[NTLK] OT: was C64 on app store? now Is IBM evil?

[Forrest]

On Sep 22, 2010, at 10:07 AM, "Goodwin, Greg P." <GoodwinG at aafes.com> wrote:





So the Atari and Commodore users went on their way, calling the "BBS"s, playing the games, and continuing to war over which one was better. (Atari). :P




Wow...another Atari user! I started out with a Timex/Sinclair 1000 with the 2K expansion pack (membrane keyboard, black and white display adapter)..along the way I also had a TI 99/4A (I remember one of the most annoying things was the key just to the right of the "+/-" one...if you accidentally held down SHIFT and hit that key when you meant to hit the "+/-" one, you wiped out the entire RAM...GRRRR!), and after that I got an 800XL, then two 1050  5 1/4" drives, a 1030 modem, and various printers and other stuff....Later on I added a 600XL, and I also found an 800 (the behemoth that once sold for $1000!)...I still have all of them, and AFAIK they still work (in storage right now).
I learned BASIC on that Timex/Sinclair...then Atari BASIC. Soon I was writing software in 6502 machine language...there's some memories.
I also have several Data General laptops (from around 1984)...they were truly portable (although they weighed ~35 lbs each!), but the first ones didn't have hard drives nor backlit screens. The later Model 2T's did have hard drives, and one featured an amber screen which sucked up large amounts of power. In fact, so much so that it required a separate external battery (most were built-in)...the AC power brick was literally almost the size of a brick. It featured a full line of business tools (well, for its time), but (as mentioned in the discussion) couldn't break into IBM's huge business share.
Thanks,
--Forrest