@Tonyvdb
:-o At least in the 90's you were able to be able to spend that much for a computer, an Amiga at that. I remember come about 1994 I was 14 really only had about $400 to spend. That came from many many hard months of pushing newspaper subscriptions to a lot of people.
At that time we lived on an Air Force Base but were moving because my dad unlisted at the time, so I wasn't going to be able to have the luxury of getting things around so easily. Besides, at that time, I was on a kinda ban from from computer items (I don't remember why), so I know I wouldn't have been able to get a computer, though I knew I wanted one. I do remember that I had the choice of getting this one guys 1960's Volkswagon Beetle (it was pink with some rust, but I'm sure we could have fixed that) or a stereo system. Me being a freak I picked the stereo system.
We then moved off the base into the strange world of civilian life. A little bit of time passed, I was in High School. I remember I used to be very very good with computers back in the day. I used to do a little bit of programming on my Atari 800 with the cool 1050 that I had when I was 8 years old. Messing with the Radio Shack TRS-80's in the day.
Also I knew and learned the Apple //e to be a very much part of my life. Matter of fact I think my entire class wasn't able to use the computers alone, because someone got a disk with a program that I wrote mixed up with one of the real program disk and one of the teachers saw it. Trust me, I wasn't going to say a thing (yeah they would have hung me on the spot.) but it was cool I guess. :-D
Anyways back to the 1994. Yeah, I was in high school and I wanted my own computer. My dad had one and he really didn't want me using his, so I wanted to get a job. Well the only job I could get was working at fast food joint, and I worked hard at that job. The search for the computer for me went on. One day they saw a computer in a pawnshop that I would be able to afford. The manager at the time didn't know much about computer I guess, and my dad struck a deal with him to acquire the system for what I guess was a fair price then.
I remember I managed to be able to save up about $250 dollars from my job, and borrowed some money from my mom. Later I think my dad did some computer consulting for the guy at the store and I was able to bring home my system. Ha ha, yeah don't laugh.
Packard Bell Legend 20CD
486/66Mhz
4MB of Ram
100MB Hard Drive
4x Cdrom
Aztech Sound built in
Keyboard, funky mouse
Monitor with Speakers
Crappy 2400 interal modem
and of course Win 3.11
Yeah I think this computer was used in an office. Well it sucked. Really it did. I'm surprised that I managed to keep my computer alive as long as it did. I remember PB customer service sucked. When ever anything went wrong with the computer you had to yank the bios, and you would have to reset all the settings for the hard drive in manually.
I even remember when I got a chance to find a 14k modem that someone had throw out. I plugged the modem in (I had my own phone line, still no car) and dialed up some BBS numbers I got from school. I heard from people around the state and country that were using Ataris, Apples, C64's, and a few people that even had Amigas. I got thrilled by places with forbidden and exotic names like Pirates Harbor and the such (i'm sure some of your know the buzz of BBS's when they were really alive,)
Ahh the good all days of BBS's. I then later went on to get real internet access, NEW 33k modem, and since then It's been none stop now. Never did get my license until I was 18 though. Still kinda wish I would have had an Amiga from back in the day though
:ranting:
