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problem is going back later for the results and they've folded
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Wouldn't going to hospital in Las Vegas be the ultimate gamble?
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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What's the big deal?
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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well, getting crushed under a Vegas autonomous vehicles' tire's might just be the wheel of fortune. (for your lawyer)
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Casino future in line of thought!
Technician
1. A person that fixes stuff you can't.
2. One who does precision guesswork based on unreliable data provided by those of questionable knowledge.
JaxCoder.com
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In the late 70s and early 80s (that is 1970s/1980s) there was a big rush in the home computer market, that concludes in our time with computers everywhere...
I had some discussions about that time and was wondering...
* Was that really that good?
* What was so good (or bad) about it?
* Do we have it somewhere today?
* What is/was your C64?
I wasn't aware of it then (no other experience), but what is most amazing while looking back is the total control, the work without any mediator between you and the computer, between the software and the hardware (which was of course a source some interesting smell/smoke/noise)...
I could sit down after-school and within a few seconds was in the computer, hacking it away...
What is your experience?
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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My first machine was a Commodore 16 (Black & Grey) had it for a few years then upgraded(?) to a C64.
The C16 was interesting as it had pretty much the same inputs as the C64 just different shaped plugs!
The user port of that go me into Hardware where I am today! 
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My first computer was a ZX Spectrum 128K +2A, with the +2A meaning some games just didn't work because of the architecture; as opposed to those games that just didn't load for reasons, and those games that did work for 10 minutes then crashed hard.
My favourite games on that platform were the Dizzy series. Good times. 
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First machine was an Amiga 1000 (the original one); Dad got it for us (mostly me), it cost $5000 !!!
I wish I still has it.
I'd rather be phishing!
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Lucky so & so, many years later I had (have) an Amiga 500 & 1200 always lusted after a 1000, friend got one second hand as the 'Kickstart' was disk based you could 'upgrade it' much easier... memories of a summer...
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I was fortunate to start with a C64 moving onto Amiga 500, 1200 where I first had a 40Mb hard drive.
From there I was fortunate to work commercially with the Amiga 3000 for a few years and also I dabbled with the zx80, where myself and friend created some speech recognition using the tape port, it had a repertoire of 3 words only and with the memory expansion pack having a dodgy connection crashed often. My friend and I then linked this to the IO port and mains isolated switch to turn a light on and off using voice. It makes you wonder at the rapid progress at speech recognition in recent years.
Daren
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Quote: the memory expansion pack having a dodgy connection crashed often.
Did you not use the Clive Sinclair approved bodge of Blu Tack!
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Maximilien wrote: I wish I still has it.
But why? What was so good about it?
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: What was so good about it?
Imagine a multitasking windowed-OS, on 880Kb.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Like GEOS? I had that on 64Kb too 
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Very good (for the time) graphics, sound chip, motorola 68000, OS.
And there was a game on it that I really liked, The Four Crystals of Trazere - YouTube , I still think about it.
and others like Eye of the Beholder.
I'd rather be phishing!
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Maximilien wrote: Very good (for the time) graphics, sound chip,
The Ataris had an excellent chipset from the beginning, always ahead of their time.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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My first computer was a Commodore PET, with a whole 8K (!) of RAM. I used it to learn 6502 Assembly Language, and hand-assembled short routines to speed up some BASIC programs. I also remember calculating prime numbers, and calculating e to about 1,000 digits using multiple-precision arithmetic routines that I wrote.
A few years later, my father bought a "portable" IBM PC, which was upgraded with a 20MB hard disk to make an XT-compatible. This was built like a tank, and massed about 20kg, so it was more "luggable" than portable. We later added an 8087, which I used for a lot of my M.Sc. research (incomplete, unfortunately). It was much more cost-effecting than using the mainframe at the University...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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The first PC I worked on was PET 8K, which my high school acquired. Then we got a 16K! The tape drive on which we stored our work was amazing technology.
An insurance agent I dealt with had a luggable. He was tremendously proud of that thing, as he could do all his work while visiting your home. At the time, it was also amazing technology -- AND -- carrying it around eliminated the need to do regular workouts.
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Atari 400, 4k ram.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Good choice. Still have one sitting on the shelf, along with all the other Ataris.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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I had the Atari 400 as my first computer, tape drive that took 45 minutes to load a game, upgraded to the SS/SD 5.25 floppy which made things a whole lot easier.
I hacked together an external keyboard from an old teletype machine and a LOT wiring, and ribbon cables to get a "real" keyboard for it.
I spent so much money on that thing doing upgrades, wish I had that money right now.
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Atari 400 was my first, too. First program I wrote in BASIC, I ran out of memory. Upgraded to Atari 800 with 48K. I still have that one. Back in the day I would buy old game cartridges and unsolder the ROM and replace it with an EPROM and then burn games from magazines like A.N.A.L.O.G. to the EPROM. The EPROM burner plugged into the joystick ports of the Atari. My first foray into assembly language programming was with the Atari.
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Dick Smith in Australia put out a "Super 80" computer which was basically a Radio Shack TRS-80 model II knock off, but at less than half the price. Briefly owned one, smashed it to bits with a hammer (most fun I ever had with it) when I moved onto...
a Beeb (BBC Micro) with ISO Pascal ROM because BASIC was for weenies that couldn't write proper programs. (It was a real "structured language!")
after that briefly an "IBM-PC clone" - 8086, that was a real CPU with the huge 10MB HDD and 3.5" floppy (I mean 5MB just didn't cut it and 5 1/4 FDDs were just too, well, too floppy - not that they had anything on the flex of an 8".)
onto a celeron 386 (XP, multi tasking), i5 4650 (FreeBSD - Unix then win7 for doing work),
and now i5-8400 (linux because let's face it, win10 sucks and is a waste on a modern CPU)
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after that briefly an "IBM-PC clone" - 8086, that was a real CPU with the huge 10MB HDD and 3.5" floppy (I mean 5MB just didn't cut it and 5 1/4 FDDs were just too, well, too floppy - not that they had anything on the flex of an 8".)
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