So you’re probably wondering how someone as old as I am can have anything useful to say about the newest technology. Well, I’ve been fortunate to have become involved at the very start of the microcomputer revolution. My initial foray into the microcomputing world was through an article in the August 1976 issue of Popular Electronics magazine. You can read more about that here.
After exhausting the very limited capabilities of the 1802 microprocessor, I was hungry for more. The local hobby shop had a few commercial microcomputers on display. I’m certain that names such as Altair, Imsai, and SWTP, will not be familiar to most readers
The IMSAI 8080 was considered to-of-the-line. It was the most attractive, reliable, and, of course, most expensive microcomputer.
The Altair 8080 was less expensive than the IMSAI, but it was also less reliable. Some units were prone to crashes, possibly due to crosstalk between wires on the wiring harness.
The SWTP 6800 was the least expensive microcomputer because it was a kit. I had lots of experience building electronic kits from Heathkit, so this unit was a no-brainer! I also liked the fact that the 6800 microprocessor had the capability of indirect addressing, whereas the 8080 did not (ok, that’s a bit too techie for this blog!)
You’ll notice that none of these computers had keyboards, a mouse, screens, or disk drives. In order to enter and run programs the user needed to obtain an I/O (Input/Output) device and build an interface between the computer and that device. My I/O device was an old 28ASR Teletype machine that I purchased for $25.00 from an old Navy ship that was being decommissioned.
Sometime in 1984 I purchased an Apple IIe from a large camera store in New York City. At the time the unit cost about $1,900 (approximately $6,000 in 2022 dollars.) It came with 64K of RAM (yes, that’s “K” as in Kilobyte!) and ran at a blazing 1.0 MHz. However, unlike earlier microcomputers, the Apple IIe had a built-in keyboard, a video output to drive a screen (max 80 characters wide), and a 5.25″ floppy disk drive for storage (expandable to two drives.)
My current computer (and there have been many in between) is a 2020 Apple MacBook Air with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD. Certainly not the most powerful in the Apple lineup, but I have yet to push it to its limits. I’ve used this computer for recording and editing podcasts and for rendering 4k video recordings. It has yet to get too warm.
Welcome To Mac 