Olde Skool Tech

All these “Throwback” and “Flashback” days on social media sites got me thinking about the technology I had growing up. Here’s some of the very first tech that I personally used back in the 70’s and 80’s. Click on any of the images for a larger view.

If you’ve got some fond tech memories, please add your comments at the bottom.

Enjoy!

TI-30 LED Calculator
Ah, you never forget your first… Got this for Christmas one year from my parents:

Texas Instruments TI-30 LED Calculator

Honeywell JR-01
This was a build-it-yourself “computer”. Had plugs, cables, sliders and indicator lights to teach binary math, logic and more:

Honeywell JR-01 Computer

Atari 2600
The first real game system I owned. Played the games on your television:

Atari 2600 Game Console

Atari 800
With an amazing 16K of memory (yes, 16K), this little gem actually got me my first job in programming! Ran the Basic language, and had some other cartridge games as well:

Atari 800 Computer

Imsai 8080
My high-school computer science class actually built this computer from the parts up. Great way to learn the mechanics of it all. The end product was a great tool for teaching programming:

Imsai 8080 Computer

Atari 1040ST
A more advanced version of my old 800, this one had better graphics, optional hard disk, additional languages and programs:

Atari 1040ST Computer

Vectrex Game System
Unique in the game console world, this gem had a vector graphic display. Instead of pixels (little dots), it drew straight lines to form pictures. Only one color, but had plastic color overlays that made it like a real tiny arcade system. Wasted hours on this!:

Vectrex Game System

Casio H104 Melody Watch
Smart Watch? Sure! We had ’em! The Casio H104 Melody Watch played 12 different songs… AND SHOWED THE NOTES! 7 daily alarms, plus extra songs for special occasions like birthday, Christmas and New Years:

Casio H104 Melody Watch

Altos 586
When I entered the business world, the Altos 586 was one of the top Unix-based multi-user systems. It did things that room-sized computers used to do only a decade prior:

Altos 586 Multi-User Computer

IBM PC
The original. Two 5.25″ floppy drives. No hard drive. MS-Dos. One color screen. No graphics. Yeah, we had it going on:

IBM PC Computer

Osborne-1
The first “Transportable” computer. Weighed in at 25+ pounds. I remember lugging one of these through the airport:

Osborne 1 Transportable Computer

IBM PS2
The PS2 was IBM’s newest and greatest computer of the day. Even came with a hard drive, mouse and Windows. Livin’ large:

IBM PS2 Computer

I’ll end the nostalgic journey here. At this point in history, many other manufacturers were producing IBM PC clones, and Apple was out in full swing also. The age of personal computers was well under way.

Easy to forget how far we’ve come, when many of us have smart phones that are exponentially more powerful than the computers that NASA used to put men on the moon…