By Mordekai
In the last installment, I looked at some of the early computers I worked with. It occurs to me that I failed to mention the Radio Shack Science Fair Digital Computer Kit. While this was mostly a toy, using it as a kid taught me about logic circuits, program algorithms and program flow. However, I digress. In this installment, I’ll look back at some more computers from the early days.
Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
I picked up a TRS-80 Model 100 from Radio Shack when I was in-between desktop models. The Model 100 was quite the machine for its time, having a built in address book and word processing software. It also had Model 100 BASIC in ROM and 16kb of RAM. Biggest thrill of all for this little laptop was a built in 300 baud modem. I used the Model 100 for my first on-line experience by calling up Compuserve and using my free subscription for 30 days. As the payment for Compuserve was almost as much as my payment for the Model 100, I opted not to continue to use Compuserve. That’s when I discovered the Bulletin Board Systems. Programming the Model 100 was more involved and difficult than the old Model I. I created some short-run text adventures. It turned out to be mostly a novelty item as I started doing all my programming on a TI-99/4A.
Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
Texas Instruments busted into the home PC market in 1979 with the TI-99/4, which was the first 16-bit home PC. It sold for a whopping $1,150 and featured a wide range of peripherals and TI’s “solid state software,” which was ROM cartridges, like an Atari. The TI-99/4 was a giant flop and was replaced in the early 80’s by the TI-99/4A, which sold for half the price and had twice the features. TI made several mistakes with the 99/4 series, the most serious of which was to disregard hobbyists and hackers as a source of ideas and information; the second was not allowing third-party resources such as game cartridges and peripherals. TI suffered hundreds of millions in losses, mainly because of those mistakes.
I purchased my TI-99/4A brand new, in late 1983, from a Target store in Rapid City, SD, for $50. At the end of 1983, TI was unable to compete with Commodore, Apple and IBM, so they dumped their systems, dropped all support functions and got out of the microcomputer business until the early ‘90s. Even though it tended to look like a toy, the 99/4A was a fairly powerful machine for its time. I programmed my first graphical game on the 99/4A -- a rudimentary joystick-controlled Space Invaders wannabe. The 99/4A also featured the ability to produce musical tones. The programming book had a list of notes and frequencies. I had a guitar-playing friend, Scott Aldrich, ask me if I could program the notes for Freebird into the computer. I can’t play a single lick of music -- but I can program. Scott told me what notes to program and I hot-keyed them from 1 to 9. Using the 99/4A as organ, we laid the background tracks for the Skynyrd classic. Scott played the rhythm guitar and would nod at me each time I needed to change notes. We recorded the background track on a stereo cassette tape recorder. We then played the background music on my home stereo as Scott played the lead guitar and I kept rhythm with a Michelob bottle filled with popcorn kernels. We recorded the whole song, minus vocals. It was my coolest use of the TI-99/4A.
Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore-64
I never owned either of these machines. My main activity regarding the Commodore computers was to make fun of them because I owned an Apple //e. However, I have a short story. When I was in Rapid City, I lived in military housing. My neighbor to the north had a VIC-20 and my neighbor to the south had a Commodore 64. We all had chess programs for our respective computers. I had a program for the Apple called Sargon III. It was a great chess program for its time. One day, after we’d lost a chess match to his computer, my neighbor with the VIC-20 (his name was John Hancock -- I am not making that up -- true story) said, “I bet my VIC can beat your Apple.” I said, “No way.” We brought the VIC to my house and played the computers against each other, giving each the same amount of “think” time. Sargon slaughtered the VIC-20. I don’t recall the name of the VIC chess program, but it was not even a challenge for the Apple with Sargon III installed. So then, the neighbor to the south challenged my Apple with his Commodore 64. After my victory over the VIC, I wasn’t too concerned about the 64 as I knew they were pretty much the same machine. I wasn’t wrong. Sargon III humiliated the Commodore and they never challenged me again.
Apple //e
I bought my Apple //e, with a single disk drive and green-screen monitor, in 1984. I used it for everything from writing as a military journalist to evaluation of demographic data for magazine readership using the Appleworks Spreadsheet. Mostly, I played games. By the time I gave up the Apple in 1994, I had well over 1000 disks, almost all games, as well as 5 floppy drives, two external modems, and a color printer. I produced three issues of The Reformer Magazine using the //e. I ran a Bulletin Board System using floppy drives and a RAM disk card. I even wrote my first paid program for the Apple //e.
In 1994 a friend of mine, Tim Johnson, had a master’s degree project in electrical engineering to calculate the efficiency of a solar cell based on several adjustable parameters. It was a challenge. He said, “I thought I’d just show you the math and you could make a program.” He showed me the math involved and I said, “You’re going to have to explain that to me.” Once I understood what the math meant, I actually had to write subroutines to calculate hyperbolic trig functions because they weren’t built into Applesoft BASIC. The end product would ask for parameter inputs, then perform the calculations to determine the efficiency of the cell as a percentage of solar energy converted to electricity. In addition, the program would screen plot and print a wave graph showing the ramp and peak of the cell. It took it 36 minutes to run on my Apple //e. Tim said he couldn’t wait that long for the number of results he had to produce and wanted to know if I could put it on his IBM 386-50. So, I re-programmed it on the 386 using Q-BASIC. It would run in under 3 minutes. At that point, I realized I’d have to upgrade. But I was sad.
So I upgraded. Next time, we’ll talk about my first IBM compatible and an original Intel 286 processor computer I built from scraps on a piece of plywood.
John Smith (AKA Mordekai) on Google Plus
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