[ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

[Tony Arnold]

Rob Beard wrote:
> Kris Douglas wrote:
>> I was born in '92 but I know that they had a ZX81 with the 16K ram 
>> upgrade (fancy :D)... and a BBC. Then they went straight over to a 286 
>> DOS machine, which they then put 3.11wg on. (That 500mb drive still 
>> boots, as does windows and Qbasic and SQL Anywhere) Then they went 
>> onto a 486 then a 486 Over Drive then a Pentium MMX and so on....
>>
>> Just because I wasn't there, doesn't mean I miss anythin'. We still 
>> have most of these machines, beauties.
> Ahh my first computer was a ZX81.  I got a 16K ram pack for it but never 
> really understood much about it.  I didn't realise that you had to plug 
> it in when it was turned off!

OK, if we are talking real first computers, then I need to mention mine.
(Thinks: should this be done in a Yorkshire accent over a glass of
Chateau de Chasselee in a dinner suit?).

The first device I ever wrote code for was an Olivetti Programma 101 [1]
which was really a programmable calculator. The PTA of my school bought
one by asking parents to donate books of green shield stamps [2] which
paid for half of it and the local authority paid the other half. I was
using this thing in the late 60's and early 70's and it was the machine
that put me on the road to computers.

[1] http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/c-programma101.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Shield_Stamps


Oh, and I also lived in a cardboard box in the middle of the motorway
and had to lick the road clean every morning! But you try telling the
kids of today that and they won't believe you:-)

Regards,
Tony.
-- 
Tony Arnold, IT Security Coordinator, University of Manchester,
IT Services Division, Kilburn Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL.
T: +44 (0)161 275 6093, F: +44 (0)870 136 1004, M: +44 (0)773 330 0039
E: tony.arnold at manchester.ac.uk, H: http://www.man.ac.uk/Tony.Arnold