Hi Folks,
I just wanted to share some old stories from when I was about 13 years old. Back in the 80's I came in contact with my first computer. I was given a Sinclair ZX 81 for testing. My moms boss at that time started distributing those new black boxes and wanted to find out how a young kid like me was able to do anything with it. A week later I requested the 16Kb memory upgrade as with only about 50 lines of code my appetite for bigger Basic games grew carnivorously quick. 6 months later after doing some summer jobs I wanted to get a C64 but only had enough to get a TI-99/4A which price dropped to around 300 bucks where as the C64 was still almost a 1000 with floppy drive. But I had so much fun with the 99er and my ghetto blaster as storing unit. But the joysticks were terrible. Nonetheless I was getting good at coding and my biggest achievement at that time was translating a C64 game listing out of a magazine into the 99er. Yes, those were the times when you had to type thousands of lines of code for hours just to find for another few hours all the typos. In the hope that electricity doesn't fail you, I saved the programs very rarely because that also took sometimes half an hour. But it was worth it. Every minute of it. 16 colors, 8 bit graphics and a lousy sound generator….what else does one want? A C64, of course. I did get one in the end, but mostly played with it. But the time with the 99er was the time I spent mostly coding and learning Basics. And here I am again. For some reason I just wanted to buy this graphing calculator. Knowing now what I realy can do with it just reminded me of the good old times which I wanted to share with you. It's like having a pocket sized 99er. I am looking forward to create some games and keep the brain juices flowing. Did anyone of you have the 99er? If intrested we can exchange some stories regards issues and experiences. I remember how the cartridge slot area got realy realy hot. Or you know how you could simulate 256 colors with only 16 available? Where there is a will there is a coding trick…lol. Nostalgia. I miss those times and that certain feeling you got using such old equipment. Let's here it maybe from you. I will share more stories later if I can still recall them again…laters.
…indistinctness is my forte…
J.M.W. Turner