I spent most my childhood outdoors climbing trees or playing sports - or various other things kids used to do pre-internet.
I would be inside during the rain. We had an Atari game console and had
5-6 cartridges. One of them was defender and that was the best game we
had. That game got old quite fast. Honestly, I was a bookworm. Video
games were rather uninspiring to me until many years later. Our schools
had Apple 2's because Apple donated them. I wasn't really inspired to
learn programming because the teachers didn't TEACH us to
program. Back in those days, our schools had one teacher per class for
all day. And none of them were trained in computer science. It took
years for the school system, at least in my area, to catch up with the times. Nowadays, these schools look like mini-college campii.
We had pre-written basic games we'd spend a long time typing into the terminal. Assuming I didn't mess up somewhere, I'd have a few minutes to play hangman or whatever it was. Nothing to write home about. Nothing
was saved and, all the work was gone when the computers were switched
off.
It just didn't hit me hard in those days. I preferred to spend recess
time outside instead of in front of a computer typing line code I
didn't understand. I had classmates who really soaked it in though and
some would hand write basic code at home and do the work at
school. Most of us didn't have computers - so our screen time
was limited to school. And in the later elementary grade, girls were
getting interesting to me and they weren't in the computer room.
Anyway, my first computer at home was in the 90s after coming home from
the navy. My brother took me with him to Fry's and I helped him select a computer case. The other components he had already identified before
the trip. I watched a computer being built for the first time. I had no
idea what was what. Everything looked alien to me. Times have changed.
I follow the likes of the C64 community out of curiousity. I'm more of a lurker to be honest. My actual daily driver (as in constant use) for
my writing hobby is a Tandy laptop. The model 200. I also have spare 100
and 102's laying around for mod projects. It does what I set out to do, write. And I can do that well. The keyboard layout isn't all fucked
up. I don't see a caps lock in the south pole and the " key isn't in boonyville. They're in the proper position.
I bought a C64 mini on sale at gamestop 5-6 years ago. I played a few
games for a bit and, well, it's in the closet somewhere. I tried to load other utilities via a flash card but nothing seemed to work without
serious hacking. So, so, so not interested in that. The games were
OKAY and I could understand what kids my age saw in it. My exposure to
the Commodore platform came just a few years ago. Otherwise, it was just
a subject in echonets when I dialed into BBSes.
I'm currently considering the purchase of an Atari ST 800XL with a
modern keyboard replacement. The original keyboard was a hunk of
shit while the modern replacements use modern switches and the keys are
in the modern locations. Still have a ton of reading to do about the platform and whether I wish to dive into it versus staying with my
beloved Tandy.
Daniel
--
sysop | air & wave bbs
finger | calcmandan@bbs.erb.pw
--- PyGate Linux v1.5.14
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
I was awful at sports... total nerd at least until 9th grade.
In elementary, our school was also dominated by Apple IIes, but no
programming. Just a bunch of MECC games. In high school they taught basic computer skills and typing. Luckily, I was very close with my computer
teacher my throughout my whole school career, and I was made the defacto computer expert at my school going back to 5th grade.
The Ataris is one area I have not entered yet, but I am sure I will
eventually. I am familiar with GEM from my Amstrad PC1512.
... Funny how life imitates LSD...