Gizmodo in 1983?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://gizmodo.net/archives/002242.php#002242' target='_blank'>http://gizmodo.net/archives/002242.php#002242</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/Grid_Compass_1101_Folding_Laptop.jpg" />Here's a great trip down memory lane for you older readers, and likely facial expressions of disbelief from anyone under the age of 25. Wonder what the gadget market was like in 1983? Wonder no more! Gizmodo takes you down memory lane with a great write-up of a few gadgets from 1983, like the GRiD Compass 1101 pictured above:<br /><br />"First clamshell laptop compter. The Compass has a black magnesium alloy case, a gas plasma display, 384KB of memory, and for hacking while on the road, a lightning-fast 1200bps internal modem."<br /><br />Being only eight years old at the time, I was playing with GI Joe's (Cobraaaa!), but I started getting into computers when I was about 10 years old, so much of this looks familiar to me.

[Thinkingmandavid]

Right on, I hear you about G.I. Joe. and still one of my favorites:) I want when I have a son some for him to play wiht G.I. Joe toys as well:)
I remember visiting a few years ago my dads place of work, there was a guy there who had one of the first laptops. It was made by Tandem! haha
So that tells you how old it was. MMM, is that the right word? I know it was from radio shack..mmmmmm

[dartman]

You probably mean Tandy. That was Radio Shack corp name.

I just got rid of my Commodore Pet (Serial number 73) last year. Traded it for a fishing boat. Had 8K of memory and a 40x25 screen. Tape drive included. (This was a desktop, sort of). It was very small with an intolerable keyboard.

dart

[HTK]

Very nice link Jason! Thanks!!! :D
pretty cool to see all those gadgets, everytime I go to that page I think about how materialist I am :roll:

[Kati Compton]

Right on, I hear you about G.I. Joe. and still one of my favorites:) I want when I have a son some for him to play wiht G.I. Joe toys as well:)
I played with GI Joes all the time. I had the habit of disassembling them, and swapping arms & legs and such. I had a ton, but they were stolen by a classmate of mine. His parents were rich and he had the 7' aircraft carrier, so I'm not sure what his motivation was there. :evil:

PS - if you have a daughter, she may be interested in GI Joe's as well...
Knowing is half the battle.

[Kati Compton]

Being only eight years old at the time, I was playing with GI Joe's (Cobraaaa!), but I started getting into computers when I was about 10 years old, so much of this looks familiar to me.
Wait a minute!!! What's a CANADIAN doing playing with A REAL AMERICAN HERO? :D

Yo Joe!
He'll fight for freedom where ever there's trouble.
GI Joe is there.

It's GI Joe against Cobra the enemy
Fighting to save the day.
He never gives up.
He's always there,
Fighting for freedom over land and air

GI Joe- A real American hero
GI Joe is there

GI Joe is the codename for American's daring, highly trained
special mission force.
It's purpose, to defend human freedom against Cobra-
a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

He never gives up.
He'll stay til the fight's won.
GI Joe will dare.

GI Joe- A real American hero
GI Joe

[lgingell]

older readers!? i remember that.

jeez - I'm an old duffer at 34 ;-)

..lance

[Reza]

In 1983 I bought my first computer! It was a Canon X-07 and only really sold well in Japan and France. It was portable, had a 120x32 resolution LCD screen and 8KB of RAM! It also had tons of cool peripherals such as a 4-color printer, ROM cards and infrared communication devices. The funny (sad?) thing is I still have it somewhere in my garage! :D

http://pocket.free.fr/images/canon/x-07.jpg

[crimsonsky]

Here's where I get to show my age. My now almost 22 year old son was 2 years old. I owned the first Sony Walkman and everyone on my ship (Navy) was agog at it.

I didn't own a Grid Compass, but I sure remember it.

:D

[Brad Adrian]

I bought my first PC right about the time this was released. Mine was a very similar Tandy laptop:

Half-height CGA monochrome LCD screen
640K RAM (plus 128k print spooler)
8 mhz 8088 processor
DOS 3.1
External modem (but precious little to connect to)
dual 720k floppy drives (so you can keep your program disk in one drive and your data disk in the other!)
weight--about 15 lbs.
price: $1,800

Even though it was a ROCK by today's standards, once I had used it for the first time to write a graduate school term paper, I realized it was worth every penny.

AND, it was then that the slumbering technophilic giant inside me was awakened!

[Mitch D]

1983?? :rainbowafro:

Jeeze that brings back memories of High School, dances, strange classmates. Playing with a Mac Classic in drafting class, it had a really good Star trek game, and not getting much work done anywhere. Dreams of joining the army....

Sheesh am I glad that's over! :wink:

[ctmagnus]

swapping arms & legs and such

I didn't know you could do that!?!

I sold all mine at a garage sale last summer.

I hope to start getting rid of anything I haven't used in two years. The aforementioned was waaaaay overboard.

[Fzara]

1983?? :rainbowafro:

Jeeze that brings back memories of High School, dances, strange classmates. Playing with a Mac Classic in drafting class, it had a really good Star trek game, and not getting much work done anywhere. Dreams of joining the army....

Sheesh am I glad that's over! :wink:

Whats a geek doing at dances!?

WOW. That device is pretty old. 1 year before I was born. Sheesh, and only 8 kb!!! Amazing how times have changed.

I now know EXACTLY how old Jason is...mwuahahahahahaha. *coughs* mwuahahahahahaha. :mrgreen:

Ok. Dont get mad at me. Its 1:20am, and I just started and finished cleaning my car's backseat. Sooo borred. :(

[Kati Compton]

swapping arms & legs and such

I didn't know you could do that!?!
If I remember correctly, there's a small screw in the back. But I don't have one here (my remaining ones are at my parents').

I hope to start getting rid of anything I haven't used in two years. The aforementioned was waaaaay overboard
Don't tell me you had the aircraft carrier too?! ;) I wanted that *so* bad.
I mainly had the good guys, though I did have Tomaz and Zamot.

I try to keep a "sample" of things like this in a memory box, though. Don't have to keep all of it, but it'll nice to have a little bit of it to enjoy when I'm 85. ;)

[Kati Compton]

Whats a geek doing at dances!?
If I remember middle school correctly, standing near the door to the gym watching other people dance... Oh, wait. High school. Well, by then I was mature and sophisticated and had dates. Well, maybe not freshman year. ;)

[Abba Zabba]

i remeber when that stuff was starting to emerge. Now look what we have to marvel at in today's world. Boy the times are a changin'

[javageek]

Kati42, that's Tomax and Xamot ;)

I had hundreds of Joes, well at least it seemed like hundreds. In 1983 I was ten, so I didn't have a lot of tech stuff. I do remember having a remote control van that had a clicker remote, it wasn't too long before we just started clapping to get it to do it's stuff. Then in 1985 my parent's bought the C= 64, that was the end of normality for me.

[Perry Reed]

I had that little Walkman they mention on that archive page. Sadly it got stolen at school.

Computer-wise I had moved off of the school's Commodore PETs and onto my very own Atari 800 (which I still have and occasionally still use.)

[Jhokur2k]

Hehe I guess the chances of two Jason's on a board being roughly the same age is quite possible - I would also be 8 when that device came out... although I got an earlier start in "computers", playing around with my uncle's TI Sinclair, then the VIC-20, several C64's, etc...

[Mitch D]

Whats a geek doing at dances!?

:(

As much as I hate to admit it I didn't turn into a geek until I was in my early 20's. When I was in High School I was not much of a geek, I was into martial arts, rugby, football... etc. What can I say... I finally saw the light... :rofl:

[Kati Compton]

Kati42, that's Tomax and Xamot ;)
:P It's been a while. In 1983 I was 7, so my memory is a little shaky too... ;)

Then in 1985 my parent's bought the C= 64, that was the end of normality for me.
Heh. Friend of mine wrote a 3D engine and a jpeg viewer for the C64 if you can believe it. Sometimes those applied math guys are useful to have around.

[daS]

One thing missing from the Gizmodo list from 1983:

Back then you could buy an HP 12C calculator for $79! About the same price that it was when it came out two years earlier. Even though every other piece of electronics went down in price, the HP 12C was such a hit with the real estate and accounting crowd that they were able to keep the price high back then.

Now fast forward to 2003... You can still buy a brand new HP 12C at your local office supply store. The price? $69! :roll:

The 12C has had the longest production run of any calculator, and I'm sure any computing device in general. However, the guts of a current HP 12C is a single chip instead of the PCB crammed with electronic parts that was inside the original.

As another aside: HP has just started shipping the HP 12C Platinum. Street price: $79! 8O

[Kati Compton]

As another aside: HP has just started shipping the HP 12C Platinum. Street price: $79! 8O
On a related note... I noticed recently that the high-end Texas Instruments graphing calculators are about the same price now as they were over 10 years ago when I got my TI-99. $80-$100. Now *that* is definitely something that should have gone down in price.

[Ken Mattern]

Ah! The good old days. 8)

I built my first computer from a kit - not the Altair 8080, but a Micro.Ace. It had:

2k RAM
Tiny BASIC in ROM
Composite video
Membrane keyboard
The best programming manual ever

I wore it out in three months and stepped up to an Ohio Scientific Superboard II. A bare board computer with 8k of ram. I was living high. :lol:

Does anyone remember the MOTOR statement?

[rmasinag]

Harharhar...1983...I was 5, stuck in Lagos, Nigeria, not much tech there :D

But a year after after returning t the Philippines, my mom bought us an Atari(forgot which), My friend bought a New Commodore 64, and made me walk 20 miles with him telling me "walking is good for health" and promising me 20 new GI Joes (we used to trade the unopened ones like baseball cards), esp the characters than you can only get from vehicles.
I got 10....after beating him up at least twice to cough it up. :mrgreen:

[daS]

Ah! The good old days. 8)

I built my first computer from a kit - not the Altair 8080, but a Micro.Ace. It had:

2k RAM
Tiny BASIC in ROM
Composite video
Membrane keyboard
The best programming manual ever

BASIC in ROM? You were living large! :wink:

My first computer was a KIM-1 (still got it!) 1K RAM, 2K ROM, hex keypad and 6-digit hex display: 4 digits for the address, 2 digits for the data.

Had to write the code in assembly and manually convert it to machine code to enter into the hex pad. I use to hate loops that required manually calculating 2s complement subtraction. :evil:

Then I got my first "real" job working on PDP-11s with a two-pass assembiler and paper tape for loading and storing programs. Now that was living! :mrgreen:

Gee I'm getting old! :mecry:

[Jonathan1]

Holy crap!! :jawdrop: A MS mouse cost $195 back then??!?! ACK! Insane!

[Thinkingman]

I dont rmember them costing that much, but you know what it makes sense. For that time period it was all new and all so over priced.
G.I. Joe is the bomb!
kate i am glad u put that on there. I am going to save that on disk. I have always loved G.I. Joe:)!
OH, and Jason, that is a good question, youare canadian playing with American toys, and such a great super hero as that:) haah
mmmm, maybe you want to be American eh?? :lol:

[kfluet]

I bought my Apple II clone in 1983 with my own money. I was 13--that was a LOT of paper routes, babysitting and other random chores--but it was worth it. 64kb of RAM. Floppy drive. Amber displays rule!

About the GI Joe: What's all this silly talk about those StarWars action figure clones? Real GI Joe is something like a foot tall, has a fuzzy crew cut, and Kung-Fu Grip. Your mom occasionally steals his orange jump suit and washes it because it smells funny. You have to worry about where his boots went after you build a catapult in your back yard and launch him into the neighbour's yard. And you have to have your dad use a new elastic band to put his arm back on. :-)

[Ken Mattern]

Gee I'm getting old! :mecry:

Dave,

Tell me about it.

sigh...

BTW My old Tandy 100 still works and I actually use it!

[Ken Mattern]

Holy crap!! :jawdrop: A MS mouse cost $195 back then??!?! ACK! Insane!

Believe it or not I actually know one of the guys who worked with Englebart developing the first mouse at XPARC. It was a wooden block with wheels on each side and a couple of buttons. Probably cost a million dollars. 8O

[ctmagnus]

If I remember correctly, there's a small screw in the back. But I don't have one here (my remaining ones are at my parents').

It was in the hole that you put backpacks into. I just realized it never occurred to me to take that out. I've taken pretty much every other screw out of one thing or another unless I knew beforehand what was inside it.

Don't tell me you had the aircraft carrier too?! ;) I wanted that *so* bad.

No, but my rich friend did and of course we could never play with it when I was over there. He always wanted to do other stuff.

I mainly had the good guys, though I did have Tomaz and Zamot.

I had Xamot and Tomax also. Which one had the scar?

heh heh... Steve's gonna be after us again. :)

[Kati Compton]

I had Xamot and Tomax also. Which one had the scar?
Yes - I've already been notified I was wrong. ;) It was Xamot that had the scar, at least according to: http://www.yojoe.com/filecard/85/tomaxamot.shtml

[ctmagnus]

I had Xamot and Tomax also. Which one had the scar?
Yes - I've already been notified I was wrong. ;) It was Xamot that had the scar, at least according to: http://www.yojoe.com/filecard/85/tomaxamot.shtml

:oops: I thought Xamot was always listed before Tomax is why I repeated it. Guess I was wrong.

[lapchinj]

Hey – How about a Timex Sinclare with 2k of memory that loaded programs off a cassette drive. This is the machine that got me into programming. :D It didn’t take long before I graduated to an IBM PC jr. with the chicklet keyboard and a 5-1/4 floppy drive – Wow!! 8O 8O I then went mainstream with an IBM PC 8088 with 64k RAM and TWO 5-1/4 floppies. When I finally had some money I bought a card from AST Research with 256k memory and I got that new graphics interface called Windows 286 (I still got that) - Cool 8) 8) . A friend of mine bought a TallGrass 5 meg hard drive for $1000 (if I remember correctly). I thought he was insane since my whole machine fit onto a 360k 5-1/4 floppy (Two floppies if I included windows. What would he do with 5 meg. :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: