One of the things about being old is reminiscing about the “good ol’ days”. Most people think about their athleticism, or past loves. Me, I remember my first computer. An Atari 800 8-bit system that I bought in 1980 with my paper route money.
I greatly enjoyed that experience. Of course, my first taste of personal computing was on the Apple ][ systems at Prospect High School, but they were far outside my budget (at the time, an Apple 2 with one disk drive, and a monochrome monitor was a smidgen over $2,000.)
The Atari, with a disk drive, and plugged into a TV was a good starting point. But I needed to begin collecting software. So, I got a modem, a Hayes 300 baud, the 850 interface box, and I was off to the races. (more…)