5 replies to this topic

[marko]

You know, I got to thinking recently about just how long I spend on the computer and actually began to wonder how I spent my free time before I had one of these devices.   I must have had my first computer about 20 years ago, at that time I was at college and worked part time - I spent the vast majority of my time dabling in music recording and sound production, I spent 2 years at college on a course for that very thing and went on to set up a hospital radio station at one of Scotlands best known major hospitals, The Glasgow Royal Infirmary .. between college, the hospital radio and dabling all over the place with music my time was pretty much done!.

So, I would very much say that music was my number one thing before computers came along, around that time I met my lovely wife Helen, we added to our numbers, grew up a little , got a full time job and the rest is history.   Of course, for the younger generation amongst us, computers have probably always been a way of life, but for those who are old enough to remember the days before personal computers, what did you spend your free time on??

[michaelfarrimond]

I have been using computers for more years than I care to recall! In those days the machines were gigantic with massive floppy disks. I used to nip into work early so that I could teach myself the ins and outs of word processing. I then got the bug. Prior to computers I was into amateur radio but I completely lost interest in that hobby when I realized just how effective computers could be when it came to communicating and the global reach that is available to all. Basically computing knocks amateur radio into a cocked hat as far as I am concerned.

Michael  

[marko]

LOL, the days of the ole floppy discs !! Could store something like 10 one paged letter and that was it

[zorg]

Boy! Now this takes me back. My first puter was a comodore 64 that a friend of mine found, but neither of us knew what to do with it. LOL   That was in the '70's then later I really got curious when I programed a TI 64 to do a calculation for a mapmod expansion program @ military school, having to do with a computerized fire direction program. After that I got involved in it heavy. My first puter that I could use was a TFC. The memory was awsome, it was about 10 inches wide & about 3 feet  long, three was 3 of them,but I cant remember how much it was, but I think it was 8 mb. The boot device was a tape reader. The processor was as big as the memory & to correct faults you had input the corrections in by binary by buttons on  the cpu. Of course the i/o was the same basic thing, keyboard with a little green screen,without any pictures. We had a digital plotter that worked alot like the plotter they used in Stargate when they went to different places.
    My next puter was desktop with dual 5.25 floppy drives, the OS was win 3.1 & boy we thought we was cooking with gas! 64K of ram that you had to fiddle with every time you installed something new.
Anyway, everything from there was up. Today I have a quad core with 8gb of ram & win7 64. Plus I build systems.
     And now to the question at hand, what did i do prior to all this? I used to read alot, watch TV or just act   as I certainly was no , I also fished alot. but that was about all i dsid prior to puters.            CHEERS ALL

[James (Jim) Hillier]

Hey Guys.

Zorg, your history sounds a lot like mine. Don't want to bore with too many details but; started out with a little TRS-80 which loaded programs from a portable tape deck. I learned how to program in basic on that machine....great fun!!

Moved on to the Commodore series in early 1980's, Commy 64 and then the Amiga 500 and 600. Still got them at home, all in working order.

Before PC's took over my life, did a lot of caravanning. Not talking about towing a nice van and staying in parks. Talking about a 4 wheel drive humping an old van around off road. Camping in the bush, no electricity or services and largely living off the land (bunny rabbit stew for tea.....yum!! )

Did a 2 year trip right round Australia that way in the mid 1970's. It was a real adventure in those days; all dirt roads and absolutely no sign of civilisation for hundreds of miles on end. The greatest time of my life!!

Cheers.....Jim

[Claw]

Man now my time spent sounds kind of boring,! I just worked ,,Laying brick pavers,, a lot of roofing,,a bail bond agency! I was in 2 hard rock bands in old New Orleans,,Louisiana,,U.S.A.!!!!  We even had a couple of LPs ( Yes Jim,,ALBUMS ).Come to think of it ,,we weren't too bad! ( hah,hah,hah,,right)!!!!!
Never hit the big time though,,,we stayed starving artist. Still starving!!!!