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Do you think anyone knows what we’re talking about???
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I doubt it! Yes, I remember all those early boxes. My very first computer was a Timex Sinclair TS1000 with the membrane keypad, built-in Basic, and volatile memory. It cost me $25 Ca out of a bin in front of an electronics surplus store on Yonge st. in Toronto. I never bought the 64K expansion card so I had to key in the lottery numbers picking program I wrote on it manually everytime I turned it on. I had a little Zenith 5" B&W set that I used for the monitor. I tried for weeks to use my program to generate the most likely winning numbers and of course, nada one. So I just gave up one Saturday morning. I went to the library to read my favorite magazines, computers and sailing, then opened the Yachting magazing to the foldout ad in the opening cover...the Freedom 17, the 21, the 24, the 34, the 39, the 44. I used them to buy my tickets and won $197.00! I used the money to buy a Sharp PC1251 handheld computer, also with built-in Basic and 2.4K of non-volatile memory. I used it to write a math determinants program and aced a math test with it at college (I was a mature student even then). I also wrote an X's and O's program on it that the computer always won or drew. Tough with only one line of LCD display. Ah yeah, those were the days. All those memories are of days filled with sunshine - Toronto is, or was then anyway, the big city with the most sunny days on the continent. It always makes me feel good to think back on them.