h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's not much to say about this, really. It's from from 1984, it tells you how to send an email, and it's terribly British. I saw it and thought of y'all. Also, it brought back memories of messing about with computers in the days when that woman's jumper was actually considered a normal thing to wear. Enjoy - but beware the audio download at the end. (How did that even work?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szdbKz5CyhA

Wow - that is amazing technology... Especially the modem that still allows you to use the phone... (our modem from 1995 couldn't manage that! )

I love how the dial phone literally dials the internet! Great to hear the dot matrix printer again, too!

My family had a Commodore in 1984, but only for games, word processing and writing simple programs (in that order). The audio download is clever, though - the Commodore ran programs off cassettes, so the sound must have generated a magnetic pattern that matched what the computer needed

Thanks for sharing that!

I had an ulterior motive, Sasha. I figured you'll all tell me interesting stories about that technology and how you used it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial

What did E.T. use then to phone home ?
answer - a moonbeam

We got our Commodore 64 computer in 1983! Still have the old computer magazines. Yes they could go online … but sadly we didn't do that, the first I got online was in the year 2000! I still remember the machine with fondness. I used it for writing and printing school projects; my father used the word processor for his lectures, poems and stories. I was also into computer graphics … the 64 had an 8K screen with sixteen colours total of which you could use only 4 per 8 x 8 character 'cell' on the screen. I drew using a Koala Pad, one of the first graphic tablets to come into use amongst personal computer enthusiasts.

Also enjoyed the program for printing, Printshop … did lots of patterns and some abstract designs using the program's kaleidoscope feature.

Essentially most things we can do today with our computers could already be done on those old machines, just rather more rudimentary. It was a start!

I know what you mean about 'you could do things, only more rudimentary.'

I had a photo program in the late '90s that did some really cool things. Unfortunately, the load time on the 5"x7" scanner I installed was glacial. Then, when pentium came along, my cool program was obsolete. They've never put those features back in a cheap program again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_CPC_464

Me and my mam, once bought my "now EX stepson" this for a birthday, he never even tried to use it, for a game or basic programming. At the time it cost £300 - a total waste of spent money on him - life is a learning curve it never goes in a straight line

That's an impressive machine for its time.

I enjoyed using it
I could get a "man" to walk across the screen it didn't have the "power" to get him to walk back

best part was - "he" walked left to right
No instructions in the manual for right to left or diagonal

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed watching this. Thank you very much. They were using Skype before Skype were invented - did anyone else notice? I was very impressed with the one-button print command - I don't recall such a thing ever working, ever! I am going to sign off emails with "Electronically yours" from now on and wish I'd been doing it for the last 20-odd years that I've had access to email. I'm going to share the video with Andrew tonight and be back with his comments.

Great! Let us know what he thinks.

'Electronically yours' may start a trend...

we seem to have come along way since slate boards in schools and semaphore flags on hills eh!

Do kids anywhere still use slate boards? We did when I was in primary school.

remove the batteries and all kids will be lost!
how do I add 1 and 1 ?