Daily writing prompt

Write about your first computer.

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We got it with some help from a program at the place I worked, sometime in 1990 or maybe early 1991. The system included a CRT monitor, which sat atop the small CPU, which sat on the desktop; a keyboard and mouse, and we sprung for a dot matrix printer. I can’t remember the basic specs– RAM and hard drive space, etc.– but they likely were measured in kilobytes. The monitor measured 10 inches diagonally, maybe a bit more, with an amber tint.

It was quite expensive, relative to what we can get today for 1/4 of the price, thus the reason for the financial help from the program at work. We should have held onto everything– might be worth something as an antique. It got us through 4 years of seminary and into 1996, I think, when we awaited the arrival of a big box decorated in a black and white cow motif.

Daily writing prompt

Write about your first computer.

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A step up from a Commodore 64, I guess, a bit before Apple and Gateway and the rest really exploded onto the scene, or were within reach of our pocketbook.

It was the late ’80s, maybe 1990, and the thing was pieced together with the advice of a friend who had some knowledge of what to us was a whole new wondrous technology. The CPU was housed in a rectangular, low-rise box, kilobytes of storage, a dot matrix printer that used paper with the perforated guideholes on either side, a tiny CRT with amber text. I can’t remember if this one had internet capability. If it did, it was dial up modem. And by today’s standards, it was relatively expensive.

Primitive beginnings, but there was no going back.