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A 5MB hard drive in 1956

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    #92
    PauloMN
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional North East Moderators Posts: 10,857 Mod ✭✭✭✭PauloMN


    mikemac1 wrote: »
    Commodore 64 FTW!

    You could buy a tape for 3 or 4 punts. What's a game nowadays, 50 or 60 euro?

    But it wasn't all cheap. Daley Thomspon took people off the dole queues to manufacture joystick. Many a joystick was broken by his game

    These days the devices are (relatively) cheap and the real money is made from the games and other additional purchases. Back in the '80s it was the other way around.

    I remember my pals C64 setup - he had the C64, matching colour monitor and the floppy drive. I distinctly remember the price list from the Big Byte Shop (William St I think) listed each of these at IR£330. Serious feckin' money back then, we were all mad jealous of him! Can you imagine how much that would be today?

    Around the same time my dad was bringing home his 8088 based work computer with twin floppy, a massive 5Mb Winchester hard disk and green screen. Couldn't play games on it like the C64 though.


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    #93
    bpmurray
    Registered Users Posts: 1,275 ✭✭✭bpmurray


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    It was expensive but it wasn't awful.
    Yeah the ST was a great machine with superb analog but wasn't that later ? And of course it had a GUI that predated Apple and Windows by ages.

    The Atari ST's GUI was based on GEM which was created for IBM PCs and then ported to the Atari's 68000 CPU. It originated from GSX which came from Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the late 1970's, and that's also where both Apple and MS got their ideas, so all three came from the same place rather than TOS being before the others.


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    #94
    ChippingSodbury
    Registered Users Posts: 1,343 ✭✭✭ChippingSodbury


    No wonder kids in the 80s were fitter:
    My friend had a Commodore 64. We'd go out and play football for an hour while the the game loaded from cassette!


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    #95
    Graham
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,642 Mod ✭✭✭✭Graham


    ChippingSodbury wrote: »
    No wonder kids in the 80s were fitter:
    My friend had a Commodore 64. We'd go out and play football for an hour while the the game loaded from cassette!

    Games could also be ended very suddenly by parents wanting the telly back.


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    #96
    jimgoose
    Registered Users Posts: 20,174 ✭✭✭✭jimgoose


    Graham wrote: »
    Games could also be ended very suddenly by parents wanting the telly back.

    Many's the time one of them just yanked the plug. Thankfully, there was no filesystem to clobber. :pac:


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    #97
    Graham
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,642 Mod ✭✭✭✭Graham


    jimgoose wrote: »
    Many's the time one of them just yanked the plug. Thankfully, there was no filesystem to clobber. :pac:

    Unless you count using a pencil to rewind tape back into the cassette :(


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    #98
    It BeeMee
    Registered Users Posts: 748 ✭✭✭It BeeMee


    jimgoose wrote: »
    Aye, and Jaz drives. I also remember looking at an Olivetti PC-AT compatible with a trouser-flapping 20MB hard-disk in a computer shop in Limerick in the late '80s, and thinking you couldn't get more of a horse of a maw-shine. :pac:

    I had one of those in work, except it was a 40mb hard-disk (split into 32mb C: and 8mb D: cos DOS couldn't access anything past 32mb).
    It was the best machine in the plant, mainly because it had a colour screen and ran at a blistering 12Mhz.

    It cost about IR£2,000 or so I think, and the first thing we did was buy a memory upgrade in the UK for about £100 sterling that increased the RAM from 1mb to 2mb


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    #99
    kingtiger
    Registered Users Posts: 1,740 ✭✭✭kingtiger


    AllGunsBlazing wrote: »
    In the UK, but I never saw a Micro in the flesh over here. A mate of mine did have a Spectrum though. The keyboard was rank and the general build quality felt flimsy in comparison to my tank like Commodore.;)

    But credit where its due - the ZX was a huge influence in the bedroom program scene of the time.

    you are going to start a playground fanboy fight here

    Rubber keyboard rocked, stuff your plastic C64 up your hole :)


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    #100
    Graham
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 17,642 Mod ✭✭✭✭Graham


    kingtiger wrote: »
    you are going to start a playground fanboy fight here

    Rubber keyboard rocked, stuff your plastic C64 up your hole :)

    I'd say anyone that's in a position to argue about such subjects has long since left the playground ;)


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    #101
    kingtiger
    Registered Users Posts: 1,740 ✭✭✭kingtiger


    Graham wrote: »
    I'd say anyone that's in a position to argue about such subjects has long since left the playground ;)

    it brings back lots of memory's to me, arguing over what was better the Speccy or C64

    I am a confirmed Speccy fanboy for life


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    #102
    Agricola
    Registered Users Posts: 6,547 ✭✭✭Agricola


    Friend of mine had an Amiga in the early 90s as well. I don't think I'd even got a 16bit console at that point I was still messing around with an old Atari 2600 at home.

    The Amiga was a wondrous thing. Remember being clueless watching him loading games from tapes and then continously beating me to a pulp in Street Fighter, despite the fact he was using the keyboard and I had a fancy joystick!


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    #103
    tricky D
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,700 ✭✭✭tricky D


    _Brian wrote: »
    Quick note on Ireland's first computer.. 1957

    http://atlas.ingeniousireland.ie/irelands-first-computer-1957-for-thurles-sugar-factory/

    That thing which was around the size of a shipping container was specced by my dad and installed by him and the engineer who delivered it. It was initially for payroll and accounts, the data analysis stuff came later.

    Still have my old Vic20 in the attic which is serviceable and the old mid 70's punch cards from Aer Lingus HQ still make great bookmarks. Think the old IBM 286 (10MB!!! iirc) is in there somewhere too - good enough for Civilisation 1 with long waits between turns and used for server logging around 96.

    Maths co-processor around the early 90's, any one???


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    #104
    PauloMN
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional North East Moderators Posts: 10,857 Mod ✭✭✭✭PauloMN


    tricky D wrote: »
    That thing which was around the size of a shipping container was specced by my dad and installed by him and the engineer who delivered it. It was initially for payroll and accounts, the data analysis stuff came later.

    Still have my old Vic20 in the attic which is serviceable and the old mid 70's punch cards from Aer Lingus HQ still make great bookmarks. Think the old IBM 286 (10MB!!! iirc) is in there somewhere too - good enough for Civilisation 1 with long waits between turns and used for server logging around 96.

    Maths co-processor around the early 90's, any one???

    Attics full of old computers I'd say! I have my old Spectrum, a ZX81 and two Sord/CGL M5s, still all working. Mind you, those machines plugged into a 32" LCD don't look too good!

    Maths co-processors, I was selling PCs in Compustore at the time, 386DX and 486DX compared to the SX processors. Brings back memories!


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    #105
    Alun
    Registered Users Posts: 21,421 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    PauloMN wrote: »
    Maths co-processors, I was selling PCs in Compustore at the time, 386DX and 486DX compared to the SX processors. Brings back memories!
    I remember trying to persuade management to fork out some stupidly large amount of money back in the late 80's for a separate 8087 coprocessor for an original IBM PC to speed up spreadsheet calculations (in Framework, anyone remember that?). They caved in eventually but a further attempt to get an Intel AboveBoard met on deaf ears!


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    #106
    ScumLord
    Registered Users Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    Graham wrote: »
    It wasn't designed as a games machine like most of its immediate competitors but I can't think of a better machine of the time for learning, or playing Elite :D
    The BBC micro was my first experience with a PC, I remember getting a magazine for the book that came with it that had the code for writing a game.


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    #107
    Sephiroth_dude
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 80,010 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sephiroth_dude


    ScumLord wrote: »
    The BBC micro was my first experience with a PC, I remember getting a magazine for the book that came with it that had the code for writing a game.

    My brothers had those magazines for the c64 , they were great.


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    #108
    AllGunsBlazing
    Registered Users Posts: 3,620 ✭✭✭AllGunsBlazing


    ChippingSodbury wrote: »
    No wonder kids in the 80s were fitter:
    My friend had a Commodore 64. We'd go out and play football for an hour while the the game loaded from cassette!

    Only for the damn thing to crash half way into the load! Mind you those cassette games were piss easy to bootleg .....if you had access to a double tape deck ...which I did.:cool:


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