That extra bit on the right hand side is a “sidecar”, which is what the jr had for IO expansion (hahahahha). We eventually had 3, a parallel port, a serial port?, and I forget the 3rd (maybe it was to run the 2nd floppy disk).
I fondly remember the rediculous little joystick we had for it, and the cartridge based games my sister and I played.
The keyboard was every bit as horrible as legend says it was.
I love them all! Celeste–let me get this right: your first computer was a TIMEX? Wow. When I looked at Jaeger’s link I saw an ebay auction for the Sinclair/Timex computer, though I think it’s for a later model than yours. Jaeger, the IBM PC Jr somehow seems even more pathetic than either Celeste’s or mine. I look at that PC Jr and all I can think of are rugby shirts and that lame 80s movie with Steve Guttenberg and Ali Sheedy and that ridiculous robot–“Short Circuit.” Thanks for haunting me!
I hope it’s not too late to play. The Atari 520st was actually my third computer. I went from a Timex Sinclair 1000 (with 2 kB of RAM brought to 16 kB with the expansion pack) to a Commodore 64 to an Atari 520ST. IIRC, none of them had a monitor – they all plugged into a television.
Celeste said:
Apr 12, 08 at 8:35 amThis was my first one: http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/reach/435/zx81.htm
I had a little black and white TV that it plugged into. I wrote one of my first BASIC programs using it. 🙂
jaeger said:
Apr 12, 08 at 1:38 pmAs long as we’re playing with the wayback machine, he’s my first:
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=186
That extra bit on the right hand side is a “sidecar”, which is what the jr had for IO expansion (hahahahha). We eventually had 3, a parallel port, a serial port?, and I forget the 3rd (maybe it was to run the 2nd floppy disk).
I fondly remember the rediculous little joystick we had for it, and the cartridge based games my sister and I played.
The keyboard was every bit as horrible as legend says it was.
admin said:
Apr 14, 08 at 4:48 pmI love them all! Celeste–let me get this right: your first computer was a TIMEX? Wow. When I looked at Jaeger’s link I saw an ebay auction for the Sinclair/Timex computer, though I think it’s for a later model than yours. Jaeger, the IBM PC Jr somehow seems even more pathetic than either Celeste’s or mine. I look at that PC Jr and all I can think of are rugby shirts and that lame 80s movie with Steve Guttenberg and Ali Sheedy and that ridiculous robot–“Short Circuit.” Thanks for haunting me!
cec said:
Apr 17, 08 at 11:37 amI hope it’s not too late to play. The Atari 520st was actually my third computer. I went from a Timex Sinclair 1000 (with 2 kB of RAM brought to 16 kB with the expansion pack) to a Commodore 64 to an Atari 520ST. IIRC, none of them had a monitor – they all plugged into a television.
Wow, sad times 🙂
admin said:
Apr 17, 08 at 5:14 pmAh, the Commodore. I was wondering when we’d get one of those. So you must have been computing when you were, what, like 8?
cec said:
Apr 18, 08 at 6:13 amclose – 10. and i got the Timex Sinclair at 11 🙂