Filed under: Retrocomputing
When I was getting ready to head to high school in 1983 I begged my father to get me a computer. I really wanted an IBM PC, but on the middle class living we made do with IBM's newest model: the IBM PCjr It was a cute little computer with a "chiclet" keyboard, 128K of RAM and two cartridge slots.Nope, it didn't have a hard drive and the floppy drive was 180k. It took a couple of minutes to boot up DOS, after which you had to switch your floppy disk to the application you were running. The monitor was tiny and the mouse was extra, but I loved my little machine and spend hours on it each day. The PCjr was discontinued by IBM quickly after its launch, but I will never forget the Charlie Chaplin commercials and the 300 baud modem I added to it in order to dial up to BBSes (bulletin board systems).
Today I write this on a Mac Tower with two gigs of ram, a terabyte of storage and three, yes three 30" monitors. My internet connection is fiber and 30 megabits a second, but I don't feel connected to it. In a way I look back on my old PCjr like EVE must have seen Wall-E -- outdated and underpowered but with a ton of personality.
For fun, have a look at the Charlie Chaplin commercial for the little computer that couldn't I found on YouTube. Charming!
Additionally, here's a print advertisement they ran for a while back in the day. I wonder if this was the one that got my dad to buy me my PCjr? I'll have to ask him when I upgrade the RAM in mom's iMac over the New Year.
They don't make them like they used to do they?
In the comments please answer the following questions:
1. What was your first computer?
2. Do you look back on it as a computer or a pet?
3. Compare how you feel about your current machine to how you feel about your first love.
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My first computer: The sad little IBM PCjr originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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