It was 20 years ago today: Not Sgt. Pepper, but my PCjr

Everyone remembers their first computer. Well mine was a PCjr and I don't care how history remembers it. The piece of junk stole my heart.

I wouldn't push the analogy too hard, but your first computer's a lot like your first love in one respect: years later, the memory does not fade with the passing of the seasons.

IBM PCjr: They don't make 'em like that any more.

So it was that I was reading Jonathan Zittrain's excellent new book, The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It (more about that in a future post), when I paged across his disquisition on the early PC era and got pulled back in time.

I missed out on the hobbyist fad of the late 1970s and early '80s. But once I got a job and could scrape together enough money, I was desperate to learn what all the fuss was about. I still remember the day, 20 years ago today, when I marched into the local ComputerLand, plunked down $1,200, and walked out with an IBM PCjr. What a machine: 512K of RAM, a 5 1/4-inch internal floppy drive with 360K of storage and an 8088 Intel chip that ran at 4.77Mhz. It didn't matter that the machine caused more trouble than it was worth--IBM pulled the plug a year later--I really became fond of that miserable hunk of plastic.

Maybe it was because the Junior caused me so much grief. I wound up screwing around with the machine day after day, taking pieces apart and then making a hash of putting them back together the right way. In the process, I received the equivalent of a crash course in personal computing. Even if the real pioneering work had taken place several years earlier, you still felt present at the creation. The computer industry was still in an early state of formation and chaos was everywhere. Booting up the PCjr the first time and watching it cough and whirr until it came alive--man, that was something to behold.

What about you? Any equally treacly love stories about your first PC? Do share.

[hezigler]

It's closer to 30 years for me, and it was a Radio Shack TRS-80, their first model. It had 16K of RAM and used a plain vanilla Radio Shack portable audio cassette recorder for mass storage. What I remember most, was typing out the BASIC command to load a program from a cassette tape, CLOAD, and then pressing Play on the cassette recorder and waiting many minutes for the software to load into the computer, and then typing RUN, only to find that there was some ERROR, and then typing out the BASIC command to load a program from a cassette tape, CLOAD, and then pressing Play on the cassette recorder and waiting many minutes for the software to load into the computer, and then typing RUN, only to find that there was some ERROR, typing out the BASIC command to load a program from a cassette tape, CLOAD, and then pressing Play on the cassette recorder and waiting many minutes for the software to load into the computer, and then typing RUN, only to find that there was some ERROR, typing out the BASIC command to load a program from a cassette tape, CLOAD, and then pressing Play on the cassette recorder and waiting many minutes for the software to load into the computer, and then typing RUN, only to find that there was some ERROR, typing out the BASIC command to load a program from a cassette tape, CLOAD, and then pressing Play on the cassette recorder and waiting many minutes for the software to load into the computer, and then typing RUN, only to find that there was some ERROR...

[sadchild]

yeah but on the 15th try you finally got to play taipan and trade some opium. just remember to keep paying off the local bully, Li Yuen, or he'll send a fleet after you that will sink you and your silk!

[bkcopeland]

Nostalgia hits me quite often .. My first was a TI 99/4a .. It was the first computer I taught myself to program on..

[RLPixx]

Yep - remember those first days and weeks well. It was 1982 - I came home from work and cautiously to my wife mentioned that I bought a computer. It wasn't expensive I said. A Sinclair ZX81 - all of 1 Kb of memory "but I can buy a 16K RAM pak later"! I wondered why she wasn't a bit annoyed I had purchased such an outlandish thing, until she said "I did too"! She had bought a Franklin Ace 1000 (Apple ][http:// clone) through a colleague at her school. It had an amazing 64K of memory (twice the comparable Apple |http:// clone) through a colleague at her school. It had an amazing 64K of memory (twice the comparable Apple ][ model). Wow! And the first 5 1/4 disk cost NZ$5 - I bought one and it held all the documents I needed for many months - all text documents, written with a New Zealand designed word processor "Fulltext" which was way ahead of it's time. Spelling checker, mail-merge, email, editable dictionary and graphics! All in brilliant colour!

But the ZX81 - just like hezigler's experience - hours spent typing in a programme from a magazine or from my own design when I got braver - waiting for it to save onto tape via the carefully adjusted tape recorder. Then losing it all when the 16K ram pak moved a little asa the BluTak let go. Did I give up? No - just type it all in again. Was it worth it? Yes, in those days a small group of teachers were trying to work out how we could best use these amazing machines in our classrooms. And we did - with lots of mistakes on the way - and it led (eventually) to the amazing things that are have happening and are happening now in classrooms around the world when teachers empower students with technology.

[acheron5]

My first "real" computer was an Amiga 1000. It blew everything on the market away and was years, decades in some respects, ahead of its time. Not only did the OS perform pre-emptive multitasking, a concept that I recall Steve Jobs as unneccessary for the average user a few years later, it possessed stereo output, voice synthesis, color graphics, sprite animations, was user expandable, pioneered desktop video applications with the Video Toaster years ahead of the rest of the industry, and eventually would have ARexx (an interapplication scripting language that preceded Applescript).

I walked in to a Radio Shack to buy stereo speakers for my computer and they didn't understand why- No computers they had ever seen so clearly had stereo output so clearly I had no idea what I was talking about and it took them a long time to figure it out.

One of the cool aspects of this computer was that you could have multiple screens with different resolutions at the same time. Grabbing the title bar you could pull down the current screen to reveal another screen behind it running another application in a different resolution. Since it was multitasking OS you could have the Juggler demo running behind the desktop running behind Wordperfect running behind Vista (the terrain generating app, not the OS).

Additionally, you could plug in an 8086 card and run DOS concurrently in a window on AmigaDOS. It also ran the Mac OS better than most Mac's at the time because unlike Mac's the Amiga contained custom co-processor chips for handling audio and graphics, a concept that eventually caught on with other computers.

The main disadvantage to owning an Amiga wasn't the computer itself but the company that manufactured them. In competent hands instead of Commodore's the Amiga might have ended up being more than a footnote in computer history.

[mountaingeezer]

Mine was a Leading Edge for $1400! I swapped out the 8088 for another chip, the name of which escapes me, that ran at a screaming 7 mHZ. Learned DOS on that machine, added a whopping 10M hard drive and other enhancements over the next couple of years till the 286 made its debut. Nice to reflect back once in a while to appreciate how far we have come.

[rgalyen]

The addiction started with a TRS-80, Model 1, Level 1 with 4K or RAM. I was completely ignorant about computers, other than what I "learned" from scifi movies. When I got my new machine home and running, the very first thing I typed into the keyboard is "who are you"...the TRS-80 responsded "Syntax Error"...pretty embarassing stuff now! Anyway, that was 30 years and many 10s of thousands of dollars ago. The addiction is still strong...but have learned a bit more about computers in the intervening years.

[mmichaels]

I remember when Dad brought home our Apple IIE. I guess I'd have been about 12 and it would have been about 25 years ago. Rather than play the games I'd get from kids at school, I'd spend most of my time trying to dissect their code. I'd try to change the players' names in my football game to those of my family, change the types of injuries, etc. My first development project came in about 1984 when I wrote a program to store my Dungeons and Dragons character information so I could print them out before going to my (girl-free of course) D&D games. Remember screen layout sheets? I think mine were 40 columns wide by 25 rows. I'm a programmer today.

I remember spending hours playing a game called "Taipan" and "Karateka" sitting in my wet swim suit in the basement on a hot summer day.

[thetoad01]

I remember the PCJr. I had one in college. That was a true plug-and-play add on system. Needed to upgrade the memory just snap the big plastic chuck on the end of the box. I was in my glory when I got my 300 baud modem to read bulletin boards!

[utollwi]

Coleco Adam - a few weeks with that beast- - the tape drives, the daisy wheel impact printer and a TV. Fun- but frustrating. Bought at Crazy Eddies for $599?

But it was the Commodore C-64 that stole my heart. From the cartridges to typeing in the assembly/code from the back of magazines just to get some programs running and learn. The GEOS - GUI with a mouse - this OS was the first non-MAC OS that was easy and integrated to use. I remember spending hours with the computer, a "wax" like inkjet printer and Simon's Basic cartridge.

[bradfox]

I was working at Whole Earth Access in Berkeley when I bought my PCjr with the chicklet keyboard that everyone criticized. I kept it a little while before moving up to a Zenith laptop with it's cool screen. I still didn't know what a hard drive was. Then I found out, and it changed my opinion of computers.

[aemarques]

First computer? A Sinclair Spectrum (16 K version). But my first *real* computer was an Atari PC3: 640 KB RAM, 5,25'' 260 K floppy, 32 MB HD (a luxury), amber 13'' EGA/Hercules (switchable), mouse (!), and DOS 3.22. This was around 1986.

It was an amazing machine, that served me well until I upgraded to an Intel 486DX-50 based machine with color monitor (another luxury, at that time), many years later.

[joeyl13]

Mine was Amstrad 8088 with 512k of memory and a 20mg hard card. It also came with a 1200k modem that enable me to connect to prodigy. It was the state of the art pice of equipment.

[BlutoNYC]

LONG LIVE THE Jr.'s MEMORY!!! - I remember when I got mine for Christmas 1984. I was 13 back then and kicked and screamed for a computer for over a year until my parents caved in. Who could forget the days of DOS 2.1 (specifically written for the PC Jr.) and the good ol' Cartridge BASIC. Mine started out with 128KB of RAM, 360KB floppy, and it's traditional CGA monitor. A little known fact is that the Jr. also had the ability to do 3 different pitches of beeps at the same time. The original Ad-Lib sound cards were able to do 8. The regular PC was only able to do 1. When 128KB wasn't enough and a single floppy was getting to be a drag, I bought an upgrade from a company called RACORE which gave me a second 360KB floppy, an additional 512KB of RAM, a parallel printer port and a little switch in the back when flipped would enable a PC emulator for better PC compatability. That machine got me from junior high school to halfway through college writing my papers on PFS:Write, playing King's Quest, Imagic Football, and Epyx's array of Olympic styled events(Summer, Winter, and World Games). My Summer Games disk was a bootleg and infected with the Stoned virus (enter my first experience with AV apps). I remember before games started being available, I used to go to the public library and borrow books on games written in BASIC which was a great way to learn how to write code. Sadly, in 1992 my Jr had to be replaced by a Gateway 486DX2/50. As an IT professional I've pretty much used them all out there and no machine has ever given me the same pure innocent thrill I got when I first turned on my PC Jr. <sniffle>I guess it's true what they say, you never forget your first love.</sniffle>

[thenet411]

I too had a PCjr. I got mine in the Christmas of '85 when I was 12 years old. I spent HOURS playing with the diagnostic mode that did all kinds of neat things until I got some games: Kings Quest, F-15 Strike Eagle, and B-1 Bomber. The cartridge basic, DOS in that HUGE binder software came in. Ah, those were the days.

[Timtropolis]

For me.. it was the Radio Shack Dragon M16. The little chicklet keyboard computer along with the 16K of ram plug in was my first foray into computers as well as programming. I just got totally hooked. I was in the navy at the time and one of the guys on the ship has this little thing and I bought it for $100. I had the best time just tinkering and fooling around with the programming. I remember my biggest accomplishment was creating a rudimentary hockey game on it and running a league. I thought it was the best!! I still have it too!!

Not long after I got out of the navy ('88)... I "graduated" to a Radio Shack Coco 3 and had a ball with that as well until I finally caved and got my first true PC AT. Ah the memories! LOL

[Mycroft_514]

My first computer? How about a PDP-8e in 1976? The entire machine had 16K of RAM when in standalone mode. Normal configuration at school was multiuser, so you had more like 2K of RAM to work with. Won 3rd prize at the state math fair with my program in 1977.

First PC? TRS-80 my Dad got in 1977 or so. 16K of RAM.

My first PC - IBM-PC in 1983. My wife asked about a second floppy drive after 1 day of using it!

We had Apple II+ and Apple IIe computers in elemetary schools. My first PC was an Apple IIc with an Apple Scribe printer in 7th grade. I went door-to-door collecting for my paper route with a speadsheet I created in AppleWorks.

I remember in eight grade when the school brought in the first Macintosh in 1984; that changed everything. As a high school freshman, I had Mac 512K and taught my self bookkeeping with Peachtree's Back-to-Basics to run our family frozen yogurt shop. I later upgraded to a Mac Plus with 2.5 MB of RAM and a 32 MB hard drive. That lasted throughout my academic career. My last week of grad school the screen started emploding as I was finishing my final papers. It made it through to close out 1995.

My job started me on a Windows NT PC a few months later. I have yet to return to Macintosh. I bought an old Apple IIc at a garage sale, and it's on display in my office. The old Apple logo reminds me that I still do "bleed seven colors".

[wrweast]

Charles,
While employed at an IBM sub-contractor during 'PCjr' introduction I was intrigued by comments made during a meeting with our engineering chief upon his return from Boca facilities.
He recanted the forthcoming public 'junior' product was NOT product designed, created and tested by engineering but marketing 'approved' ware.
Simply, their 'trial' product surpassed the existing 'PC' in price/performance, hence another product was to be 'sub-contracted' out.
Believing such was indeed folly he was shown the physical 'intended' product, a.k.a. Good Stuff, while visiting their facilities!
The result is history ...

[WWJordan]

The PC Jr. was a great machine and so far ahead of its time. I was managing a ComputerLand store at the time it came out. It had: Wireless keyboard and mouse (waterproof!), Card slots to interchange programs such as Lotus 123 by simply pushing in the card (they were in ROM and instantly available, A High resolution color monitor (better than any thing else from IBM at the time), Direct to buss expansion on the side of the box so no limit on expansion other than possible additional power, Hard drive expansion on the top of the box, A very small footprint that made it easy to use on a desktop, etc. I sold many of them to small business owners as a bargain compared to the $3000-$5000 IBM PCs typically being sold as "business" machines. They got a bargain. It was years before many of these features became available again. IBM's mistake was the positioning of the PC Jr. as a kid's toy. They didn't realize what they had. My kids and ex-wife used it for 20 years!

[dataabcd]

Yes my first was a ZX Spectrum46k
46k main ram, rubber key board and used a caseete tap system to store data.
moved up to an Amstrad 512, 512k memory dual 360 floppys and the worders of GEM,
it even had a mouse.... all of 26 years ago.....