Ralph Johns

 
Potted Computer history
For Tom,

My first taste of anything to do with computers was in 1977 when I went back to college here in Britian. This was a Further Education college that offered GCSE 'A' Level exams as well as other vocational and higher qualifications.

I started to do three. I lasted a term (Sept to Christmas) whilst trying to get a grant. (First person in Dorset to stuffer the first round off Education Grant cuts). This included computing.

I have no idea now what the computer was. I know it was a hand-me down from somewhere.
It had been pleaced in a room that was too small for it. The card reader was in one room and a printer (14") was based in yet another. The computer almost filled the room. It was taller than my 6ft (181cm) and about 4ft square at the base.

My course started with us having to learn BASIC. We had to type the cards out which obviously got punched and then hand them in to an assistant who ran them through the machine. The computer was not specifically programmed to run BASIC and did so under an emulation. Consequently it sometimes took days to get stuff back. In the term I was there I had just about managed Add,ubtract, Divide and Multiply. High level stuff I know.

When the Sinclair group broght out their Spectrum (sometime in the '80s), I had a 16k (yes a memory of a whole 16k) one. It had the rubberised keyboard that it was famous for. I learnt to programme it it it's own version of BASIC and to some extent in it's machine code. Lots of time also spent playing games in 8 colours. It stll works. Programmes were loaded from a tape recored and stored on cassette tapes.

There was then a big gap until 1991 when I started my nurse training.

Here, the School of Nursing and the local Poytechnic joined together to offer the new type of nursing qualification. (Project 2000 for those interested). (The two bodies later amalgamated to form a University).

This was my introduction to the Mac. We had an introductory seession. I was placed in front of a Mac plus and given a A4 (8.25 X 11.75 inches) with some simple instructions and told to "explore". The instructions were to use ClarisWorks (System 6) so that we could learn how to write our essays on a computer.

Despite there being several Mac labs all over the Campus and loads more dotted about in the Library it was always difficult to find a free computer. So in 1992 I bought a Performa 400.

This had a 68030 chip runnng at Mgz (I think). 4Mb of RAM and an 80Mb (yes Mb) hard drive. It also had a floopy drive and took about 40 or so to do a complete back up, once I had added my own stuff. It ran System 7.0.1 and I have updated that to 7.3.5, which is the highest it can go.

It came with several demos including one of the start of the Aladin series.

In 1998 came my Original Bondi Blue Ver A iMac (233mhz). What a difference !! The place I bought it from downloaded the 80Mb from the old computer (2 1/2 hours and loaded it on to the iMac (15 mins). I bought an AsanteTalk box which allowed me to connect the two.

It also came with a modem and so the internet started. On Dial-up at first. Then longer periods as optional phone service came on line. And finally on Broadband (ADSL 500k down/ 256k up).

I had upgraded the processor to 400Mgz, added a 80Gb hard drive and added more Video memory to it's max of 8Mb. However the screen then died on New Years Day 2003.

I currently have a G4 1GHz Mirror Door tower. It has been fitted with 3 extra drives. The salvaged 80 Gb , a 60Gb from an external USB unit that the G4 would not recognise in OS X and a 250Gb split into two partitions.

I would say I can use AppleWorks and Office for Mac and produce acceptable printed and Visual work. I can just about produce something in iMovie having edited my Father-in-Law's analogue video tapes through DV converter.

That has led my to iChat - and we all know about that.

Ralph
- posted by Ralph Johns @ 11:53 am