[R-390] Progress?

[Marshall]

IMSAI??!!  I dug out my NEW, NEVER BEEN USED, L@@K, W@W, OBoy! (eBay
descriptors) IMSAI-8080 computer system that has been in storage since
I moved back here from Saudi Arabia in 1980. I bought this computer in
1977 before moving to the great sandbox as a substitute hobby for
amateur
radio because I was told ham radio was not allowed in Saudi Arabia. I
got
real frustrated trying to learn about computers over there because it
was
real new, and there were very little resources for learning computers in
the desert. So, after I built the computer system, and equipped it with
a lot of boards (ram, rom, video, I/O, floppy controller, etc) I became
disinterested in it and stored the system after about six months, and it
hasn't been used since then.  This computer was NEVER brought up and
used
as a computing system, only as an experiment and learning tool.  I
simply
wasn't geeky enough understand 'pootering back in those days.  I also
discovered that all 22 of the airplanes I was responsible for (I was the
foreman of a very large oil corporation avionics lab in Dhahran) had 400
watt Collins 618T-3 autotune 2-30 Mhz SSB transceivers in them, so I was
able to enjoy my favorite hobby of hamming from our Grumman G-IIs,
Fokker
F-27s, DeHavilland DHC Twin Otters (twatters) Beechcraft King Air 200s,
Cessna 550 Citations, and Boeing 737s.  What a hamshack, eh?  I would
lie
like hell and say I was airborne over the Persian Gulf while on the
ground
in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia with a Hobart power wagon plugged into the
plane!
I finally learned about computers here in the states after I bought a
Radio
Shack TRS-80 system, and later a PC-XT computer. Now, after about
8 or 10 computers later, I feel like getting out all the books and reels
of punched paper tape programs that came with the IMSAI-8080 system and
try to learn enough to get it up and running properly. (All at the
break-
neck clock speed of 1.8 Mhz!) If you don't remember this computer, maybe
you will recall the movie War Games, with Matthew Broderick and Ally
Sheedy
in the early '80s where he hacked into the Air Force computer in
Cheyenne Mountain. Ah, memories...

Marshall Dues - WB5MYO
Katy, Texas


"Paul H. Anderson" wrote:
> 
> What about the Cosmac ELF, the IMSAI, MITS Altair, Cromemco, the Processor
> Technology units (don't remember the model), the glorious Polymorhpics
> Poly-88 (I used this one the most)?  Those were the first true home
> computers.  Who needs a CRT when you've got switches and LED's?  The
> Sinclair was a latecomer compared to them...
> 
> Had a chance to buy a used Apple-I in 1979 (maybe 80) or so.  Even though
> that appreciated by a a few thousand percent over the years, I still
> woulda been better off buying Microsoft stock.
> 
> snipped...