[Steven W]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/185440591755

Screenshot 2022-06-05 5.15.54 PM.png (323.02 KiB) Viewed 18490 times

The sad thing is, even operable, it's basically a 55 pound paperweight.

[!]

"STARTS RIGHT UP!"

hahaha...

[Steven W]

"STARTS RIGHT UP!"

hahaha...

After several hours of coding, you can play your fav basic game! Find one of those oddball tape cartridges, you'll be able to save it!

Dear God! This, for those who don't know, was IBM's first "portable" computer. I suppose part of the "collectable-ness" of the thing has to do with internet lore:

https://psmag.com/environment/the-myste ... eler-57001

https://www.strangerdimensions.com/2011 ... -ibm-5100/

The IBM 5100 did, indeed, contain functionality that was hidden from the public. At a time when most computers could only support the BASIC programming language, the IBM 5100 had the ability to emulate programs in both BASIC for system/3 and APL for system/370 (the “system” in this case refers to IBM mainframes). According to Bob Dubke, one of the IBM 5100 engineers, this function was hidden “because of worries about how [IBM’s] competition might use it.”

I've read in other places that IBM didn't advertise the fact that this "portable" computer could handle APL was so that sales of IBM mainframes would remain unaffected.

[Steven W]

This got me thinking about what we were using when I was in high school. I had to do a little searching, but have decided that it had to be the really low-end IBM PS/2 model 25, (the monochrome model). You'd think that the powers-that-were then would have cheaped out all the way, but no. All the machines did have the added 3.5" diskette drive (they all had 2 diskette drives). Emphasis here, the things weren't new by the time I was using them. We had a class on using, get this, Microsoft Works 2.0 for DOS. Windows 3.0 would have been available then, but I imagine running it on those machines would have been awful without a hard drive. We were loading DOS and Works from a network. I do recall them booting relatively quickly. Less than a minute to be up and running Works. However, I recall being told the "network is out" one day and being handed a DOS boot diskette and a single diskette for Works and it taking over 5 minutes to get going I've actually been gratefully over the years for that class. It is rather remarkable to think how much using that software prepared me for using Microsoft Office later.

wks2.png (3.3 KiB) Viewed 18476 times

Works 2.0 for DOS - Editing.png (6.82 KiB) Viewed 18476 times

Drop-down menus, working with several items on the screen...

Note: The screenshots aren't mine. Also, try to imagine them in monochrome gloriousness. Yeah, I was also a keyboard-shortcut-using-kid.

[!]

This got me thinking about what we were using when I was in high school. I had to do a little searching, but have decided that it had to be the really low-end IBM PS/2 model 25, (the monochrome model). You'd think that the powers-that-were then would have cheaped out all the way, but no. All the machines did have the added 3.5" diskette drive (they all had 2 diskette drives). Emphasis here, the things weren't new by the time I was using them. We had a class on using, get this, Microsoft Works 2.0 for DOS. Windows 3.0 would have been available then, but I imagine running it on those machines would have been awful without a hard drive. We were loading DOS and Works from a network. I do recall them booting relatively quickly. Less than a minute to be up and running Works. However, I recall being told the "network is out" one day and being handed a DOS boot diskette and a single diskette for Works and it taking over 5 minutes to get going I've actually been gratefully over the years for that class. It is rather remarkable to think how much using that software prepared me for using Microsoft Office later.

wks2.png

Works 2.0 for DOS - Editing.png

Drop-down menus, working with several items on the screen...

Note: The screenshots aren't mine. Also, try to imagine them in monochrome gloriousness. Yeah, I was also a keyboard-shortcut-using-kid.

oh the memories these screenshots brings back to life in me i used to be great at basic, made Tetris and pacman game in it and other cool things. I'm talking 256 color with animations and all. My first PC was an IBM SX-25 with 1MB of RAM i think or maybe 2.

[Steven W]

oh the memories these screenshots brings back to life in me i used to be great at basic, made Tetris and pacman game in it and other cool things. I'm talking 256 color with animations and all. My first PC was an IBM SX-25 with 1MB of RAM i think or maybe 2.

Ooooh a 486! I remember writing stuff for the TRS-80 Coco 2. I may have mentioned before. I attempted to write a word processing program. And it looked really good, but when you go to print with it, if you had made a correction, the part you had 'deleted' would print and then the correction over top of it! That was the craziest thing I ever witnessed. The dot matrix printer from my Uncle's Tandy 1000 would 'work' with the Coco. I also recall using the TRS-80's joystick as a mouse for the Tandy 1000.

magic_I_tells_u.png (16.14 KiB) Viewed 18471 times

[Steven W]

https://archive.org/details/hdemudeskmate#reviews

[!]

oh the memories these screenshots brings back to life in me i used to be great at basic, made Tetris and pacman game in it and other cool things. I'm talking 256 color with animations and all. My first PC was an IBM SX-25 with 1MB of RAM i think or maybe 2.

Ooooh a 486! I remember writing stuff for the TRS-80 Coco 2. I may have mentioned before. I attempted to write a word processing program. And it looked really good, but when you go to print with it, if you had made a correction, the part you had 'deleted' would print and then the correction over top of it! That was the craziest thing I ever witnessed. The dot matrix printer from my Uncle's Tandy 1000 would 'work' with the Coco. I also recall using the TRS-80's joystick as a mouse for the Tandy 1000.

magic_I_tells_u.png

so cool! i still regret selling my ATARI 520 STFM to buy that 486, it was the beginning of the end of the true good computer era, funny that PC crapped out and died on me because i switched keyboard and some electricity glitch in it. I couldn't afford a new PC for a long time after that, had to write all my programming code ON PAPER.

[Steven W]

so cool! i still regret selling my ATARI 520 STFM to buy that 486, it was the beginning of the end of the true good computer era, funny that PC crapped out and died on me because i switched keyboard and some electricity glitch in it. I couldn't afford a new PC for a long time after that, had to write all my programming code ON PAPER.

It's so odd that. Atari just wasn't big here in the States by that time. I remember the Atari 400 and 800 doing well (more-so the 800 because of the 400's chicklet keyboard) and, of course, the consoles but, after that, more-or-less nothing. Seems they went gang-busters in Europe.
ST's and Falcons... My cousin had a Lynx, but those didn't really sell well either.

I don't know why they didn't sell too well here, they look like they were much better than Commodore and Tandy's (at least Tandy's low-end) junk. I always like seeing those Atari machines running GEM too. I recently was reading up on this:



Someone getting GemDos to run on the Apple Lisa, (same processor, right?) Also, if you follow that stuff history, Atari TOS, Mint... and see where it's at now, kinda shocking:

http://myaes.lutece.net/ (check the screenshots)
https://freemint.github.io/

[Steven W]

http://myaes.lutece.net/telechargement/myaes097demo.mp4