The new super-computer I ordered for tabulating the baboon experiments – or ‘The Monkey Sessions’ as I like to call them – will be arriving soon. Should make short work of that pile of double-helixes building up in the corner. I had a word with my IT guy*, Daren, on the weekend and we decided to go ahead with The Build…
I bought my first computer when I was 14. I think the Apple II was just out then, and was considered the machine to beat…check it out, floppy disk drive! But I couldn’t afford one of those. I could afford half a computer by a company called Interac, from Anne Arbor. My friend and I put our money together and ordered it from an ad in the back of Popular Electronics. My share was $400 and what we got was not bad for it’s time…not as good as the Apple II, but better than most of what was available. Here are the specs for the Interac personal computer:
Memory: 16kb (yes kilo-bytes, less than an email)
Drive: cassette drive (yes, like you used to play in the car)
Monitor: connects to TV
O/S: no such thing. Just programming in BASIC and a few simple games.
It had a keyboard with square push-buttons for keys that you had to push really hard and an annoying ‘boop boop boop’ sound when you “typed”. It was no Apple II but I had a lot of fun learning programming with it. The new machine, though, is actually a little better than the Apple II:
AMD 64 Dual core
2GB RAM
256MB PCI-e graphics
580GB storage, on three SATA drives.
Dual monitor - 19” and 8” touch screen (control panel)
Multiple TV out
DVI with multiple recording
8.1 sound
XP Media Center
Sure, you could build a better machine, but I don’t need a better machine. I practice saying that while I wonder if that dental plan we got the kids is really worth it...what if we just made them brush 8 times a day?
I bought my first computer when I was 14. I think the Apple II was just out then, and was considered the machine to beat…check it out, floppy disk drive! But I couldn’t afford one of those. I could afford half a computer by a company called Interac, from Anne Arbor. My friend and I put our money together and ordered it from an ad in the back of Popular Electronics. My share was $400 and what we got was not bad for it’s time…not as good as the Apple II, but better than most of what was available. Here are the specs for the Interac personal computer:
Memory: 16kb (yes kilo-bytes, less than an email)
Drive: cassette drive (yes, like you used to play in the car)
Monitor: connects to TV
O/S: no such thing. Just programming in BASIC and a few simple games.
It had a keyboard with square push-buttons for keys that you had to push really hard and an annoying ‘boop boop boop’ sound when you “typed”. It was no Apple II but I had a lot of fun learning programming with it. The new machine, though, is actually a little better than the Apple II:
AMD 64 Dual core
2GB RAM
256MB PCI-e graphics
580GB storage, on three SATA drives.
Dual monitor - 19” and 8” touch screen (control panel)
Multiple TV out
DVI with multiple recording
8.1 sound
XP Media Center
Sure, you could build a better machine, but I don’t need a better machine. I practice saying that while I wonder if that dental plan we got the kids is really worth it...what if we just made them brush 8 times a day?
*by IT guy I mean a guy I know, who knows IT, you know?
3 comments:
if you need some extra power for it, you can borrow my scientific calculator
you know what i miss?
i miss playing oregon trail
Thanks Amanda (light of my life/ fate should have made you a gentleman's wife)
Exile do I want to know what oregon trail is?
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