Sun Jun 9 16:10:00 2002

Well, most of it happened to be notebooks from much of my college classes... so they got tossed.  Who programs in PHIGS anymore?  Bug amongst all the detritus were a few things:

First, this is an actual Coleco game console.  No, not a ColecoVision.  This is older.

Note the four built-in games: Hockey, Tennis, Handball, Jai Alai.  They are all the same fucking game, only with more paddles.  Plus, I recall that the hockey game doesn't actually end... until you power off.  Yes, you can enjoy playing 15 periods, with no end in sight!

The other item of note is this stack:

Heh.  The monitor is an NEC 2D which has a 9-pin VGA connector; used to use this on an Amiga.  Below that is the box for a Commodore C=64C, which was a replacement for my original C64; that box is empty, but I found that 64C in a milk crate.  [I used that computer in college; it was a long time ago ;)].  Beneath that is an Apple ImageWriter printer box.  It's being put to good use... storing an Atari 2600 system with many cartridges. :biggrin:

Sun Jun 9 16:54:15 2002

Sun Jun 9 17:05:29 2002

Sun Jun 9 18:08:59 2002

Mon Jun 10 10:24:33 2002

I wish I knew what my mother did with my Coleco Adam.
That was my first real computer. Built in tape drive and all...

Mon Jun 10 16:20:55 2002

Quick anecdote re: Adam...
Quite a long time ago (working thru college), I worked at Electronics Boutique.  One regular customer was a radio DJ; he was one of the regulars with whom we'd joke around and BS with.  For a long time, his computer was a Coleco Adam.  He'd rave about how great it was and how he was doing all kinds of stuff like balancing his checkbook.  Of course, this couldn't be done on any OTHER computer of the time. ;)

Then the 8-bit computers died out and we got rid of all the software we had.  Yet he kept clinging to his Adam.

One day, I believe it was in 1989, he came in and declared that he'd finally dropped the Adam and bought a new computer!  [Cue PH hurrah! here]  This was great, since presumably we'd have software on the shelves that he could now purchase.

What did he upgrade to?

An Apple IIgs.

:rolleyes:

Mon Jun 10 17:29:46 2002

I learned much from that system...

Apple IIGS... what a waste of computing power.

Mon Jun 10 17:55:36 2002

Mon Jun 10 18:47:39 2002

Mon Jun 10 19:24:06 2002

Mon Jun 10 19:33:48 2002

Mon Jun 10 20:04:37 2002

(I cleaned up at an old school surplus sale. 30+ computers for $35. I r00l! ;) )

Mon Jun 10 20:18:57 2002

"But the salesperson at <defunct Apple store> told us it had x-thousand programs!" the new owners would tell us.

"Sure," we replied, "if you only intend to run regular Apple II software, which -- if you look at the pictures on the back of the program's box -- look nowhere near as good as the IIgs-native software would."  

The new gs owners were very often appalled by the lack of gs-specific apps, since that's what they were told was available in abundance.  On more than one occasion, we encouraged the users to return the IIgs and get a different Apple, if their main reason for getting one was to run the Apple software their kids were using at school.

For those that were just buying a computer for the first time or for no specific application available on one platform, then we showed them the Amiga running in the back of the store.  To paraphrase: "That only costs $1000?  I paid $1800 and only have half the RAM?!" :biggrin:

We sold a lot of Amiga 500s back then. ;)

But seriously, IMO Apple screwed themselves with the IIgs.  It was supposed to be an "Amiga killer" but it wasn't a full 16-bit computer -- but it was so Mac-like that Jobs was worried that his appropriated pet project (i.e. the Mac) was threatened.  And since it ran Apple II software (for the most part ;)), developers didn't see much reason to make a version that took advantage of the IIgs' capabilities.  No software + Jobs' ego = platform suicide.

And Apple's $500 Video Overlay Card (aka a genlock) didn't help push the machine into the hands of "desctop video enthusiasts" who were eventually buying Amiga 500 computers with $100 *external* genlocks. Feh.