[ale] OT: For hardware junkies

[Steve Litt]

On Thu, 5 Nov 2020 20:09:20 -0500
"SpaXpert, Inc. via Ale" <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> I was hoping for some old cp/m portables, like kaypro, osborne etc...
> Loved seeing the old serial terminals though, but they were not
> documented much.  Self taught 8080 assembly lang on a kaypro 2x in
> the early 80's. Was an awesome machine with wordstar and a packaged
> daisy wheel printer. Cost over $2k back then new.
> Jeez, I'm dating myself too much.

Nonsense. If you don't have a wife or girlfriend, by all means date
yourself. :-)

Seriously, I had a Kaypro 2x with two floppies and the same daisy wheel
printer (Juki). I didn't learn 8080 assembler, but with Turbo Pascal
2.0 I could make that machine do almost anything. And yes, Wordstar,
and the sweetest keyboard I've ever used. It was luggable, so I could
bring it to my girlfriend's house (when I wasn't dating myself) and
work there. There were even rudimentary graphics.

I used that machine to create a 100 page thesis for my Systems Analysis
class. It was based on my work at a company called Medi-Sec. A very
cool thing was that I put a graphical imitation of Medi-Sec's logo at
the upper left of each page. I did that by printing the the logos on
all the pages, then printing the text on those same pages.
 
SteveT

Steve Litt 
Autumn 2020 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive