborne

Then I upgraded to a trash 80 (TRS-80 Model 100) from Tandy Radio Shack

Ain't it sweet

What year did that come out.

The Acorn BBC model A was the successor of the Acorn Atom and its first name was Acorn Proton. It was a very popular computer in the UK and was widely used in schools, but it didn't have great success elsewhere (even if it did have great features, it was too expensive).

The Model A didn't have some of the connectors of the Model B/B+ (User port, Tube, ...) on the underside.

This computer got it's name because, in 1980, the BBC decided to start a computer literacy television series. The network realized that, with more powerful and increasingly inexpensive microcomputers, it would soon be possible to create them with enough computing power to offer their owners personal hands-on experience with microcomputers at an affordable price.
The BBC considered the NewBrain computer and rejected it. Acorn and Sinclair Research, along with other companies, then submitted designs, and Acorn won. The BBC model B was then used almost universally in British schools from it's birth into the 90's.

It was followed in 1982 by the Acorn BBC model B, the Model B had the same features but had 32 KB RAM (expandable to 64k).

The "Tube" was an expansion port which was designed to connect other processors to the BBC (6502, Z80, 68000 or ARM 1 RISC). An interface card was specially designed for the tube. It used another 6502 and a Z80.

One of its most popular peripherals was the "Torch" floppy disk unit, it was a 5.25" floppy disk drive with a Z80 which allowed the BBC to use CP/M software.

Acorn also made a "cheap" version of the BBC (fewer connectors & video modes) called Acorn Electron.

In 1985, the Acorn BBC Model B+ was released. The Model B+ had new features : 64k of RAM instead of 32 KB, internal circuitry for the Econet and Disk Drive as standard, they were both available as an upgrade in the models A and B. The later models included disk support as standard, using either a 8271 or 1770 disk controller.

It was then followed by the BBC Master.

Chris Carrigan adds:
The Model A and Model B were available at virtually the same time. The key difference was the amount of RAM. The 16KB in the meant that most of the video modes are not available and everybody bought Bs (much to Acorn's surprise). You could pre register and I still remember the awe with which we all read the "Provisional Specification". This machine really was a leap forward in capability.

Dave Gamble younger days memories:
I remember the launch of the BBC Micro model A and B. I first read about them in the U.K. computer press and as a 13 year old at that particular time, drooled over the spec of the model B machine. I then saw them used on the BBC TV program called "The Computer Program" host by Chris Searle. I wanted a BBC micro! But, they were £299 and £399 respectively for the Model A and B. I eventually "made do" with a Commodore 64. It is great testiment to the design of these machines, that they are still in use at my son's local primary school, albeit the "Master" version. AMAZING!





NAME BBC Model A / B / B+
MANUFACTURER Acorn Computer
TYPE Home Computer
ORIGIN United Kingdom
YEAR 1981
BUILT IN LANGUAGE BBC Basic
KEYBOARD Full-stroke QWERTY keyboard, 64 keys, 10 function keys, arrow keys
CPU MOS 6502
SPEED 1.8 MHz
RAM Model 1 : 16 kb
Model B : 32 kb
Model B+ : 64 kb
ROM 32 kb
TEXT MODES 80 x 32/25 (2 colors) / 40 x 32/25 (2 or 4 colors) / 20 x 32 (16 colors) / 40 x 25 (Teletext display)
GRAPHIC MODES 640 x 256 (2 colors) / 320 x 256 (4 colors) / 160 x 256 (16 colors)
COLORS 16 (8 colors + flashing option)
SOUND 3 channels + 1 noise channel, 7 octaves
SIZE / WEIGHT 41 (W) x 34.5 (D) x 6.5 (H) cm / 3700 g
I/O PORTS UHF TV out, BNC video out, RGB vide out, RS423, Cassette, Analogue In (DB15), Econet port, TUBE interface, 1Mhz BUS, User port, Printer port, Disk-drive connector
POWER SUPPLY Built-in PSU
PERIPHERALS Controler card for 1 to 4 5''1/4 F.D. drives (1 400 F.F)
Floppy disk unit 5''1/4 250 Ko. (3 900 F.F.)
Numerical cassette recorder 100 Ko. (3 000 F.F.)
Second 6502 microprocessor with card (3
PRICE £399 (UK 1983) - 1181 (France, February 1984)

Thank god. I was starting to think that I had only imagined owning a computer called the Sinclair ZX81. I had the souped up version, with the powerful 64K, instead of the standard 16K version.

Yes they did.

The first computer I programmed on was a Wang (don't remember which model), and then it was on to mainframes ("Fuck... I dropped, my deck"... punchcards sucked big time). First mini was the original IBM PC in ?1982?.

My memory is about as long as my dick, but '82 is about right. I was putting these "portables" in a chain of convenience stores to connect to a corporate mainframe for ordering, time reporting, etc. We ended up using the "trash" 80's. Programming for that was hell. Imagine hundreds of c-store managers who have never seen a computer trying to enter their crap.

There wasn't a lot of software then, especially for file transfer from PC's to mainframes back then. I found a company in Montreal called Micro-Tempus to do it. If you disassemble some FTP programs now you will still see some of their code and copyright info in there.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot. I also put the first online data entry system in at the Federal Reserve around '79 or '80 so we could get away from cards. The operations staff didn't trust it for about a year, so they kept punching cards as a backup in case they lost the online data.

The card decks to program the reader/sorters for check processing were about a dozen boxes with about a 1000 cards in each one. When the old card readers jammed it was a real PITA.

what the hell is that thing? old tape deck? my coleco was black.

I think the Sinclair was one of the ones I trialed for the c-stores. I probably tried everything that was available at the time.

i miss my radio shack colorco computer lol

Damn thats some old shit, my first was the first apple comps.

ooooh ya!

SYS64738 code wow that brings back memories.

tape drives and all - god I forgot them all.
and BTW I was well into school when kennedy was murdered.


and I tried to gete my dad to invest in a way to make video ga,es lik epong accept money... he declined, said they were a fad, our school wouldnt even let us practice on computers, stuck to slide rules because computers were not "going to stay around" unquote our teachers said.