UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Powered By Google Custom Search Vintage Radio and TV Service Data

Go Back   UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum > General Vintage Technology > General Vintage Technology Discussions

Notices

General Vintage Technology Discussions For general discussions about vintage radio and other vintage electronics etc.

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools
Old 21st May 2020, 11:13 pm   #21
Kyle__B
Banned
 
Join Date: Mar 2020
Location: Nijmegen, Netherlands
Posts: 142
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

There was a lot of computers which lacked the basic features to be practical. No proper keyboards, no real data storage etc. Existed purely to meet a price point. If you were lucky and you bought something like a sinclair there was at least an aftermarket to sort out those flaws.

If we look at a "Proper" early microcomputer, that is, with a real keyboard, a display capable of 80 column text, a floppy drive and a daisy wheel printer, I would rather use that than a typewriter for writing, and definitely rather use it to sort out accounting than a pocket calculator and a notebook!

Add a modem, preferably one good enough to dial the phone itself rather than expect you to wedge one into some suction cups, and you've got email, flights and public transport information, stocks and shares. With the right program it can emulate a mainframe terminal, killing off all those within a few years.

The kind of machine I describe above would be something like an IMSAI, 80 Column Commodore PET, Apple II, Original PC-as-in-from-IBM etc. 1975-1983.

The big jump is 1984-87. Macintosh, Atari ST, Amiga, Acorn Archie. Computers that are designed around manipulating arbitrary graphics and sounds rather than letters and numbers. The cost of technology is much lower at this point so more stuff is built in rather than being additional purchases.

It's at this point that an up to date personal computer completely obsoletes the work process of many industries! You want menu leaflets doing for your chippy? Ring Kevin the 19 year old, he's got a printer for his computer and loads of fonts. He's into modern music, so the same computer is connected to his music keyboard, drum machine etc, acting like half way between a word processor and a player piano. Are you an artist? Draw on a graphics tablet, or scan in a paper sketch, colour it in, animate it, if you make a mistake press "undo".

Got a camcorder? Whack a genlock box on the back of an amiga, run your camcorder footage through it into your VCR. You can add titles, logos, special effects. If you're quick with the stop and play buttons you can cobble together star trek transporter effects, that sort of thing.

The speed computers improved in the 80s has very few parallels in history. They really could do anything and everything by the end. But you have to be smart about it, there's no point in buying a computer first and finding something for it to do second. You have to have a specific use like "automate my rack of music equipment", "generate subtitles for my japanese cartoon bootlegs" etc, and then go and get the computer that suits that specific job.

Last edited by Kyle__B; 21st May 2020 at 11:21 pm.
Kyle__B is offline  
Old 21st May 2020, 11:33 pm   #22
Keith956
Heptode
 
Keith956's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Oxfordshire
Posts: 719
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

My first brush with computers was at school, we could run programs in Algol on the local insurance company's ICL mainframe via punch cards on which we laboriously typed out strange key combinations. 10-6-8 mean anything to people these days?

While living in the US in 1979 I bought an Exidy PC, with a couple of 8 inch floppy drives and a S100 bus expander. Got reasonably proficient with Z80 assembler but yes those early PCs weren't a lot of real use apart from learning, it wasn't until the mid 90s that hardware became powerful enough to do interesting stuff, like being able to run Spice (the circuit simulator). About 20 years ago I wrote a PC based CAD app and still maintain it to this day - I really should get out more!
Keith956 is offline  
Old 21st May 2020, 11:41 pm   #23
1100 man
Octode
 
1100 man's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: Ventnor, Isle of Wight, & Great Dunmow, Essex, UK.
Posts: 1,377
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

The ZX Spectrum wave crashed into my school when I was in the third year. The PTA decided that they were needed for 'educational' reasons, so quite a few were purchased.

Along with the Spectrums came a tidal wave of crappy old valve telly's donated by eager parents.

I was not the least bit interested in the computers- they seemed utterly pointless, but, oh the telly's!!

I was truly in my element. Nobody else in the school knew anything about Tv's and I just sort of assumed responsibility for repairing them. The teachers never questioned my right to do that- they just let me get on with it!!

Colour TV's were well out of reach then, so the Spectrums only ever got used with black & white ones.

So the advent of home computers for me meant the chance of repairing loads of TV's- Now what could possibly be better than that!!

Cheers
Nick
1100 man is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 2:32 am   #24
hamid_1
Heptode
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: High Wycombe, Bucks. UK.
Posts: 811
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

Sinclair, in one of the advertisements for the ZX80 stated "The ZX80 is programmed in BASIC, and you could use it to do quite literally anything from playing chess to running a power station".

The idea of running a nuclear power station using one is pretty crazy and of course never actually happened (well, not as far as I know, anyway!) But I do remember a magazine article about building a robot using a Sinclair ZX81 - the Hobby Electronics Hebot.

Despite that, I reckon most of the early 8-bit home computers were mainly used for playing games on. At least that was my first experience. I started around 1982 with an Atari 400 "computer" which was really just a glorified games console with a keyboard. To program it in BASIC you had to buy a BASIC cartridge separately. Once I had that, I started typing in games from magazines. This taught me how to use a keyboard (very useful later on in life when I had to use 'proper' computers at work). I also learned about how the games worked and computer programming in general. I acquired more computers (ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Amiga, various PCs) and more knowledge about how they worked.

To be fair, there was quite a bit of educational software for those early computers, not just games. I recall programs that could teach you French or German, solve mathematical problems or test your knowledge.

Of course, as time went on, computers became more sophisticated. More memory, better graphics and sound. Letter quality printers became affordable and word processing replaced the old typewriters. But I think the biggest development is the growth of the Internet. I first went on it in 1995 using CompuServe, an American bulletin board system. Back then it was very slow and expensive, with per-minute telephone call charges added on top of CompuServe's own fees. Still I wasn't put off. I soon discovered a vast library of knowledge and communicated with other people who shared my interests.

Nowadays the internet is a part of daily life and difficult to do without. I found it relatively easy to get into, having started using computers years earlier. My elderly mother never used a computer or learned to type. She can't use the internet and has to ask me to do things for her. I don't mind helping but I think my mum feels a bit frustrated about her lack of computer skills. Those early 8-bit computers I used all those years ago may not have done much other than play games, but some of the skills I picked up from them have come in useful to me.

These days I see babies and small children playing with smartphones. I worry that we're becoming too dependent on them.
hamid_1 is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 7:46 am   #25
Dave Moll
Dekatron
 
Dave Moll's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: West Cumbria (CA13), UK
Posts: 6,118
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aub View Post
Personal computers were just toys/games machines. Real computers ran off 3 phase supplies, had disc drives the size of washing machines and cost half a million quid. You knew they were real computers, because you couldn't see over the top of them

Cheers

Aub
And they probably had less than a hundredth the processing power of the average mobile 'phone of today.
__________________
Mending is better than Ending (cf Brave New World by Aldous Huxley)
Dave Moll is online now  
Old 22nd May 2020, 8:39 am   #26
Hartley118
Nonode
 
Hartley118's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Cambridge, Cambs. UK.
Posts: 2,196
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aub View Post
Personal computers were just toys/games machines. Real computers ran off 3 phase supplies, had disc drives the size of washing machines and cost half a million quid. You knew they were real computers, because you couldn't see over the top of them

Cheers

Aub
........and your App was a stack of punched cards that was at risk on a rainy day as you carried it to the building housing the magic machine which was heavily protected by a layer of bureaucracy.

Martin
__________________
BVWS Member
Hartley118 is online now  
Old 22nd May 2020, 8:49 am   #27
raditechman
Heptode
 
raditechman's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: West London, UK.
Posts: 865
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

My first computer was an Amstrad 1640 circa 1986. 5¼ floppy drive, later I added a 3½ floppy drive and then a 20M hard drive.
Used it for word processing and it also spent a lot of it's time on Packet Radio.

John
raditechman is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 9:48 am   #28
red16v
Heptode
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Winchester, Hampshire, UK.
Posts: 636
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

My first PC was a BBC model B and I can remember using it for three projects. First one - wrote a program to simulate my paper timesheets, greatly reducing actual paperwork. Interfaced it to an IO board and wrote a program to drive a satellite steering arm. Thirdly, wrote a program to produce new ‘wipes’ on our professional high end vision mixers at my place of work. Very useful bit of kit.
red16v is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 10:17 am   #29
Lucien Nunes
Rest in Peace
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: London, UK.
Posts: 2,508
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

I started with the ZX81 aged about 10, and while I had lots of ideas of things to make it do that were never implemented, it served well as a platform for first experiments in both BASIC and Z80 assembler programming (that is, when the 16k RAM pack was making adequate contact with the motherboard.) I have one surviving piece of output from that first year - a programme for one of my super-8 film shows printed on the ZX printer.

At primary school we were quick off the mark with BBC Micros and had a couple of teachers with responsibility and knowledge to teach us to drive them. We were exposed to the educational software of the day, where the scientific problem-solving and simulation environments of the better software were absorbing. One of my classmates got bitten by the bug there and then; by the time he got his own VIC-20 his future career was taking shape.

At home, I moved on to the Spectrum and got deeply into interfacing it to stuff. For for a while, anything I could connect to my homebrew I/O board got connected. I still have a VCR with an extra 9-pin D socket on the back, via which the Spectrum served as a multi-event timer (not that I ever watched or recorded much TV). At secondary school we had a 68000-based mini running AMOS/L and a room full of terminals, on which I got my first experience of 'proper' computers, but still enjoyed the accessibility of my Spectrum's Z80 bus poking naked out of the back of the computer.

By university, the Sinclair and BBC machines were theoretically bygones, however we managed to extract plenty of life from them. I used the ZX81 to calculate and print results for my coursework, still on the ZX printer's aluminised paper. In the 2nd year (1992) there were always 8-bit computers in the lounge in my digs, Spectrums, BBC Master 128s etc, on which we hacked, experimented, played. One of our more entertaining exploits was the quest to write the most exciting game for the unexpanded (1k) ZX81. We learned much about making the best of limited resources, not least the resounding triumph of saving a dozen much-needed bytes by stegging the gameplay variables as rocks in the screen memory map. Not cutting-edge stuff but good mental exercise for a bunch of engineering students. One of our housemates was a psychology student, whose survey data we processed and analysed on the BBC Master.

I accept that sometimes there was a sense of the home computer being a solution looking for a problem, but at least we were always able to find problems to apply it to constructively.
Lucien Nunes is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 10:24 am   #30
Andrew2
Nonode
 
Andrew2's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Dukinfield, Cheshire, UK.
Posts: 2,033
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

And who could forget the wonderful 'Making the Most of the Micro' and 'The Computer Programme' with the marvellous Ian McNaught-Davies? Sunday morning telly at its best!
__________________
Andy G1HBE.
Andrew2 is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 10:50 am   #31
Ted Kendall
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Kington, Herefordshire, UK.
Posts: 3,657
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

It seems that, much like the crystal set of old, the lasting effect of these early machines was to get people into the tent and make them computer minded, for want of a better expression.
Ted Kendall is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 11:54 am   #32
Dave Moll
Dekatron
 
Dave Moll's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: West Cumbria (CA13), UK
Posts: 6,118
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

That was achieved for me around 1970 when the sixth-form maths students were permitted to submit programs to run on the IBM 1800 computer belonging to the National Institute of Oceanography, when they were based in (land-locked) Surrey on a site leased from the school.
__________________
Mending is better than Ending (cf Brave New World by Aldous Huxley)
Dave Moll is online now  
Old 22nd May 2020, 2:00 pm   #33
stevehertz
Dekatron
 
stevehertz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Rugeley, Staffordshire, UK.
Posts: 8,809
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

I think that's the issue with me, all this talk about programming, firstly I didn't have clue how to get onto the first rung of the ladder, and secondly, I never really needed to create a programme for anything as far as I was aware? Anything I wanted to do I just did? The concept of and the need for programming was just alien to me. And thirdly, anything of that nature I have always seen as being a largely if not purely academic exercise. I'm no duffer I may add, I topped the secondary school leaving achievements for my year with 6 'O' levels and went on to Poly studying electronics. I think my problem was, I was just at that age where computers were totally non-existent during any of my academic years. For sure, I was never taught anything at all about them, programming, whatever. After that, I became a very practical, hands on test engineer and my interests and hobbies kind of followed suit. I use my computer for many hours every day now, but I have never felt the need to understand what's going on 'underneath the bonnet' just as many people feel the same about their cars.
__________________
A digital radio is the latest thing, but a vintage wireless is forever..
stevehertz is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 2:50 pm   #34
Guest
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

Quote:
never felt the need to understand what's going on 'underneath the bonnet' just as many people feel the same about their cars.
I think you should, even just for fun, I am sure drivers are better if they know what is going on behind the scenes, I really don't like the new computer programmes that "just work" without knowing where stuff is stored or executed from. etc.. For example I like Apple kit (ipad/pod) but needed to know what was happening, it took a while to find out, I am happier now!
 
Old 22nd May 2020, 3:04 pm   #35
AC/HL
Dekatron
 
AC/HL's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 9,637
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

Even W10 still includes command line. The old DOS command winver still works!
AC/HL is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 3:41 pm   #36
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,482
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by stevehertz View Post
I have never felt the need to understand what's going on 'underneath the bonnet' just as many people feel the same about their cars.
In the early to late 90s I worked in a little depot from which we worked on a wide variety of equipment for which we were always making up little test rigs and helpers so we could provide stimulus to and / or view what was going on in a system. By that time I was really getting into microcontrollers but my sole colleague hated microprocessors with a passion. He felt the same way about computers.

Although this seemed irrational to me, what often impressed me was his ability to create very complex things using pure discrete logic - things I would not even have considered trying to do because it would be so much easier to do it with a microcontroller.

I did eventually manage to convert him by installing a very addictive game on the office PC - he then reluctantly bought himself a PC to play it on at home, and once he got over the learning curve he was as good with computers as anyone I knew. He even took up programming, especially in OPL, the Basic-like language used on Psion personal organisers. He became quite prolific in that respect.
SiriusHardware is online now  
Old 22nd May 2020, 5:18 pm   #37
JayBee66
No Longer a Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: Kilkenny, Ireland
Posts: 138
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by stevehertz View Post
And that's my question, what practical and interesting uses did people use those early personal computers for? What have I missed?!
I got a ZX81 as a 15 year old and a Spectrum the year after. I taught myself how to program because I failed maths O level and without it I was not allowed to do O level computer science in 6th form. With the black wedge I developed a skill to get me a few jobs as a mini-computer operator and from there I got into university as a mature student. Without home computers I hate to imagine what would have become of me.
JayBee66 is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 5:43 pm   #38
matherp
Triode
 
Join Date: May 2020
Location: Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK.
Posts: 34
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

The first proper coding I did was on a Commodore PET. I programmed an assembler routine that was then installed in one of the spare EPROM slots used for downloading ambulatory ECG recordings off a tape recorder, summarizing the data and making it available for the clinicians to use
matherp is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 6:31 pm   #39
stevehertz
Dekatron
 
stevehertz's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Rugeley, Staffordshire, UK.
Posts: 8,809
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by matherp View Post
I programmed an assembler routine that was then installed in one of the spare EPROM slots used for downloading ambulatory ECG recordings off a tape recorder, summarizing the data and making it available for the clinicians to use
You may as well be talking Swahili. No disrespect meant to you my friend of course! just once again, telling it like it is! I'm the fool. And yet I don't feel I've missed out on anything? I mean, you can only do so much in a lifetime and I guess I didn't have 'time' to do programming and coding. But.. I've done a lot of other stuff that maybe others would be envious, especially in the 'vintage audio & visual equipment' field. We're all different.
__________________
A digital radio is the latest thing, but a vintage wireless is forever..
stevehertz is offline  
Old 22nd May 2020, 8:06 pm   #40
Andrew2
Nonode
 
Andrew2's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Dukinfield, Cheshire, UK.
Posts: 2,033
Default Re: Early personal computers - what for?

I stopped at Basic, Steve. On the BBC, you could do all sorts with basic including talking to the built-in ADC and other stuff. We used one at work (this would be around 1990) to demonstrate how we could measure the amount of dust being extracted by a fan. It used a light source and a sensor and the output was applied to the BBC's ADC, the output of that going into a Basic program which plotted a nice coloured histogram on the screen in real time. It was a piece of cake and right up my street as I loved programs that generated graphics. The client was mightily impressed, as it ran in the BEEB's mode 1 with medium res and 4 colours. But that's as far as I went.

My business partner was working on a temperature controller which took inputs from outdoor and indoor temperatures as well as the sensor on the item being monitored. I said it'd be simple enough with a few op-amps and a bit of CMOS, but he decided he fancied 'throwing a Z80 processor at it'.
That gave me the right willies. I knew nought about such things and he didn't know very much more than me - but he had a quick read up and he took to it like a duck to water, leaving me muttering to myself.
I think we all have our limits, usually self-imposed. I've turned into a terrible stick in the mud, still using 80's tech for my radio projects to this day, as I find it comfortable and it usually does what I want. If you can get the parts...
__________________
Andy G1HBE.
Andrew2 is offline  
Closed Thread

Thread Tools



All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:47 am.


All information and advice on this forum is subject to the WARNING AND DISCLAIMER located at https://www.vintage-radio.net/rules.html.
Failure to heed this warning may result in death or serious injury to yourself and/or others.


Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Copyright ©2002 - 2023, Paul Stenning.