Quote:
Originally Posted by humfrz
Yep, Viet Nam era veteran.
Well, I had a head start with home computers, when I purchased my first one back in '82 for $99.95.
It was called a Timex Sinclair 1000 ...... and it was a screamer ....  Used a cassette recorder for data storage and a B&W TV for a monitor.
Anyone still with me .. ?? Anyone .. ??
OK, time to go eat my oatmeal ..... 
humfrz |
Mate thats nothing,
first mainframe computer I worked on was one of these.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Argus_500_1.JPG
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti_Argus"]Ferranti Argus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
They had Punched Paper Tape readers to input code into the main memory
Magnetic core store each BIT of memory consisted of a ferrite bead with a read write and erase wire hand threaded through it.
The Hard drive was 1 metre in diameter had 200 fixed heads and a couple of air compressors to fly the heads off the disk. Head crashes when compressors failed were spectacular.
The communications multiplexer was programmed with cards of diodes which you had to solder/unsolder to change the instructions to the "processor"