SoCS – First Personal Computers
The prompt for Linda G Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “In the.” Start your post with the words “In the.”
In the 1980s when the home computer first came out, my ex bought a 1980s KAYPRO II KAYPRO 2 Portable Computer.
The cover has latches on the two sides of the screen and the two sides of the keyboard. It looks like a large box when it’s closed (latched). There is a handle to carry it to make it portable. I believe the computer’s central processing unit (CPU) was 2.5 MHz, 64K RAM, and it had a 9” green phosphor screen display with text only. It has a 5 ½ “floppy disk drive. It used the MS-DOS/PC DOS Microsoft programming languages.
There were so many codes that I don’t think anyone would have them memorized. But the codes were above and below the keyboard.
I worked as a Rehabilitation Counselor in downtown Los Angeles in the 1980s. But I wanted to go into education, so I was at California State University, Los Angeles, to get my Childhood Development Credential, and continued to get the Educational Administration Credential.
My ex worked for an airline in the Dallas Headquarters. He worked from Wednesday to Sunday and had Monday and Tuesday off. He wanted me to fly to Dallas every weekend and come back to LA On Sunday, then he flew to Dallas on Tuesday night.
I left the Rehabilitation Center at 4:00 p.m. every week and drove to LA International Airport carrying the heavy metal case computer. It was very sturdy. Frequently, there were no empty seats in the waiting area at the gate. I sat on the computer reading while waiting for boarding the plane.
He came back to LA after six months when the airline was about to cease to operate. I remember we replaced the computer with a Compaq Portable computer. It was not as heavy. It still runs on the MS-DOS program language. The codes came in a strip like a ruler that I put in front of the keyboard.
When I look at my keyboard at the present, I see the first row of keys is from F1 to F12, but you can also use Control + for that key to do shortcuts. The MS-DOS also used the F1-F? for shortcuts.
As far as the printer, we had a dot matrix printer with the sprocket-fed fan-fold paper used to move through the machines!
I should write a post about my first typewriter before the first computer! Okay, another time!
SoCS – First Personal Computers
Have a Wonderful Week!
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The Showers of Blessings 
My how things have changed. We bought our first computer in the mid-80s. It was a small Apple Computer and we had a dot matrix printer. I used it for the distance learning course I was taking but I didn’t have to travel with it.
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We used the Apple computers at school and when they were upgraded to Apple IIe with networking, it was a big deal. I was one of the few teachers learned to use it. So for a while, I could do PC and Apple until the technology gap widened.
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After that one we always had PCs. But that first one was so cute and worked very well for the time being.
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HI Miriam, that must have been quite an effort to lug around. Even when I started working in the late 90s, the portable printers were hardly portable. They were big and bulky. The laptops weren’t to bad though.
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We don’t have portable printers even at the present, Robbie. At work, we had printers networked to all the computers with about eight people in my department.
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We had portable printers for when we were at clients.
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Yes, I’ve seen portable printers as small as the ink cartridges for the office printer.
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oh my and I remember how cumbersome they were! We could have never have lugged those around Miriam! 💖
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I had no choice for those six months though, Cindy, because my ex insisted I should do it and we paid $10 each way for my flights. 🙂
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Oh wow amazing.. maybe that’s why he’s an ex 🤣 just sayin 💖
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Your ‘maybe’ is true… I tried! Well, he passed away two years ago.
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Oh wow I’m so sorry Miriam still nonetheless that’s difficult
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It turned out okay all around. Thanks, Cindy.
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pleasure! 💖
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ah, the early days of computing. that Kaypro was one of the first ones. It’s nice to see how much technology has advanced since then…
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Oh, Miriam, I remember those old things. How far we’ve come! I’m so glad we’ve progressed. Just imagine what technology will be like in another 40 years! A fun post that brought back lots of memories.
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I remember when I was in school in 1998-2000, many admins students still tried to learn to do PowerPoint and email with attachments. The professor said technology used to take, let’s say, ten years to make one inch of progress. As time progresses, it takes less and less time to make bigger and bigger progress.
I remember when Bill Gates in an interview in early 2000, pulled out a phone size gadget and said it contained 800 books. My jaw dropped.
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LOL. I remember the days of old typewriters and fax machines to do business. And my first cell phone for work was the size of a briefcase! Lol.
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I know, my first cellphone has a huge battery and long antenna. It only picked up the signal in an open air. I took it the AT&T to recycle. The guy asked if I wanted to keep it as an antique, so I brought it home. 🙂
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Ha ha ha. That’s so funny.
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I know it’s too funny. I wanted to get rid of several things like a pile of baseball cards. Hubby said they might worth some money, so I put them back in the cupboard!!
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Back in the 1980s, I was still in I-don’t-need-no-stinkin’-computer mode. My mother got one before I did!
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I still have my electric typewriter I bought in the 1980s. I don’t know why I’m keeping it!
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I gave mine from that era to my daughter. I’m sure she got rid of it years ago.
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It was more expensive than my new iPad 9th generation. It’s in the attic right now. I don’t know when to get rid of it, sooner or later!
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Ha! I remember those days of yore, Miriam. LOL. My first computer ran at a blistering 2 MHz. Had a monochrome monitor and ran on DOS commands. I was fortunate to have a very early version of Word Perfect. Remember that? I think the reason I use so many shortcuts is from using computers in the pre-Windows age.
Fun post!
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I remember using Word Perfect, Mae! Oh boy, those short cuts. I have to admit that I didn’t memorize them so I had to look at the codes on the strip. But I love short cuts. Went to a writing conference. An author offered a sheet of all the short cuts for PC, some that I never use.
I still have all the discs to install Windows 97. Why? Keep them as antique? Thanks for reading. 😄
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I used WordPerfect for a number of years, until MS Word took over the word processing universe. I also used Word Star at work for a very brief time.
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Liz, I’m unfamiliar with Word Star but I was a diehard WP user until MS Word arrived. To this day I still miss “reveal codes.”
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I miss “reveal codes” as well. When Word THINKS it knows what I want and overrules me with no vote, it’s nearly impossible to fix it.
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I’m not familiar with Word Star, Liz. Who programmed that?
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According to Wikipedia, WordStar was put out by MicroPro International in the early to mid 1980s.
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We stayed with MO DOS and Word Perfect, I guess, and didn’t look at anything else.
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Thanks for the trip back. How we’ve progressed so quickly, and are still doing so!
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Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are two giants in the computer business. Yes, they progress fast. It’s good for business office. For my personal use, I’m comfortable with some older versions and don’t want to take time to learn! 😄
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Talk about a blast from the past! My family’s first computer was a Texas Instruments that you had to plug into the television in lieu of a monitor. My, how times have changed. lol
Thanks for sharing this, Miriam.
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Texas Instruments rings the bell, Staci. What if people don’t have a television? I guess they must have one of they have a computer in those days.
I think I kept two or three assignments written with those computers and printed with the dot matrix printer. 😁😄
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I remember those printers, too!
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So do I. They always wanted to jam!!
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Constantly.
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Not a good scene for those of us not mechanically inclined.
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I remember the jamming!!
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We still had a big box of peripherated paper when we bought the printer using letter size paper!
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We used that to make party signs for people until we got tired of doing so. Not sure what happened to the rest. Coloring paper for kids. Shopping lists. Scrap paper. I really couldn’t say.
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Saw so nice oldie computer. Nice memories do doing.
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Yes, nice memories, Rajkkhoja. Thank you.
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It’s you have to now. You use it’s!
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Yes, it is, Rajkkhoja!
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Wow what memories and how things have changed 🙂 Fun Miriam.
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We can’t keep up with the speed of technology change these days, Denise! 😊
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flashback!
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Yes, I still could see my first orange color typewriter!
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Those printers were quite loud 🙂
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Yes, we could hear those clicking sounds. 😄
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We have come a long way. Remember floppy discs?
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Yes, my husband held on to some for a long time. We started to declutter to get rid of lots of things.
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Now that brings back memories when I worked selling computers..
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Wow, you had an interesting job, Anita!
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I worked with IBM and later started my own company.
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What an impressive career, Anita!
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Oh, my goodness, that’s an oldy but a goodie!
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We can get them on ebay!! 😄
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