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Post by simnettpratt on Mar 23, 2019 22:11:01 GMT -5
This old ad for a Commodore 64 would not fly today, but it's too awesome not to share.
Pleasing brown color! Sorry everyone, back to pipes  |
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Post by roadsdiverged on Mar 23, 2019 22:22:12 GMT -5
1MHz CPU... man have times changed!
Pleasing brown?... hahaha
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mpuffington
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Post by mpuffington on Mar 23, 2019 22:37:54 GMT -5
There was a computer in the ad? I must have missed it.
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Post by puffy on Mar 23, 2019 22:44:45 GMT -5
Dear Santa..I've been a good boy.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2019 23:15:17 GMT -5
I had one of those but moved up to the power of the mighty Intel 386. Sign in get coffee and return to a booted machine talk about fast.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2019 23:37:21 GMT -5
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Post by simnettpratt on Mar 24, 2019 0:28:05 GMT -5
That's awesome. I remember when we upgraded our four TRS-80s from 4K of RAM to 16K. If I remember right, each 16K module was $100. The following week, you could get them from China for $4.95. You could also brick a TRS-80 with the ping of death.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2019 2:52:35 GMT -5
My Commodore 64 arrived incomplete, I want my money back! Don’t you miss your 💾 ‘s with 1.44 megabytes of storage, those Zip drives at the time was a BIG jump for mankind 👍
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Post by simnettpratt on Mar 24, 2019 3:22:25 GMT -5
The 1.44 floppy. The technology that wouldn't die. Was actually a significant improvement over the 5¼" floppy. My TRS-80 still used CLOAD. It was great; you'd buy the computer then have to write your own dadgum software in BASIC.
The mayor's office of my small town bought TRS-80s to automate sending everyone's sewer, water and gas bills - they had been doing it by hand, with a big paper spreadsheet and typewriters. They had me write the program to calculate everyone's bill and print the envelope on their dot matrix printer. I didn't hide secret code to lower our bill, but I figured out how I'd do it. Would have gotten clean away with it, too  Asked for $25 bucks, and they were so happy they paid me $50. Heck, taxpayer money, they didn't care. I'm sure in 1980 or 81 that was the most money I'd ever had. |
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Post by Darin on Mar 24, 2019 7:42:32 GMT -5
It ain't plugged in, I reckon ... Mmm-hmmm. My first computer was the TI-99 from Texas Instruments but the pleasing brown color lured me to the C64 soon enough. |
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Post by simnettpratt on Mar 24, 2019 8:39:43 GMT -5
I moved from the TRS-80s to a green screen Apple IIe. Worked for a company that would sell you a computer and write custom software for you. I wrote a program for a builder that would estimate the cost of a new house - ok, what if we take out the expensive bay windows and put in regular ones, now how much would it cost? We sold that crummy BASIC prog to him for $1,000, plus the price of the IIe. I still feel bad about that.
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Post by Cramptholomew on Mar 24, 2019 8:51:26 GMT -5
I moved from the TRS-80s to a green screen Apple IIe. Worked for a company that would sell you a computer and write custom software for you. I wrote a program for a builder that would estimate the cost of a new house - ok, what if we take out the expensive bay windows and put in regular ones, now how much would it cost? We sold that crummy BASIC prog to him for $1,000, plus the price of the IIe. I still feel bad about that. Why? That sounds like he got a sweet deal! $1000 for a custom app? You should go back in time and charge him today's prices |
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Post by Cramptholomew on Mar 24, 2019 8:54:03 GMT -5
I only like pleasing brown colored computers. Discriminating tastes... It looks pre-tinted with cigarette smoke. All the work's been done for you already!
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Post by trailboss on Mar 24, 2019 9:21:13 GMT -5
My computer never had the booty feature, mine came later with a constant re-boot feature.
Nowhere near as appealing.
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Post by Legend Lover on Mar 24, 2019 11:54:19 GMT -5
My computer never had the booty feature, mine came later with a constant re-boot feature. Nowhere near as appealing. on form as usual, my friend. Times have changed in many many ways. |
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Post by simnettpratt on Mar 24, 2019 12:38:55 GMT -5
Well, that was the going price back then. When you consider the huge team of designers, coders, artists, writers, marketing and support staff it takes now to make the latest COD or Tomb Raider that you buy for $50, I still feel a little guilty. It was the only thing his computer could do.
At least it was a pleasing brown color.
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Post by Cramptholomew on Mar 24, 2019 13:46:13 GMT -5
Well, that was the going price back then. When you consider the huge team of designers, coders, artists, writers, marketing and support staff it takes now to make the latest COD or Tomb Raider that you buy for $50, I still feel a little guilty. It was the only thing his computer could do.
At least it was a pleasing brown color.
At least. Hahahaha Man! They keys were brown too! What the heck?! |
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Post by trailboss on Mar 24, 2019 14:32:37 GMT -5
My first computer, I really got taken and learned a hard lesson on being an ignorant consumer in electronics.
It was a downtown independent store, the guy told me he would fix me up with a great computer for $1,500... it was cobbled together from office salvages....It was a windows based computer and an Apple monitor... the programs were free shareware for antivirus, etc...
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Post by simnettpratt on Mar 24, 2019 15:32:22 GMT -5
My first 'computer' was in 1973 and it could add, subtract, divide and multiply. The best game you could play on it was spelling boobies upside down.
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Post by simnettpratt on Mar 24, 2019 15:34:52 GMT -5
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graybeard68
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Post by graybeard68 on Mar 24, 2019 15:35:12 GMT -5
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Post by kb7get on Mar 24, 2019 17:59:33 GMT -5
I had one of those but moved up to the power of the mighty Intel 386. Sign in get coffee and return to a booted machine talk about fast. |
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Post by unknownpipesmoker on Mar 24, 2019 18:20:53 GMT -5
Well basically every single computer was beige at that time. It was like Ford in the old days, you could decide between black or black. Because of this, brown was a pretty big deal. Was this ad in Playboy, by chance?
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Asked for $25 bucks, and they were so happy they paid me $50. Heck, taxpayer money, they didn't care. I'm sure in 1980 or 81 that was the most money I'd ever had.
