My Computer History

Only a few people know this but I could have been in computer industry.

My so-called “love affair” with computers goes all the way back to the late seventies. Though not technically a computer, my dad bought me an Atari 2600

and it was not strictly a computer because it only played games. But I remember the countless hours I spent on it.

In 1983, however, I got the Commodore VIC-20:

This was my first formal “computer.” A quick review of its specs floored me. Run by a CMOS 6502 1Mhz chip, it has 5k RAM and 20K ROM and loaded programs by a tape drive for an average load time of 5 minutes.

Imagine that. I used to get by with these specs. A typical MS Word document occupies more memory that this baby’s RAM. And in 5 minutes, one can download 5 mp3 songs (with a DSL connection, of course).

With this computer I leaned to program in BASIC and machine language.

I could have gone further in computer programming. However, I was sidetracked into pursuing law and hence, those days were over.

Then, I had my PC-clones:

1. An XT-286 with a 20MB Hard Drive, 64K RAM, running Wordperfect 5.0, Lotus 123, Harvard Presentation Graphics

2. A 386 running Windows 3.0 and related applications

3. A 386 monochrome laptop, running Windows 3.0 with a 2.4 Kbps modem. I used to visit BBS’s with this baby…

3. A 486 DX2-66Mhz running Windows 95, a CD-ROM drive and an external 14.4Kbps modem

4. A 486 DX4-100Mhz with the same specs.

5. A Pentium-100.

6. A Pentium II-350Mhz (which I still have). Originally, it had an 8Gb Hard Drive, 32 Mb Ram. Now, it has 256Mb RAM and 20 gigs of hard drive space, a 16X CD writer, a USB 2.0 expansion card that runs its WiFi USB dongle. Still works well although my father uses it now. Surprisingly, it now runs on a Windows XP OS with some minor speed irritations.

7. An Acer Celeron 433 clunker with 160Mb RAM, 6Gb Hard Drive, a 24X CD-ROM and a built-in 56Kbps modem. It still works and my daughter uses it for web-surfing as it also has a WiFi dongle.

8. A Duron 800Mhz, now pimped up with DVD-ROM, a CD writer, 512 Mb RAM, 40Gb Hard Disk and WiFi.

9. And my latest baby, my Celeron 1.3Ghz laptop.

Here, my computer use was limited to applications. Never got around to taking up programming again.

Of course, I had my share of PDAs:

1. My first one was a Sharp organizer I won in a company Christmas Party raffle. I think it had 8Kb of memory.

2. Then, I got a Palm M100. It was a good device, though lacking in memory (only 2Mb) and ran on 2 AAA batteries. Backing-up to a computer was a must.

3. Though easy to use, I was not satisfied with the Palm OS so I got a iPaq 3760 with a CF adapter with extra batteries and a 64 Meg CF Card. I ditched it when the internal battery gave out and HP refused to repair it.

4. Now, I have my iPaq 2210 with an extra battery, a 256Mb SD card, a 128 Mb CF card, a CF Modem and CF WiFi adapter and an extra 128 Mb SD card for songs.

Looking back even on my own computer history, I am amazed how things have progressed. From being satisfied with 5K of RAM, even the 256 Megs on the SD card (even with the extra 128 megs on the other card) and the 40 gigs from the hard drive will not satisfy our needs anymore. Now, even my PDA is faster than my Pentium II-350 that still works…

Try tracing your computer history and see how far you have come… and where we are going…