[extropy-chat] SPACE: Spirit Problems

[Spike]

> > Kevin Freels said:
> > > Wow! What a story! I'm a bit younger. My first puter was a
> > > Commodore VIC-20 with 5KB RAM and 16KB ROM. I was so cool to
> > > everyone in school when I managed to put the school phone
> > > directory onto a cassette...

Cool!  I had a VIC-20, it was the second computer I
owned personally, if one does not count programmable
calculators, which I actually used as *very slow*
computers.  My first was a counterfeit Apple II (blush).

I was not so fortunate as to have a nifty cassette
tape drive, nor a printer.  I had no actual storage
medium: the data and program was all lost if the
power failed.  With its peek and poke commands, one
could kinda sorta use the screen as a poor-man's
makeshift memory.  I used it for mathematical
research, numerical analysis, searching for large
prime numbers, that sorta thing.  In those days,
"large" meant a couple hundred digits, not the
6 million digits of today.  


When I realize all this was a mere 23 years ago,
I am awed.

spike