patrick.net

Ca early 1982 I discovered a rather disused 4K Model I in the back room of the advanced Math classroom. This was the only computer on campus. Teacher showed me how to cload and I was off to the races. The next summer we finally got a room full of Apple IIes for the business dep't, and one of the business teachers was nice enough to buy just about every Apple II game ever made up to that time (I think with her own money, dunno).

My senior year I hadn't failed any classes so I took first period off, had "independent study" for 3rd period, and my 7th period history teacher let us cut class since the material was so boring for us. With lunch (5th), that meant I spent every odd period in the computer lab my senior year, LOL. I even had my own system that nobody else used, one of two that had a color monitor along with a monochrome CRT for reading 80 col text, CP/M card, IIRC Mockingboard sound card, mouse card, printer.

I thought computers still kinda sucked in the 80s, until the Mac II came out. That was the first machine I desired with every fibre of my being. Worked two jobs in 1987-89 and was able to get a Mac IIcx soon after they came out. Great machine that I hand-carried onto the plane three years later when I went to Japan. With a mail-order LaserJet 4MP I got in 1993, I was rockin'.

My first computing experience involved COBOL and punched cards. The second was learning why you never drop the card deck.

Vicente says

Upgraded the RAM with a soldering iron, used the excess for a RAMdisk to speed everything up. I forget when I finally got off cassette and had my first 1050 floppy drive. Woohoo SpartaDOS and using a clipper to cut a notch on the floppy so you could flip it and use the back side. Good times!
Yep, time for my prune juice.

Wow, you are really bringing back memories with this comment. I remember using a clipper to notch floppies so I could use front and back. Wow, I almost forgot that detail.

Oh and I remember how expansion meant way more than plugging in cards into ports. LOL!