It's Here; Put Away Your Pre-Conceptions on What an OS Must Be: Part II

In the last blog in this series, Traenk relates his first experiences with computers and with coding.  But now, some years have passed. . .

It's the early 80's.  I survived the Rag Shack (You've Got Questions; We've Got Shrugs) TRaSh 80 rebellion that would give you a personal computer for about $700 on up.  The Apple II was something making waves, but tonight!  We are working with a Timex Sinclair!

In scale, we've gone from a room of gear to a chiclet keypad the whole of which could be covered by a large donut.  Next to the keypad is a very large, very bulky 16K expansion unit, lovingly held to the computer with a series of rubber bands.  Programming it units me to those long ago days, but instead of hokey paper tape, we're working our code with a cassette tape storage unit.  Oh ya.  This was important!  Bump the expansion unit while trying to hit an obscure key, and erase and rewind was more than a song...

Later, there was an Atari 800XL and an Osbourne and lots of other stuff.  It was the 80's; computers were as numerous as variations on the Mullet hairstyle. 

In all cases, it was a lot of command line and a lot of long drawn out processes, just to write a paper.

jt