Early personal computers - what for?

[stevehertz]

To this day I've always been an 'electronics man' and not a 'computer man'. Some people are able to embrace both, but not me. If I throw an analogue switch, then 99.9% of the time I can guarantee that the mode has been changed. With computers they just fight you; you can click on things till you're blue in the face (and tongue) and the darned thing will still do whatever it is that it wants to do, not necessarily what you want it to do or it says it would do. I don't like that.

But I digress. In the early days of personal home computers (early 80s) when it was more of a hobbyist thing and commercial computers for the public were just starting to come through eg Atari, Commodore, Sinclair, BBC, Pet, Amstrad and so on, I just didn't get it. For some reason I was always a bit 'scared' of this new technology and at work I looked on with a mix of confusion and interest while mates talked about them, flaunted floppy discs etc.

So, my first question to them was always, "But what can you do with them?" and to my never ceasing annoyance the answer was always, "Anything?". Well, as far as I could see you couldn't toast bread on one, or re-heat a cup of coffee. But seriously the answer to that question was always 'woolly' and only served to put me off more. I mean, all this 'programming' they talked about, what would I want to do that for when I could be doing something in the real world like fixing an old radio or TV?! What was the point of 'programming'?! It just seemed like some brain numbing, laborious task that I may have been asked to do in a maths or science lesson.

I eventually bit the bullet and got the Sinclair ZX door wedge with 1k of RAM. I got an old black and white tele and set it up. The only thing I did with it was play that daft tennis game. Great, not. I just wasn't 'getting' the computer thing. I mean, now we have the internet and I'm 'on the computer' for hours every day (still scared to death of apps and updates), but back then, what did people do with them?!

And that's my question, what practical and interesting uses did people use those early personal computers for? What have I missed?!

[Ted Kendall]

After a bruising encounter with software at university, I gave computers a wide berth until Sadie came along and enabled me to edit digital audio without the cost and mind-numbing stress of using a Sony U-matic editor. So the first computer I bought was a 486/33, and that because I had a job for it to do, not the other way round. Said Sadie did me proud in various incarnations until a lightning strike nixed it in 2004, and I went onto Sadie 5.

[paulsherwin]

You are right to be skeptical. There was a widely held belief in the 80s that home computers were somehow 'important' and that everybody should go out and buy one, even though they were largely useless for most people. This belief was particularly widely held in the media and school system. IT professionals pointed out that writing a simple BASIC program or running a crude computer game was completely unrelated to real world computing, but nobody listened.

Of course, a few people really did enjoy playing around with microprocessor hardware and low level software, purely for its own sake.

[Andrew2]

Same as you, Stevehertz - always electronics (especially radio) and no real interest in home computers. However, being a Sinclair fan from the days of the Micro-6 etc I was a little intrigued by his new ZX81.
It was cheap and I thought it might be fun. If it turned out not to be, I wouldn't have lost much.
I was hooked almost straight away. By typing in a few well-chosen BASIC instructions, I found I could do all sorts of things!
I even built an address decoder which hung on the rear edge connector, which enabled a bit of hardware control.
Then came the Mighty BBC Model B! The same, but with with a better Basic, proper keyboard, much faster and mo' powerful.
Sadly, the ubiquitous PC seems to have drained all the interest out of me now, and I just regard it as something to type on and run my SDR radios.

[stevehertz]

Originally Posted by Andrew2

Same as you, Stevehertz - always electronics (especially radio) and no real interest in home computers. However, being a Sinclair fan from the days of the Micro-6 etc I was a little intrigued by his new ZX81.
It was cheap and I thought it might be fun. If it turned out not to be, I wouldn't have lost much.
I was hooked almost straight away. By typing in a few well-chosen BASIC instructions, I found I could do all sorts of things!
I even built an address decoder which hung on the rear edge connector, which enabled a bit of hardware control.
Then came the Mighty BBC Model B! The same, but with with a better Basic, proper keyboard, much faster and mo' powerful.
Sadly, the ubiquitous PC seems to have drained all the interest out of me now, and I just regard it as something to type on and run my SDR radios.

(laughs) there you go, it can you 'anything'! No doubt to my own shame, I'm clueless about the stuff you mention there (in bold). It all seems a million miles away from me and my life. Yep, perhaps I'm the sad one!

I'm convinced a lot of interest back then was interest for interest's sake. But I still await to be proven wrong.

[G6ONEDave]

My partner bought the ZX81 back in the day, she had done computer programming at teacher training college and wanted to see if she could write programs that worked. One program that she wrote was to calculate the value of capacitors and inductors for use in pi tank circuits at specific frequencies. You could also input a given value and it told you the frequency. I remember once it was set up to work out a range of values and we went out that night,leaving it to do the maths, praying that the ram pack did not wobble, as that crashed the program. Luckily all was good when we returned, of course now all you need to do is go to a web page to do any sort of calculation.

[SiriusHardware]

I'm more on the fence here. My first 'computer' was nothing more than a microprocessor 'trainer' or evaluation PCB and almost the only thing you could do with it was understand it, program it and see that your program was running. It had 16+ lines of digital I/O so I did actually use it as the basis of quite a few temporary hardware projects, much as I would use an Arduino for the same purpose now.

Each successive machine was a little bit more powerful, but they only became really useful when mass storage (Floppy Disc and then HDD) became the norm.

That said, every single machine, even the earliest one, taught me things which I still understand and use today in my job and in my hobby. I happened not to go down the software / coding career route, which with hindsight was a shame because I had such an early start: But there seem to be plenty of software industry figures who say they started off with an MK14, a ZX80, a ZX81 or Spectrum.

Once you understand the concept of programming / flow control etc, that stays with you forever. The programming languages change every now and again but the general idea does not.

[electronicskip]

I was in the Electronics retail industry when computers first really burst onto the consumer big time.

My recollection of it was kids dragging their parents into the shop to buy them a Sinclair Spectrum/Commodore VIC20/64 Texas TI99/4a for "educational" purposes when in reality they just wanted to play games on them .

I must have sold literally 1000s of them over that time .

[jjl]

I've been interested in electronics since I was a toddler and in the late '70s became interested in digital electronics and then the mysterious microprocessor.

As soon as my secondary school got its first Research Machines 380Z microcomputer in 1979 I knew that I had to use it, work out what made it tick etc. I learned BASIC, then Z80 machine code, then proper Z80 assembly language. I wrote a couple of games, but was more interested in solving the problem of making them work to my satisfaction than playing them. I designed an EPROM programmer for a friend to allow him to copy EPROMs used in the microprocessor based cash machines his company supplied.

This led to further and higher education in computing and electronics and to a 35 year and counting career in software, electronics and systems engineering.
For me, being curious about microprocessors and seeing them as programmable electronics was very important.

John

[TonyDuell]

I am perhaps the oddity in that while my first computer was an MK14, I've been enjoying them ever since, I am not a programmer. I do not enjoy programming. To me, a computer is an interesting bit of electronic circuitry..

But I think the Subject: question can be answered by asking another question. 'What is a record player for?'. You can make all sorts of comments, but ultimately people bought record players because they enjoyed listening to the music. Not everybody enjoys that, not everbody bought a record player.

So the ultimate reason for the early home micros was that people enjoyed them. Whether it was playing games, writing programs or (in my case) interfacing them to small motors, lamps, switches, etc, they were 'fun'. Not useful in many senses, but they don't have to be.

I still restore and tinker with such machines. OK it's useless really. There is nothing important about seqeuncing some LEDs using a PERQ. But it's no more useless than solving crossword puzzles, making steam engines, restoring old radios, or any other hobby. A hobby doesn't have to be useful _other than providing the participant with pleasure_. And such computers certainly do that for me.


I do feel too that everybody should learn the concepts of programming. Not because they are going to become programmers, but because it teaches you how to analyse a problem, break it down into simpler steps. That skill is useful in many areas.


Now I own 2 classes of computers. The majority are old -- TRS80s, BBC Micros, PDP11s, VAXen, PERQs, etc, etc, etc. I understand how they work. I can program them (even if I don't much enjoy it, I'll leave that to others). I can interface them. They give me a lot of pleasure. And there's the PC I am typing this on. I do not understand it. I can't even begin to program it. And I certainly can't interface it (I read the USB spec once and gave up). It's a tool. It gets me on the forum. It lets me download data sheets and service manuals. But it's not 'pleasure'.

[Hartley118]

The ZX81 was completely justified by the terrifying excitement of "3D Monster Maze"!

In a way, the foibles and limitations of the ZX81 made it a very interesting machine for hobbyists. Remember all those magazines that published software programs to do interesing stuff? Typing the program into your computer was never error-free and quickly introduced the hobbyist to debugging.

With the accessible ZX81 address and data buses, one could readily design input and output ports to do useful things like responding to contact closures and operating relays - not unlike today's Raspberry Pi. As John (jjl) says, a whole generation of today's computer engineers started that way.

I agree that the BBC Micro was the first serious machine. Its ability to switch seamlessly between BASIC and 6502 assembly language was unique and enabled both hobbyists and professional designers to do serious stuff. I recall visiting the Engineering Department of Cambridge University when we introduced the British Library to them to design the noise reduction technology that became Cedar. Those early matched filters were run on the BBC Micro because it was more useful and more flexible than the University mainframe.

My regret about the PC is that, compared with the BBC Micro, its 'guts', both hardware and software, are much less accessible, making it less interesting for the hobbyist. Fortunately, the Raspberry Pi has come along to fill the gap.

Martin

What for... Getting that generation interested in them and producing what are now the modern "useful" computers. Those first affordable machines, Acorn Atom, BBC, Sinclairs ZX80/81 and others were quite simple (compared to modern stuff) and worked. I still have a soft spot for the Acorn Atom, it had BASIC with in line assembler (just like the BBC) and I still have the various addresses and hardware bits stuck in my head.

Most people played games on them though.

[GrimJosef]

I started as a graduate student in 1980 and quickly discovered that 'home' computers could also be re-purposed as useful tools around the lab. My research group had a very expensive vidicon camera with an intensifier on the front and I was lucky enough to have this piece of kit allocated to my project with the aim of capturing optical spectra. It came with a dedicated control box and a keyboard+monitor interface. Unfortunately that system was very inflexible, limiting the data acquisition rate and the dynamic adjustment of camera parameters. So in due course I shelved it and taught myself to program a BBC Micro to do the job the way I wanted it done. To get the speed up I had to write quite a bit of machine code. During the debugging I remember borrowing a piece of kit which literally clipped onto the processor and allowed me to step through my code watching things change as I did so. It felt almost miraculous at the time.

Cheers,

GJ

[Dave Moll]

Ok, so here's my twopenneth.

When I bought my first computer, a BBC Micro, my working life consisted of programming IBM mainframe computers (370s for anyone interested), so my primary interest for the home computer was writing programs - and I was more interested in exploring the functions available rather than getting it to achieve something useful in the outside world.

Beyond this, I seem to recall that I soon found it useful as a word processor before branching off into such areas as accessing Teletext (including telesoftware until that was withdrawn) and online bulletin boards - using a 300BPS modem.

Bulletin boards in later years, after migrating first to DOS then Windows, were replaced by internet and email, but word processing continues to be a major part of my computer usage, along with spreadsheets (the latter not being well-supported on the BBC Micro).

I could probably bore to Olympic standard on all the secondary uses I found for computers over the years, but I will leave it at that for the time being.

[Junk Box Nick]

My first experience with computers was in 1975. I did a bit of primitive CAD which seemed laborious having to make punched cards, etc., when I could use a Rotring pen and a parallel motion drawing board. I set up a few routines to do calculations on punched tape, but not long afterwards a calculator with scientific functions appeared.

About 1980 a friend bought a Sinclair ZX-summat-or-other and was soon in its thrall. We played Pac-man and The Hobbit. Pac-man was fun for five minutes but The Hobbit was a drag having to type in instructions and watch as a static graphic appeared. There was also a game about running the economy. My attempt resulted in rioting on the streets and complete social breakdown. (Not long after we had rioting on the streets - perhaps I missed my vocation and should have gone into politics.) I disliked the ZX's small rubbery keyboard - you had to be a contortionist with your fingers to play some games - and I could see little practical use for the tiny foil printer and I wasn't interested in staying in when there were hobbies and pastimes that were more hands-on and social. (I already had my ham licence and that was 'nerdy' enough and I decided that I didn't want to be seen as a nerd.)

What I realised about my friend was that he was a 'gadget man'. He was very useful to know because he would get into these things and then would have to acquire better. I think he might have ended up with an Apricot or a BBC computer. In the meantime he also got into photography and hi-fi but as he journeyed I gained some of his perfectly acceptable for Mr Average cast-offs at good prices!

My first computer was an Amstrad PCW 8256 - this would be 1985 and at this point I was working for myself. It seemed a proper machine that could save me lots of time taking the legwork out of laborious tasks. There at last seemed some point in having a computer. My gadget man friend's workplace got a Mac - the first I'd seen - possibly a Plus with a tiny screen - and it was then that I realised the world of work was changing big time.

However, I have always found computers very clinical items and have always preferred things that have glowing valves or moving parts you can look inside and tinker with and see results of your handywork.

I've always been a user rather than a programmer and the only time I've really enjoyed messing with the guts of a computer is when I have found some way of souping up an ageing machine by changing a processor, etc., and somehow beating the planned obsolescence system!

[fetteler]

Originally Posted by stevehertz

....And that's my question, what practical and interesting uses did people use those early personal computers for? What have I missed?!

Our BBC micro was used variously for graph plotting, data logging music composition writing a batchelor's thesis and then a master's thesis - just off the top of my head.
There was also the pure fun of just writing stuff for it.
Steve

[duncanlowe]

Well, it has served me well over the years. I've been involved for may years and learned a lot though I am NOT a software Engineer.

First experience was with a Commodore PET in the late seventies, and then a TRS80 (which myself and a friend broke). But fairly quickly I learned about limitations with user interaction. I was asked to do a programme that would take user input to collate survey data and do some very basic analysis (averaging really) on the input. The user inputting the data had been working for a couple of hours before accidentally hitting a letter key rather than a number, and the underlying basic interpreter didn't like it giving it's standard response 'REDO FROM START' which I can assure you didn't go down well.

So as well as a simple introduction to computing and simple programming, it was an excellent introduction to user interfaces and how they can be good or bad.

That has seen me well, having moved on to what I used to do for a job. Both creating basic software, mostly in a very specific language called CAPL based on 'C', but also understanding and testing system interactions in complex CAN, LIN and similar networked systems where the key is how the software in the individual nodes interacts.

Now that's a long way from me and my schoolfriend trying to create a very poor computer game where you had to avoid grobblie holes,that broke the school TRS80. But the computers of the day, certainly made me.

Oh, and to the OP, it's interesting how close we are, I'm just a couple of miles up the A51.

[Electronpusher0]

Originally Posted by GrimJosef

I started as a graduate student in 1980 and quickly discovered that 'home' computers could also be re-purposed as useful tools around the lab.

In one of my early jobs we used Dragon 64s as test beds to debug 6809 code for automatic cable harness testers.

Peter

[emeritus]

I moved from a ZX81 to an Amstrad PCW8256 (subsequently upgraded to 512k memory, second internal drive and an external 3 1/2" drive). I did occasionally use it for work in a couple of occasions when it could do things that our office PCs couldn't. One was processing the downloaded results of lengthy database searches (this was in pre-internet days) so that each record started on a new page. I noticed that each record was preceded by two carriage returns and a space, which sequence appeared no-where else, so it should have been possible to use "Search and Replace" to replace this sequence by a form feed. The trouble was that the word processor we were then using (Lotus Manuscript) could find a form feed, but could not insert one. I took a copy of a file home and did the replacements on the PCW to check it worked, and it did. Until a word processor was found that did do what we needed, I used to process the files on my home PCW.

The other thing was running a program that was supposed to model the operation of a transmitter that was the subject of legal proceedings. The program, which had been written by the other side's expert, was in GW Basic, and as all our office PCs had recently been replaced, none had a copy of Basic, so we couldn't check its accuracy. I took a copy home on a floppy and, after converting a couple of commands, sucessfully ran the program using the PCW's Basic.

[Aub]

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