Did you get the classic computer you wanted bitd?

[Keatah]

I had a CoCo for a while, the first 16K model, the one that shared the grey Videotex casing. I had a few game cartridges for it but that was it. By the time I got it I was neck deep in Apple material and climbing up to learn yet another system didn't work well for me. Getting off an already speeding train wasn't a realistic option. There were so many things I'd need to get, drive, interface, more add-in memory boards, modem, controllers, things like that. It just wasn't gonna happen. It was a story repeated with the C=64, TI-99/4A, and Atari 800. Though I did get drives for the Atari and Commodore. But that was it, no modems or printers or KoalaPads..

 

I remained Apple focused out of practicality and almost necessity. I was building up good functionality and a healthy software library. Smacking myself down to start on another system would've been counterproductive.

 

Anyhow. I found Apple DOS to be incredibly easy to use. No struggling learning tedious syntax or command formatting. It enabled me to take my mind off of managing storage - looking up and indexing tapes. It worked well enough to make a kid happy. I learned many concepts with it that I carried through to today and all the intervening years.

 

I didn't know the value of it at the time, but I had loads fun playing around with interfacing and writing simple sequences to control motors and relays on little projects. When I first got the Apple, I was afraid to connect an RF modulator, terrified to install a 16K RamCard. But a few years later I was controlling AC line circuits and doing nefarious things with the modem. A steep-looking learning curve was flattened out enough that a kid could do it all.

 

I know I've said it before in several posts. It was the documentation that pried it all open, and at a pace that I could work with. I had questions, the books had the answers.

 

The only other computers I could practically get into (because they were ultra simple) were the TRS-80 Pocket Computers. Cool little things no doubt. And as me and my buddies took turns playing one-player games on the Apple II and VCS, the rest of us filled out the time with those little rigs. And of course we played Intellivision and VCS and read EGM.

[Casey]

As a child, I *really* wanted an Atari 2600 for Christmas one year, and that's all I asked for. My parents bought me a TI 99/4A when they were being closed out, along with some game cartridges. Probably because of that decision, I ended up being really into computers and that's how I ended up in the career I have today. When it was impossible to get any more software for the TI, I asked for a Commodore 64 for Christmas, and I was given a 128, so I can't say I didn't get what I wanted, back in the day.

[jhd]

The Adam stories are interesting. I had a Coco, but I seriously considered selling it to purchase an Adam -- I think what appealed most to me was the ability to play ColecoVision games. Obviously that never happened.

 

Honestly, I do not recall having seen an Adam for sale anywhere; Eaton's sold the CV, but I don't recall if they also sold the Adam. Software support would have been even worse than it was for the Coco.

[MrMaddog]

TBH I didn't care what computer I've gotten as a kid as long as I had a computer. I was always playing around with the store demos trying to something to run that resembles a video game (my favorite was the TI/99A at K-Mart). My mom saw my potiental with using computers so she got a part-time cleaning job to save up for one. The reason why my first computer was a TRS-80 CoCo was because the salespersion at Radio Shack was the only person thast actually answered her questions w/o talkin gover her head. And aside from getting game carts from Rat Shack to contimue my gaming habit after the Crash, I learned a lot about programming. The bonus was they were the same computers used by my elementary school. Plus the girl I lived next to had a mom who dated a Radio Shack manager, so they got the latest CoCo stuff.

 

Yeah I might have wanted to have an Atari 400/800 especially during that Atari/McDonald's promotion...but I eventually got a 130XE on my 13th birthday. Shame by that time it wasn't commercially supported by stores like the C-64 was.