Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group How long have you been using computers?

I started using pc in 1988 hasnt had any affect on my posture already knackerd from working in engineering lifting heavy steel beams and bending over welding.

Kevin

My dad got a TRS-80 in '79. That was my first exposure, really. I took an IBM 370 Assembly class in college. It was the first class that didn't have to use punch cards. I worked on CP/M machines doing data entry and word processing and learning a little BASIC along the way. Then I got to work for Apple Computer and bought myself a Mac+. I quit after my son was born and then it was all PC because I couldn't afford Apple's products! My husband has always worked in computers and we've always managed to have some hand me downs. This netbook I'm using is the first brand new computer I have gotten for myself since the Mac Plus.

I don't think that all the working and playing on computers contributed to the AS.

Well Timo, I sort of guessed it would be Kevin but you beat him by a short head....but of course, then he goes and takes it to extremes...........lol

I had a plastic abacus when I was a kid

it had a nice touch-sensitive interface, and I hear it was good for doing math, but mostly I just liked to hear it rattle

then upgraded to a Mac SE with two floppy disk drives in '87, I think

I remember being very excited about upgrading the RAM from two megabytes to four, cost me about $450

soon I bought modem for it, 1200 baud, I think. Took hours to download a diploma from a user group. When I finally opened the document, it said:

"Congratulations! You have successfully downloaded this diploma!"

I was thrilled

Can't imagine any correlation but wow first time on computer was back in high school in 1978. Took BASIC, then Assembly, then Fortran classes. Wish I had a picture of me wtih some of those old dinosaurs.

Our family got a Commodore-64 back in 1984 or 1985... it had an external tape drive, and I remember having to wait over half an hour for scrabble to load!

How times have changed...

Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha ha...........

I started using computers in 1983 shortly before I was hired as a technical writer to write user manuals for computer software! My first machine had two floppy drives and ran on CP/M which was on one of the disks that had to be in the machine for the operating system to work. I remember switching disks between the operating system and the word processing software (I was using wordstar back then). The other disk had my data on it.

However, prior to that I borrowed a friend's machine - a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which I played with frantically in preparation for applying for the technical writer job! I also took evening classes in Basic. I ended up learning several operating systems besides CP/M including DOS, Unix and Pick. Unix and Pick wouldn't run on the desk top so I was using a horribly slow modem (DOW - 1200 baud was lightening fast compared to that!).

When I came to Canada in 1985 I bought my first machine with a very small hard drive - 20kb I think it was. And I still get frustrated at how slow they are... how did I stand it back then.

Isn't it interesting that some of the word processing programs we used 20 years ago would be just as good today - you wouldn't need to have such powerful computers either.

This observation is based on the fact that most of us only use a fraction of the current word processors features.

I've also found that the latest - MS Word 2007 - has made writing more difficult! Just locating the Find function is tricky if you aren't on the right TAB! Also, the help question mark is tucked away to the top right of the screen, instead of being in the normal position on the tool bar (ribbon I think it is called in this version?)

James

If I'm not mistaken, the TRS80 was a little black-box with some LEDs? My brother made one at home from a kit while he worked downtown for a major steel manufacturing company. He was a janitor in the Stelco bldg. and some guys offered him a job upstairs. He used to pump the cards into those computers that were the size of a room in your house.

My grade eight classrooms was one of the first ones to have computers brought in for us to use. Like Timo, I frequented the arcades but I was just a kid, I grew up with Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Joust, Frogger and all those greats.

How High Can You Try?

Chris