Plus ça change II
Posted by Charles Cameron on July 20th, 2011 (All posts by Charles Cameron)
[ cross-posted from Zenpundit ]
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My first computer, back in 1982, was an Osborne like the one depicted here — I have fond memories… it had no hard drive, just a 512k floppy, the CP/M operating system, WordStar word processing, green letters on a tiny black screen, no internet hookup — and I managed to co-write a book on the thing!
July 20th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
I had a PC in 1981 and used Wordstar. I gave my copy to my son as his law firm was trying to use some documents in Wordstar. Wordstar commands are also useful for writing SAS commands as they are almost identical. I found an article I wrote on Wordstar that was an expanded log of the 1981 Transpac Race. I have to retype it to copy it as I would never get Wordstar to run on a Mac.
July 20th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
…just a 512k floppy,
Luxury! We used to dream of having a floppy disk! We had a digital cassette recorder and we were grateful to have it!
July 20th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Michael Kennedy,
I can probably convert the file for you if you like.
July 20th, 2011 at 9:56 pm
The guy with the PPShon the bottom right reminds me of Tony Orlando. Even in Afghanistan, they had ’70s moustaches in the early1980s. These guys look relatively healthy, since their country only really started falling apart a few years before. Now the Afghans with guns look half-starved Commanches, with a really wild look in their eyes. That country has suffered a lot in thirty years.
July 20th, 2011 at 10:40 pm
The Hollywood, FL police department before they got the new uniforms.
July 20th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Tony Orlando reminds me of Little Richard.
July 22nd, 2011 at 5:29 am
I had an Osborne I, the S/N was around 2000, and it had 2 floppy disks of about 80KB or so, each. I would have killed for 512K.
Screen was 5.25″ white-on-black text only, and iirc, a 52×16 character window on an 80×25 character virtual screen (the standard at the time).
My wife did her Master’s thesis on it.
July 23rd, 2011 at 8:40 am
Don’t know about the computer, but the guy standing, second from right (in back of “Tony Orlando”) is a ringer for LBJ.
July 24th, 2011 at 2:25 am
Marty:
I would have killed for 512K.
Laughing — I guess mine must have been an Osborne II.
July 26th, 2011 at 10:49 pm
The Osbournes were SO ghetto. I had a Kaypro II with a 9″ screen. :-)