Angell's Heaven

My Early Days of Computing

I don't know the model of the first computer I used, in about 1979, but it had a teletype interface.

I think it was in 1980 that a friend was doing a science fair project on artificial intelligence. He wrote a program that generated a random maze and then had the computer compute the most direct path through the maze. I don't remember exactly what awards he won, but I know he reached the national level. I didn't do any work on his project, but he did let me use his Radio Shack TRS-80 once in a while.

Summer of 1982, another friend bought a Timex Sinclair 1000. He moved later that year so I didn't get to really use it a lot.

October 1982 I moved to a different school district where I enrolled in a computer class that used the Commodore PET. To save programs we used a cassette tape.

Christmas 1982 I got my first computer, the Commodore VIC 20, with a whopping 3.5K of RAM.

I think it was in late 1983 that I got the Commodore 64. I continued to use it until early 1985.

1983 - 1984 I used a Commodore SuperPET at college with a Waterloo interface that let us choose the language we would be programming in. It supported FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC, Pascal, C and APL. All of my programming on this machine was done using either Pascal or BASIC.

1984, the day after it's initial release, I was using an Apple Macintosh.

From 1985 through early 1987 I was serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While in California I used an Apple III.

Still on my mission in 1986 I helped to automate the mission office using an IBM PC. We used dBase and Wordstar.

Back from my mission and back to college. Things had changed some during those two years. Now the personal computers in use were the IBM XT

and the IBM AT.

At this point I was also starting to get more into main frame use with IBM punch cards, running programs through

the IBM 4341 in a batch process mode.

I was writing in FORTRAN for this, on a punch machine.

About this time I got a new computer. I don't remember who made it, but it was an Intel 386-20 with 2meg RAM, a 512k video card, a 40meg hard drive and monitor (all for $2700). It came with a 2400 baud modem that I later replaced with a 14400. Less than a year later when I decided to put up a BBS I spent $700 for an additional 100meg hard drive.

Somewhere in here the school upgraded to an IBM 4381 and I did some work with VMS and COBOL.

Nearing graduation I got a job at a local bank as a system operator managing the IBM 4361.

Last semester at college I took a Mini-Computer class and worked with an IBM System/36.

Out of college and changed jobs. Now working at a local retail computer store I have worked with just about every type and model of personal computer that has come out since 1991. Instead of pictures, I'll just give the list. I will also include some of the older ones that I have worked with.

This list is strictly the Intel lineup. I have also had or worked with AMD systems as well as Apple. As of this writing I own an Intel Dual Core system, an AOpen AMD netbook and an Apple PowerBook G4.

Operating Systems:

IBM DOS 1
MS DOS 2-6
DR DOS 7
Concurrent DOS
Windows 1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11
Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Windows NT
Windows 95, 98, Millennium (ME)
Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8
etc.

Networks:

Novel NetWare 3 & 4
Novell NetWare Lite
LANtastic
Windows peer-to-peer
Windows dedicated server

CPUs:

8086
8088
80286
80386
80486
Pentium
Pentium II
Celeron
Pentium III
Pentium 4
Pentium D
etc.

Manufacturers:

IBM
Zenith
Packard Bell
Gateway
Hewlett Packard
Compaq
Dell
Acer
AOpen
eMachine
Alienware
Lenovo
Asus
multiple clones
etc.

In no particular order, either because I don't remember the time frame or because I really don't consider them significant in my history, here are some other systems that I have worked with.