Surfin' With The Fintstones : The Internet & Computers Circa 1984
George Corneliussen
The technology that we now know as the Internet had its beginnings in the early 1960's. Mostly confined to military applications under the name ARPANET ( Arpanet was the network that became the basis of the Internet. Based on a concept first published in 1967, Arpanet was developed under the direction of the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). In 1969 the modern-day Internet became a modest reality when four university computers interconnected via phone lines )
It wasn't until 1983 that what we now know as the modern Internet began to evolve. In 1984, the "domain name" (.com, .org., .edu, etc.) was created and "Internet surfing" was born.
Today, as we routinely throw our "old" computers away, the ones with only a 1 to 10 gig hard drive, 250k of memory, and a 350 hz processor, we seldom think of the time just twenty-two years ago when the space age had arrived and we were eager to plug in and take command using the machines that were the marvel of modern-day science. ( the days, by the way, when Bill Gates wasn't even in the ballgame, let alone a star player. )
Here for your edification are the actual players of the day in all their glory including specs, prices, and performance reviews. Let the groans begins.
Quote From Consumer Reports, November 1984 ( Vol. 49, No. 11 )
" Some computers are sold as "bundled" systems. They include all the bits and pieces of hardware you need to start computing; they often include software, too. The IBM PCjr. and Apple IIc are unbundled - but to different degrees.
To use these computers for anything other than games and education programs, you'll need a monitor, a printer, and, for the IBM, cables to plug all the gear together and into the wall outlet."
" IBM did not introduce its personal computer until 1981, but when it did, it revolutionized the business end of the personal-computer market. In office equipment, the IBM name alone was enough to establish a de facto standard in an industry crying out for standards. A host of me-too competitors quickly capitalized on the IBM entry, and the expression "IBM compatible" entered everyday use."
IBM PCjr:
Basic computer : $999
Standard features: built-in disk drive with 128k memory
Optional equipment: RF modulator ( allows TV to be used as monitor ) $30 / monochrome monitor $150 / color monitor $ 300 / high-resolution color monitor $600 / monitor cable $20 / printer $500 / parallel printer adapter $99 / DOS operating system $65
Basic Specs:
CPU: Intel 8088 MHz
Memory: 64K expandable to 128K via a card in a dedicated slot.
Operating system: IBM PC -DOS 2.10
Input/Output: cassette port, lightpen port, two joystick ports, RGB monitor port, composite video port, television adapter output port, audio port, wired keyboard port, infrared keyboard sensor, serial port, two cartridge slots
Expandability: 3 internal slots, dedicated to PCjr specific memory, modem
Video:Motorola 6845, "CGA Plus"
Text modes: 40x25, 80x25, 16 colors
Graphics modes: 320x200x4, 640x480x2, 160x100x16, 160x200x16, 320x200x16, 640x200x4
Video memory is shared with the first 128K of system memory, and can be as small as 2K and as large as 96K.
Sound: Texas Instruments SN76496: three voices, 16 independent volume levels per channel, white noise
Storage: Optional 5.25 inch diskette drive or cassette:
Apple IIc:
Basic computer: $1200
Standard features: built-in disk drive 140k memory
Optional equipment: monochrome monitor $238 / basic printer $300 / Image Writer printer $500 / printer cable $20
Basic Specs :
Microprocessor
65C02 running at 1.023 MHz
8-bit data bus
Memory
128K RAM built-in
32K ROM built-in (16K ROM in original)
Expandable from 128K to 1 MB (only through non-conventional methods in original)
Video
40 and 80 columns text, with 24 lines
Low-Resolution: 40x48 (16 colors)
High-Resolution: 280x192 (6 colors)
Double-Low-Resolution: 80x48 (16 colors)
Double-High-Resolution: 560x192 (16 colors)
Audio
Built-in speaker; 1-bit toggling
User adjustable volume (manual dial control)
Built-in storage
Slim-line internal 5.25 floppy drive
140K, single-sided
In 1984 these were the top of the mountain, as far as computers went. Based on these types of computers, the future was predicted to be one of super-innovation based on super-intelligence. Today, the best of them are fancy paperweights.
In 1984, the IBM PC Jr. was marketed as the Cadillac of computers, it sold like an Edsel.
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Comments: 71
" Faster than speeding loco-motive "
My first PC of my own was an Apple IIe, nowhere near as good as the IBM mom had upgraded to. I was trying to write a novel on the IIe and had to reload the program floppy disk, then insert the disk I was saving on, every page or so. Speaking of slow...
I wonder how many of us still see that dim green monitor glow when we close our eyes and think 80's.
I can just hear the theme song from "2001" playing as you and your coworkers fire up a hot game of "pong" on that thing ( the game would be in slow motion of course ).
Here goes my "re-comment" after a Gather-oops technical deletion. I think last night I was tripping on 1984 and that other George, you know George Orwell and his great book "1984." Then I got lost in some harmonic convergence of Orwellian IBM-XTs and where we are today...and I said stuff like "through a prescient lens Orwell saw..", you know real cool spacy things. But then the cieling sarted to spin and my mouse became my hand and 1984 was 22 years ago so....so what?
Whoa, it is hard to reconstruct those late night comments but I loved this article for the time bending experience.
Cheers,
Colonel Possum
1983 was the first year I ever touched a computer. I worked as an executive assistant for a civil engineer, and had to teach myself to use the MacIntosh Lisa he had in the office. My daughter was born in March of '84 and my husband (at the time) and I started a business that year.
I did all our marketing and the books manually and begged him to get a computer. It took a while to convince him, but he finally relented and we got an Apple IIe!
Thanks for another stroll down memory lane!
I love how in 1984 we laughed at the vision of the future we had in the 1950's and now we laugh at the vision of the future we had in the 1980's. To those who say the future is nothing to laugh about, I say. " Oh, really ? "
" What next?"
I'm thinkin' an expose on the literary value of schedule listings in TV Guide-type publications.
Last year on "Antiques Roadshow" someone brought in an early 80's Apple computer that was signed by Steve Wozniak ( he used a black magic marker ). It was valued at $2500. The appraiser said if they could prove Wozniak had actually used the computer, it's value would jump to the $3,000 to $5,000 range.
I wonder if in the future computer nerds will comb through old barns in the countryside looking for old DOS and pre-DOS computers that are up on blocks, the way motorheads search for old Model T's ?
Right on! Kathryn & George, I was in Bank of America yesterday changing a CD account and was shocked to see that their program for doing such things is STILL DOS-based! Talk about conservative, incremental change - Phew! (Also took about 5 minutes to print out interest rates du jour)
Cheers,
Colonel Possum
Yeah, but did your printout come on perforated paper ?
If you can find a use for it and you have the room, don't throw it out. I know others who use their old Mac Classic as a recipe catalog in the kitchen or even have converted non-working units into "Macquariums." I also have begun collecting Atari 2600 cartridges again. These cheezy games are a lot of fun. I don't think anyone has yet invented a game more fun than Breakout (well, maybe super-breakout.) These retro machines bring back a lot of memories. I remember dialing up to bulletin boards on my Commodore 64 and modems with acoustic couplers where you actually put the telephone handset into the unit. Also my Dad and I were ham radio operators. He built a circuit and I wrote a program for the Vic-20 which could read and transmit morse code over the radio. Man, that was high-tech. Next we connected the C-64 to the transmitter for "packet-radio" which was like the internet but over radio waves. Those were the days.
I'm with you . When you don't know you have a little to work with, you can get all kinds of impressive results.
I share many of your views. I also have a home studio. I have a Mirage 8 bit sampling keyboard that I absolutely love and and a Korg Poly 61M that is too cool to believe.
I also have a late 70's Moog that still has the production slip inside of it. Unfortunately most of it has biodegraed inside.
He would've bought the commodore pet, but it had square keys, and he wanted the normal keyboard... If he had just waited, they came out within the next few months... oh, the memories...
He had also signed he and I up for basic classes at a local school, that used shared time on an HP9000 in a nearby larger city... wow... I would do
it all again, but probably pay more attention...
thanks for stiring up all the old memories!!!
I'll tell on myself though. I was married to a gearhead/CPA who bought home his first Apple in 1983. I sneered at his Maze games, but when he wasn't home, I taught myself how to play a game or two of my own. He'd be astonished to see this post.
Um we actually used an Atari 800 in our first business and on the farm, complete with a stack of 4 floppy drives, and a tape recorder for some programs, and a tv for a monitor. There were word processing programs for it and a payroll program and a spread sheet. We paid a programmer to write some job costing and purchasing programs. The children often came to the office(right out the back door of the house) to play pac-man, brick-out and star something while I did the telephoning and other paperwork. Our first dot matrix printer cost $1500, and when hot would print backwards, I still laugh about that.
Our first real computer was Apple IIe, then an IBM clone. News was always a problem in our rural area, I signed up for Prodigy so I could read the news when I wanted to, The big event, the first Gulf War.
I now use only a notebook and I love wireless when traveling.
You have again provided us with a touchstone into shared memories.
Gisela, I agree with you about that nasty carbon paper!
Dan how lucky for you that your Dad was technical.
Thanks, but does it compute ?
I wonder if a computer museum exists anywhere ? Wouldn't it be cool to visit a place where all these old machines were up and running and all the "extras" were on display.
Those wonderful days when a piece of hardware made going to work fun.
" I taught myself how to play a game or two of my own. " I wonder what the average video game playing kid of today would think of those old games ? I have a feeling they'd like them a lot more than anyone would think.
How cool that you and your guru have been co-computing for over 23 years !
" Where will we be in 20 years! "
Answer: Our great-grandkids will be telling us about this cool new computer game called "Pac Man".
What a great snapshot of your prehistoric computer age ! How you gonna keep em down on the farm ? Why with Pac man of course .
All fun to remember.
Thanks!
Isn't it interesting that through all these changes, the basic computer keyboard has pretty much stayed the same. I use a 1993 Silicon Graphics "Granite Keyboard" to type on because it has nice big easy to read letters on the keys and it looks and feels very much like a typewriter.
This thirteen year-old keyboard works fine, as a matter of fact the page up and page down buttons are very fast.
The progress made is amazing, now it's about time for the technology to start making a better world !
as the song Talk Show on Mute asks us to do!
When I was in junior high we had the first computer in the neighborhood. Well okay, we had the first VCR too. As you can see I was born into a family of early adopters (as was my husband) and I guess that's why we both work in technology.
The progress made is amazing, I agree! I just love the fact that when I started college I was the first one in my dorm to request internet access (at $14/month no one really knew what the hell I even had going on!). By the way my first home computer did go on to survive 3 semesters of college with those HUGE Kodak floppy disks. And it was a more peacful world when no one had cell phones. Then again in 1999 I got my first cell and with the 'company discount' it was only $11/month and worked just fine. In fact it worked better in Maine than the Cingular piece of crap I have here in 2006. :)
I love old computers. The software company I used to work for has a BAT (Build and Test) lab where they have a wide range of old computers running the software at all times to see what happens. Those lucky BAT engineers still get to deal w/ the old computers!
As I visit thrift stores in search of old records, I'm amazed at how many people are looking for old video games and old computer software. As a matter of fact, if I ever come across a decent Wndows 95 system, I just might get it just so I can run a few prorgams I really miss that won't run on XP.
PS: Tell your company to open a computer museum.
Thanks for the great pictures.
I'll bet you can turn up a system that will play your games for next to nothing at a thrift store or yard sale. Just bring one of your games with you when you go "shopping" and see if they work.
I've seen old DOS systems for around $25.
Wow, where are they now ? Talk about conversation pieces.
However, I learned to code on punched paper tape, then graduated to punched cards....
I still say the world is ready for a functional, hands -on, computer museum.
Your cardboard inserts would be at home as part of a display there.
And to think I started "computing" at the University of Cincinnati Computer Lab in the basement of the Admin Building keypunching stat assignments during my MBA program....lord, turn on the Way-Back machine...1975...
Ah...Nostalgia...
Bill
" Way-Back machine...1975.." How much room did the Way-Back machine take up ?
You wouldn't by any chance have any pictures of your 1966 computer room would you ? That would really be something to see.
"Remember all the excitement over Y2K?"
I have a video that is a "how to survive" the Y2K thing. One of these days I'll do an article on that video. It is a hoot.
About thirty years ago, there was a computer store in Boston that had old machines on view. They were amazingly big , and very interesting to look at.
Anyone else have a Zenith, a, uh, "luggable" computer (it was like a Kaypro... or the Osborne before that)?
Ah, the golden age of boat anchors.
Thanks for the drive down memory lane. Oh for the good old days of my 2400 baud modem.. I remember my 'upgrade' to 9600 baud vividly.. It was the first modem that could go faster that I could type! ;-)
lol
Fire-proof Apple ! Now there's a promo waiting to happen, with the song "Burnin' Down The House" as it's soundtrack.
I may have to hop on eBay and pick one up. Phone coupling modem anyone?
I really think a hands-on computer museum with working example of all these old dogs would be a huge draw.
take a peek at http://benchmarkcomputer.net
I remember playing Azrtec on my green monchrome screen, all of it ran off the 5 1/4 inch floppy it was sort of an Indiana Jones character searching for an idol in an Aztec Pyramid , all in 2-D and written in I think it was called Pro-DOS at the time, an Apple version of DOS
"I remember playing Azrtec on my green monchrome screen, all of it ran off the 5 1/4 inch floppy it was sort of an Indiana Jones character searching for an idol in an Aztec Pyramid , all in 2-D "
Sounds like someone could make a great rock video using this game's graphics.
The "BIG" beast of Aztec was a T-Rex that came shullfing out of the shadows from the right or left and the Indiana-esque Jone character hada whip that you used to beat him and the other dangers back with. I had to copy that game over and iover again onto other floppies , becasue each floppy would eventually wear out from use
Life was so much simpler in those green days .
Thanks for adding such an interesting tale to the conversation. Yours is a classic tale of how an individual can get the best and most out of something that was, no doubt, intended for the purpose you used it for by those who invented it.
http://www.dma.org/sigs.shtml#Classic
Great site ! Great in Dayton ! Computer classes for obsolete computers, how very cool !