[vcf-midatlantic] Happy Birthday IBM-PC

Chris Fala chrisjpf33 at gmail.com
Fri Aug 13 16:52:22 UTC 2021


OMG, I proofread that still typed BASIN! How embarrassing!



On Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 12:11 PM Richard Cini <rich.cini at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great story. I built my own 5-connector expansion chassis (wire-wrapped
> connectors and made my own cartridge insert with ribbon cables -- all
> RadioShack stuff), a machine language monitor cartridge based on the one
> from Jim Butterfield (as published in Compute!), and a speech synthesizer
> with the SP0256-AL2 chip. I had no EPROM programmer, so a friend of mine
> used his father's programmer to burn it.
>
> I made my own PCBs back then. My mom hated it because I used one of her
> Pyrex meatloaf pans (which of course became my meatloaf pan). Still have
> all of that stuff in the basement.
>
> Rich
>
> --
> Rich Cini
> http://cini.classiccmp.org
> http://altair32.classiccmp.org <http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32>
>
>
> On 8/13/21, 11:13 AM, "vcf-midatlantic on behalf of Chris Fala via
> vcf-midatlantic" <vcf-midatlantic-bounces at lists.vcfed.org on behalf of
> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>
>     I had a VIC back then. (I know I told this story before, but here it is
>     again.) It was a gift from my sister who worked at Commodore at the
> time
>     (she worked in sales under Kit Spencer, and often worked with Mike
> Tomczyk
>     and Jack Tramiel). I used to think she got my computer with her
> employee
>     discount, but it was more like the
>     employee-walk-out-the-door-with-whatever-you-want discount (Bil Herd
>     recently confirmed this was a thing that was done with approval). I
> only
>     had a tape drive and maybe one cartridge (no floppy drive). I wrote
> several
>     games in BASIC, plus other programs to do useful things. A few years
> ago, I
>     found many of my programs on an old cassette tape, and yes, I
> transferred
>     them to floppy. One game I am currently re-developing for the C64. I
> spent
>     many hours programming on my VIC. I also built a couple simple
> circuits to
>     interface with it. The 22 column screen was a challenge, but it forced
> you
>     to be creative. Plus I didn't have a RAM expansion, so working within
> 3.5k
>     was another challenge, a barrier that I slammed up against on one
>     particular program. It was fun learning all the memory optimization
>     techniques. I was spoiled in school in 8th, 9th, and 12th grades where
> I
>     got to use TRS-80 Models 1 and III (taught myself BASIN on them before
> I
>     got the VIC), but the VIC was all mine, and that made it better!
>
>     Chris
>
>
>
>
>
>     On Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 9:34 AM Alexander Pierson via vcf-midatlantic <
>     vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>
>     > February '81, eh? Did anyone else have a VIC-20 when it was
> relatively
>     > new? What was your experience like?
>     >
>     > Contrasting that, is there anyone here who actually got their hands
> on an
>     > IBM 5150 within that first year?
>     >
>     > I find the VIC gets a bit of an unfair shake these days, seen as an
>     > underpowered toy/game system.  However, I see it as the little
> machine that
>     > could.  The VIC-20 is my favorite vintage computer, hands down.
> Don't
>     > believe me?  http://commodorez.com/img/vicportrait1000.jpg
>     >
>     > -Alexander 'Z' Pierson
>     > _
>     >    On Thursday, August 12, 2021, 4:56:59 PM EDT, Richard Cini <
>     > rich.cini at gmail.com> wrote:
>     >
>     >  I got my VIC in February 1981 (9th grade). Upgraded to a Fat Mac in
> 1985.
>     > I didn’t get anything PC-ish until I was half-way through college (a
>     > DeskPro 386/16 with 5 MB of RAM and a 42mb hard drive; still have
> that
>     > machine too). My point was more that 40 years is a long time.
>     >
>     > On Thu, Aug 12, 2021 at 4:50 PM Alexander Pierson via
> vcf-midatlantic <
>     > vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>     >
>     > >I think I was still using my VIC-20 then.
>     >
>     > You make it sound like it was old in '81, however: Happy 40th
> birthday
>     > Commodore VIC-20 too.  Yes, technically it was released in Japan in
> '80,
>     > but nobody here lived in Japan/had a VIC-1001.  I've never heard a
>     > concrete, verifiable answer on what month it was released in the
> US.  Just
>     > vaguely mid-summer.
>     >
>     > -Alexander 'Z' Pierson
>     > _
>     >    On Thursday, August 12, 2021, 7:45:02 AM EDT, Richard Cini via
>     > vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>     >
>     >  August 12, 1981 at a news conference in NY, IBM introduced the PC.
> 40
>     > years ago. Holy cow. I think I was still using my VIC-20 then.
>     >
>     > Rich
>     >
>     > http://cini.classiccmp.org/
>     > Long Island S100 User’s Group
>     >
>     > Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >
>
>
>
>


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