In my office, I have an antique IBM PC/AT motherboard, 20MB Hard Drive, Paradise "EGA" card, and 1.2Mb floppy drive from my first "real" computer that was passed onto me by my Dad way back when... The "AT" used an Intel "286"processor running at a blazing 8Mhz.
We added the "287" math co-processor and extra memory through an "Above Board." DOS's limit was 640K but Lotus 1-2-3 could taake advantage of it. The Hard Drive has been disassembled and has the date "1985" stamped on it. I'm going in later today, I'll take some pics. Why I kept it I'll never know. The computer is almost as old as I am... My students are amazed that that they had computers back then.
By the way, ila's "Commodore 64" with real floppies was quite advanced for it's time.
My very first computer was a "Vic-20" with cassette drive my mom found on sale at K-Mart. One Christmas I got a "Microcomputer Trainer" from Radio-Shack that taught "assembly language." So that's how a career was born.
My Dad had a Compaq DeskPro 386 (about $10,000 back then) and a "T1" line paid for by General Motors. I used to help him with stuff before I was even in school. If I was "good" I was allowed to use it for fun. Not that there was much to do then (alt.binaries.erotica).
The "T1" was a digital phone line and would be like the 80's and 90's "high speed Internet." They are still around.
God I feel old that I even remember what all this stuff was.
