I graduated high school in June of 1984. That 1983-1984 school year, ours was the first class to take what what they called "Computer Math." It was a class that taught us BASIC on Commodore 64's.
QUIZ: What will my screen look like if I ran this program?
10 ? "Sharon ";
20 goto 10
run
Anyway, some friends of mine actually had their own C64's at home, so I was playing around with those too, going on local BBS's and Pirate Boards on weekends. My handle was Bullwinkle's Aunt. I don't know why I invented that name, so don't even bother asking .
My parents' intention was to get me an electric typewriter for HS graduation but after a year of playing with computers, I decided I wanted one of those instead. So my parents gave me the money they'd spend on an electric typewriter, I pooled that with more graduation money and and some savings too, and bought an Apple IIe, with a monitor and Dynax daisywheel printer, for $2000 in July 1984. Oh and a 300bps modem. Not an acoustic coupler, mind you...I went high tech .
Danny-
Nope, I wasn't on the 'net in 1984, because the 'net really wasn't available to the general public back then. I used local bulletin boards (BBS's) until 1992, when I bought an IBM 486 and joined Prodigy....which was nothing more than a NATIONAL BBS, but still was just, essentially, an intranet. I joined Delphi (also basically a national intranet) in 1993 and around '94 or so, they offered Usenet access...not that I had a CLUE of what that was or how to make it work for me (to this very day, I can't do the file exchanges that people do on Usenet and BOY, do I wish I could!). Finally got onto the WWW in 1995, when I got a 586 computer and MSN.
You'd think that, after owning computers for 21 of my 39 years, that I'd know a LOT about them. I don't. I can find ANYTHING on the 'net...I am the QUEEN of investigative work and should work for the FBI...but when it comes to hardware and software, I am lost.
But I sure do talk a lot .
-Sharon-
Orlando FL