japan computers in general...

[worldrailboy]

I've always read a bit about that or that one from time to time before...
does anyone else also find japan-specific (or asia too just as well) computers interesting?

I keep wanting a particular semi-small desktop form one but I doubt I'll be able to go through with finding one and ship it oversea at all tho, oh well

which of that reminds me of something I still remember from the award bios on an old pc I don't have anymore, it supported a third floppy drive which I recall eventually finding out being more specific to japan configurations

[The_Ghan]

...
which of that reminds me of something I still remember from the award bios on an old pc I don't have anymore, it supported a third floppy drive which I recall eventually finding out being more specific to japan configurations

Do you mean the ol' Mitsumi Quick Disk?  I think they only held 128kb single sided and 256kb double sided.  You wouldn't fit a single digital photo on one ... hahaha ... those were the days.  I think they survived by finding their way into the Nintendo game box and various early proprietary word processors.  But they were an option on some Japanese PCs in the mid to late 1980's.

Cheers

The_Ghan

[worldrailboy]

256k? I could actually put a fairly sized personal files folder on that if I for some reason wanted to hehe

anyway one of the computer in question that I would had liked to think about owning somehow is from pioneer and it interestingly enough had stereo speakers and a single small subwoofer built into it unlike just a single speaker alone in most other computers

[cteno4]

ok ill go dig out the sinclair Z80 out of the basement, whopping 8K or ram and a micro cassette recorder for storing data at i think a whopping 1024 baud rate!

jeff

[The_Ghan]

A 1024 baud rate modem?  What a screamer!  When I first started work we had a Hayes modem ... 300 baud rate!  Ha!  It was in the room with the telex machine, hooked up to an old IBM 8086 PC with 512kb of ram and dual (get that - "dual") 128kb floppies.  I can't even remember what we used the damn thing for!  I think the company had it simply because they could!  I used to muck around with it after work and I managed to join a BBS for Ham Radio enthusiasts ... kind of self-defeating, don't you think?

Cheers

The_Ghan

[cteno4]

well wasnt really a modem as it was going to tape not over the phone lines, so 1028 was fast for the time for that phone lines are dirtier so slower baud rates... but hey having a computer in 1980 for about $300 that was wild!

jeff

[The_Ghan]

In those days there weren't any PC magazines ... it was covered by the home electronics magazines ... in fact, I can even remember complete build your own computer editions ... mad!

Cheers

The_Ghan

[cteno4]

Oh but there was Byte! Growing up in the 70s I had four piles of magazines in my room: Byte, model railroader, scientific American, and national geographic.

And who can forget this cover!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Byte-Magazine-July-1977-see-scan-table-contents-/160711285191?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item256b2399c7#ht_1632wt_922

I even had this cover on a tee shirt.

Jeff

[The_Ghan]

I've never seen  it ... but it's gold.  I just read the index too .... awesome.  I wasn't even in highschool back then, so its a bit before my time.  I was into the Hornby OO gauge stuff ... which reminds me ... I'm trying to find out about the Hornby controller used in the late 1970's.

Cheers

The_Ghan

[worldrailboy]

interesting where this subject is going to now

but seriously would anyone like to know what one of the japan-sold computer I would had liked is? :-)

[KenS]

300 baud?  The first computer terminal I used was a DEC teletype that ran at 110 baud.  The first modem I rented was 300 though, and the first I bought was 1200.

As for magazines, before Byte there was Creative Computing. I had stacks of that one before I ever saw a computer.  Once I did have access to one at school, I remember typing in a game written in FORTRAN they had listed in the back (it didn't run, and I didn't have the skills to figure out why at the time, although FORTAN was the first computer language I did eventually learn).  I still find stacks of punch cards in boxes around the house from time to time (I used to use them for notepaper).

As for the computer, are you thinking of the MSX?  Pioneer was one of several companies that made them, and there's a company that claims to have them for sale, although I don't know anything about the company. I don't recall hearing about the computer back then, but by the mid-80s I was obsessed with Macs (I bought my first, a Plus, in '85) and not paying attention to any other home systems.

[cteno4]

300 baud?  The first computer terminal I used was a DEC teletype that ran at 110 baud.  The first modem I rented was 300 though, and the first I bought was 1200.

ahh the days of the old acoustic couplers and the rat-tat-tat of the teletype ball! kachunk goes the key pegs... then the paper tape punch hanging off the sides! i still have a few somewhere from like 1975 or so with some basic programs i wrote in jr high... man im getting old i had forgotten about creative computing!

the MSX does ring a bell seeing the picts. z80 systems were expanding fast at the time.

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnavox_Odyssey2

That was the first 'computer' I had.. Pretty cool back then, but seeing the specs now.. yikes =)

[The_Ghan]

Nice Martijn,

My first was the good ol' Apple II.  I was in my second year at highschool when we were surprised at Christmas with this little puppy.  My brothers played games on it ... I learned BASIC.  I lost interest when I had a run in with the teacher in charge of the computer programming club at school.  We had to write a program to find prime numbers between 1 and 1000.  I failed because my program:

1. found all prime numbers between 1 and 32767 (I think that was the limit);
2. tested each number "n" by dividing it by prime numbers already discovered by the program, the logic being that any number less than half the number tested that was already found to be not prime wasn't worth testing because it was already divisible by a smaller number.  Eg, if you were testing the number 27, there is no point checking if it was divisible by 9 if you've already tested whether it was divisible by 3;
3. skipped all even numbers after proving that 2 was prime, thus LET N = N + 2;
4. I built a text string as I tested and sent it to the printer at the end of the program ... I'm struggling now but I think it was something like PRINT S >> PRN ... or something like that ... I hope I'm not getting confused with DOS;

So, my program ran many times faster than the other students in the class, who methodically worked their way through the numbers with a loop from t = 2 to t = n/2.  Although I'd worked on this for weeks, really weeks, the teacher was sure some expert had helped me.  Believe me, I didn't know ANYONE.  But I do remember learning about lists from an open source BASIC game ... DIM P(200) ...

Geez ... bringing back memories now ... a young teenage boy never labelled his floppy disks.  How many times did we all insert a floppy disk and type CATALOG (ENTER)

Cheers

The_Ghan

[Martijn Meerts]

I finished a year worth's of programming tasks within a week when I was back at school.. Not because I rock, but because they were so easy if you had the slightest knowledge of programming.. I spend 1.5 year at that school before I quit and got a job ;)

[worldrailboy]

try a pure Pioneer MPC-LX200, ever better the -TV or -MO models instead