How I got interested in the Apple ][...

[noemail@noemail.net (catalog//e)]

Hey all, just thought I would start a thread about how I got interested in
the A2 platform, but would also like to hear your stories as well in this
same thread. Just for fun, just for anybody interested in reading about
such stuff. Sometimes it good to look back and see what was, what is, and
what came to be!
:)


In my case, my first exposure to personal computers (a.k.a.
microcomputers) was in the very early 1980's, sometime around elementary
school/junior high.  The school division that my little rural school was
part of in southern Manitoba (Manitoba, Canada....just north of North
Dakota/Minnesota) had decided to purchase computers for each school in
it's division, starting with Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III (3) computers.

Shortly thereafter, probably in early 1983 if my memory serves correct, my
particular school also added a bunch of brand new Apple //e machines
(unenhanced at that time.....I think they each had around 48K of RAM, no
80 column card) hooked up to Zenith amber monochrome monitors, and each
had a Disk ][ hooked up to it as well.

Although my interest in computers had already been tugged at with the
TRS-80's at school, the Apple //e computers were what got me completely
"obsessed" with computers.  I do have to give credit where credit is due,
after all.  :)

Long story short, I really wanted an Apple //e, but due to me being a kid
with no income at time, and my family was in rough financial waters at the
time, there was little hope of getting such a machine at home.  So I
dreamed. I bought the occasional computer magazine and salivated over the
printed ads for various home computers (Apple and non-Apple).

By the mid 1980's, the Apple //c had been introduced, and the clone Laser
128, the Commodore 64 was a popular selling (and cheap) computer.....oh
how I wanted to have any one of these for myself at home.  :)

I ended up with a used Commodore VIC-20 and Datasette drive as my first
computer in 1985/86...and eventually got a Tandy CoCo 3 in 1987. By the
early 1990's I had moved on to PC's, and a bit later Macintosh computers
(which I still use to this day, the Mac's that is), but I never forgot my
obsession with the A2 platform. By 1996 I was feeling nostolgic, and
purchased my first (used of course) Apple //e, and during the rest of the
1990's went on to buy at least one of each model in the A2 family, even
the IIe emulation card for Mac.

In a nutshell, that is it. And I still am obsessed with the A2 platform!  :)

Let's hear your stories....