I remember as a kid a car with a car phone coming to the neighborhood. Actually it was a radio telephone, long before cell phones. It created a big stir. Kids from all over came to see the "rich guy's" car.

I remember when Pong came to the bowling alley near my house. We were fascinated and would play for hours.

 

I remember as a kid a car with a car phone coming to the neighborhood. Actually it was a radio telephone, long before cell phones. It created a big stir. Kids from all over came to see the "rich guy's" car.

I remember when Pong came to the bowling alley near my house. We were fascinated and would play for hours.

From the time I was 9 till about 13, I'd hang out at Radio Shack and write code on the TRS-80 Model I on display...

 

I remember "Pay TV". It was some sort of decoder box that sat on top of your tv connected in series with your antenna.To watch the pay channel (channel 18) you would deposit a quarter in the slot, like a pay washing machine. The quarter was good for a half hour of viewing,as soon as the time was up you had to put in another quarter.
If you turned your tv to channel 18 without the box, all you got was a weird form of pixelazation, and audio that sounded sorta like ching-ching-ching.
If you had said tv box, and used it with any regularity, someone would come and empty the coins. If they didn't, the box would get full and not accept any other coins, usually during a movie.
We didn't have one of these, but a "rich kid" down the road did, and a select few could go there and watch tv. The only name I ever heard it called was
"Pay TV" don't know any more than that. Circa 1958...Edit.. This was in my home state of Massachusetts, not here in TN.

 

From the time I was 9 till about 13, I'd hang out at Radio Shack and write code on the TRS-80 Model I on display...

I'd do the same except it was also an Altair, Commodore PET, Apple.

And I was 17. When I was 9 - 13 computers cost tens of thousands of dollars.


Can you imagine doing that today in Best Buy?

 

Same about the phone. Local richest man in the neighborhood bought a phone that was basically a car battery with a phone handle on top. Said it cost him like $3-$6 a min or call or something insane! Other very memorable moments in maxpowers tech history.

Seeing a 14.4k modem after using my 2400 baud my whole computing life.
Seeing my first sound card.
Learning how basic electonics were made.
Learning the basics of programming.
Unlocking my first game console.
Ripping my first DVD into DivX
Etc...etc....etc....
Oh and Flying an RC Heli.

 

From the time I was 9 till about 13, I'd hang out at Radio Shack and write code on the TRS-80 Model I on display...

I was in my very early 20s and did something similar, wound up buying one too. Along with the TRS80 Model III, Model IV, PET, Sinclair, C64, C128, etc.

 

XBOX Kinect is nothing less then spooky to me...

It watches me

Can recognize my voice follows every movement and takes fairly HQ pics whenever it feels like it.

Not to mention seeing yourself in grayscale while it highlights hand movement in color gives you some ideal of how far computerized targeting must be coming along.

If it start's calling me Dave and singing daisy..it's going out the door.

 

But why? It's all for science!

 

A transistor radio I was given as a gift. No vacuum tubes! It fit in my shirt pocket!

My most memorable encounter with tech was watching my grandmother -- who grew up in the horse-and-buggy* days -- watching our TV as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon!

--Rich

*"Buggy", for you kiddies, is a noun, referring to a type of horse-drawn vehicle.

 

A transistor radio I was given as a gift. No vacuum tubes! It fit in my shirt pocket!

My most memorable encounter with tech was watching my grandmother -- who grew up in the horse-and-buggy* days -- watching our TV as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon!

--Rich

*"Buggy", for you kiddies, is a noun, referring to a type of horse-drawn vehicle.

What got me started in electronics was a crystal set radio kit that my grandma got me when I was 5. I actually assembled it, and it worked! I was in love with electronics since.

 

I remember "Pay TV". It was some sort of decoder box that sat on top of your tv connected in series with your antenna.To watch the pay channel (channel 18) you would deposit a quarter in the slot, like a pay washing machine. The quarter was good for a half hour of viewing,as soon as the time was up you had to put in another quarter.
If you turned your tv to channel 18 without the box, all you got was a weird form of pixelazation, and audio that sounded sorta like ching-ching-ching.
If you had said tv box, and used it with any regularity, someone would come and empty the coins. If they didn't, the box would get full and not accept any other coins, usually during a movie.
We didn't have one of these, but a "rich kid" down the road did, and a select few could go there and watch tv. The only name I ever heard it called was
"Pay TV" don't know any more than that. Circa 1958...Edit.. This was in my home state of Massachusetts, not here in TN.

I remember making filters/decoders for them out of 17 turns of wire around a pencil, with a parallel small trimmer cap in series with the antenna.

 

I was fascinated when I first saw and used an electric pencil sharpener as a small kid. The fact that it could eat an entire pencil in seconds sparked my interest in machines. It might seem strange to much younger people but our small farm in Texas only got connected to electricity in 1960. So electrical technology of any type was exotic.

 

When I bought a C64 (I was about 16). Or maybe a little earlier when the Apple II appeared at our school and I bought a book about the 6502 microprocessor.

I had started with electronics kits some years before. This was fun and exciting, but I was aware that every radio and TV contained more complex circuits, and these things had been around for as long as I could remember. So this wasn't "new" technology.

But understanding what is going on inside a microprocessor, that really was a feeling of being at the edge of technology for the first time.

 

bought a Sony Walkman in about 81'. Driving around listening to tunes. When I got out of the car the tunes cames with me. Weirdest feeling that was.

 

On a computer system with a service number,you called the IT tech and the

next thing you knew the IT-tech was moving your mouse arrow across your

screen,while talking to you on the phone. Could go to IT dept and sign out any

electronic equipment I needed. Gps, Digital equipment,Gps mapping,if I had

problem cell phone IT and it was taken care of so some of the learning steps

were bypassed,could have sit in computer class rooms. I had IT where ever

I went,has anyone else experienced that.Just sign it out and do big things with

an expert team behind you,Loosewire learned quick,don't forget that IT number

available 24/7.Had unlimited credit cards to purchase needed Items.Special

emergency equipment for 24/7 safety.

 

I remember making filters/decoders for them out of 17 turns of wire around a pencil, with a parallel small trimmer cap in series with the antenna.

And I thought I'd tried every possible way to make it work. Just goes to show, if you don't know, well you just don't know.....

 

Back in the mid-to-late 60s, using an old teletype terminal in the basement of an MIT building, to access an early precursor to timesharing. The program? ELIZA! An early AI imitator, "talking" to you in natural language. I wrote my high school research paper on ELIZA and pattern matching of language by computers. I also used an IBM 1130 to write a program in Fortran that could recognize 3D objects. (Google ELIZA and IBM 1130)

 

Digital was out long before it was over the counter cheap. It was available

to high end markets that had there own towers. Long before cell towers were

built. Any one remember using early digital,what years. Does 800 mhz ring a bell.

 

Paste please.

 

I remember when my dad bought a desktop PC which could be connected to THE INTERNET!!!

I remember being so excited. I was wondering if there were special buttons for the internet. Such an alien world.

Just over a decade now. Wow.