[ubuntu-uk] Ancient hardware - was Ubuntu Plans

[Paul Tansom]

** Barry Drake <ubuntu-advertising at gmx.com> [2012-03-07 22:02]:
> On 07/03/12 21:48, paul sutton wrote:
> >Ohh i am sure I have a few games on 3,5" floppy that ran on an
> >acorn risc/os machine, in fact I may have a manual for the Acorn
> >Archimedes somewhere :) Paul
> 
> I've still got my Sinclair ZX81 and the manual.  Maybe one day I'll
> dig out a 12v power supply and see if it still works.  I actually
> taught myself to program in Z80 assembler code on that one.  I found
> assembler easier to work with than basic.  Later, I found C and
> loved it.
** end quote [Barry Drake]

Don't get me started, I have way too many old computers - well according to my
family anyway, I'd happily have more! I have a selection of ZX81, Spectrum, QL,
BBC Micro, Acorn Archimedes, Amstrads, Ataris, Vic 20 C64, Oric, Jupiter Ace,
MSX, Amiga, etc. safely stored for me to have more time to play with them. One
I really want to get running is the Doomsday project BBC Micro and Philips LVD
I have. Most of this lot has been saved from being scrapped.

I did a course in C some years back, but never got the opportunity to make use
of it, so I'm somewhat rusty now. I enjoyed it though. That may not be a
glowing recommendation as I also enjoyed Forth (hence my Jupiter Ace) and
Prolog. I always thought I'd end up being a programmer, but never got the break
I needed. Partly this was because I was interested in computers and did Maths
and Computing. When it came to getting a job when I graduated I found that if
you wanted to do programming the last thing you should have studied was
anything related to computers. All the companies wanted people that had
humanities degrees so they had no outdated experience and were a blank canvas
to train up. I work with Linux now, so I mustn't grumble :)

-- 
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/ | 023 9238 0001
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