Yep, that’s me. I can’t imagine that I was more than six years old at the time when my dad bought his first computer, a TRS-80 from RadioShack. Can you believe RadioShack was one of the first computer manufacturers/retailers and today they’re…well, what does RadioShack do anyway? I don’t think I’ve ever been to one since this photo was taken.
Although I started out early on a computer I was only mildly interested in it. I learned how to do some basic programming in BASIC, and I liked playing games, but I wasn’t one of those kids that instantly becomes fascinated with computers and within a year they’re writing all sorts of programs, taking the thing apart, and 20 years later they’ve become a millionaire. I guess I had a shot at becoming a true geek, but I passed it up.
If I remember correctly, my dad would write programs on the TRS-80 and record them to an audio tape and then play them back in.
I’m not sure about the entire history of my family’s computer ownership, but I remember having a 486, and we may have had a 386 before that. On one of them I specifically remember my dad saying “This hard drive will hold 20 megabytes. I have no idea how I could ever fill that up.” One year later he had to go buy a second hard drive, and I remember him saying “I can’t believe I filled that hard drive up. But there’s no way I could ever fill up two 20 megabyte hard drives.” I think he bought an entirely new computer the next year.
