Comment by JKCalhoun
1 month ago
The first single-board computer I had ever heard of. And I saw it in a book on making your own robot (1970's, TAB books, I think). No way I could afford a $400 computer with my measly allowance. Oh well—I've since been able to build a couple replicas.
The author of the robot book [1] had an unusual last name. When I came across the same last name during my time at Apple, a co-worker, I emailed him and he said that it was in fact his brother that had written the book. Small world, I guess.
I too used to lust after these computers in my youth, at least until actual 8-bit machines started turning up in the city shops and neighborhood parties were had whenever someone got something new running .. the 80’s were a fantastic time to be a computer nerd. Apple and Atari annd Oric and Sinclair and Amstrad and Commodore and TI and BBC and .. so many other systems .. were competing in the 80’s markets.
So many different kind of systems, each struggling to find their own user base and differentiate.
Magazines were key to the process of discovery of what and how to use your computer of choice. I had stacks and stacks of magazines, and became adept at reading LIST’ings at the news-stand and learning deep secrets that I eagerly re-implemented once I got back home. Because I had to, anyway, my computer didn’t have much software market-wise.
For many of us, the computer revolution came at a sweet spot of adolescent development. As a young early computer user of the 70’s/80’s, I learned a lot of stuff that is simply taken for granted today, by having to do it myself on various systems.
The standardization of platforms back then was for sure, not a certainty. The sheer variety of ideas about how computing systems should be built and used, industry or personal, was actually kind of astonishing.
This is why I am heartened by the very, very thriving retro-computing scene. Computers don’t grow old - their users do!
OMG, thank you for sharing this! I had that book when I was a kid, but couldn't find it again for the life of me. This was the first evidence I had that it wasn't a fever dream.