CV
Blog
Photos
readings
downloads
work
links
F.A.Q.
interests
travels
trekking
videogames
working
programming
playing
miniatures
fitness
programming
C, C++
Java
Shell
misc.
guestbook
Sharp PC1251 |
The first computer I ever owned was a pocket computer from Sharp: PC1251. I was 14 and I stressed my parents a lot beacuse I did want a computer. My parents went to China for a travel and on their way back they stopped in Honk Kong. As they were there they bought me this piece of hardware along with its expansion module featuring a mini-cassette player and a termal printer. As I received this present I was really excited - ehy it was a computer! After a few minutes I was holding it in my hands excitement started wearing off, and I asked aloud "Yes, but... where is the tv plug?" Since then my parents refused to buy me any computing device without my presence :-) I used it for a while, learning BASIC, trying to program it in assembly as the rest of the world did for their Sinclairs and Commodores. After some months I trade it in for a... |
ZX Spectrum 48k
|
I spent literaly a lot of time on this computer both playing and programming. In those first days of home computing (it was 1982-1983) swapping programs was a natural activity natural and innocent. With my friends usually the swap was 1 to 1. Since I had not much money to buy new videogames, I started developing my ones. Those were great times. I still remember vividly the sensation of the first time I tried 'The Hobbit' adventure. Typing in the text supposing to give commands to then unknown Bilbo and Gandalf. Programming was somewhat an epic activity. Basic could barely handle very simple game and assembly was the only option for the game programmer wannabes. My friends and me hadn't an assembler program, so we coded the software first on the paper, then, thank to the Spectrum manual with included a suitable table, converted the mnemonics into decimal code and still manually we inserted in the computer memory. I kept the Spectrum for some years. During the last one I converted it in the Spectrum plus. Basically it is the same hardware mounted in a different case with a 'QL'ish style. The keys was something better than the rubber old ones, but still inferior to the real keyboard. |
Amstrad CPC 6128 |
At the age of 17 I switched to the Amstrad cpc6128. It was still an 8bit, but with a superior hardware respect to the poor ol' speccy. Huge amount of memory (128k) and a floppy disk drive (3", yes three, not 3.5") were the main features. Amstrad basic was very fast, but the game programming should still be done in assembly. Thanks to the disk, and to the use of an assembler, my productivity raised. I wrote a side-scrolling shot-em-up, named 'Sabotron'. It was quite simple even for then standards: flying saucers floated along predefined paths and randomly placed turrets fired at you. ... |
Amiga 2000 |
When I began the college, after some insistence on my side, my parents bought me an Amiga 2000. Amiga was a computer far ahead for that times. It was multitasking (like the Sinclair QL) and featured advanced hardware with sound and 2D graphic acceleration. Also Amiga had a Motorola 68000 that offered a very clean architecture with flat memory space. I had great fun with Amiga, learned C, multiprogramming, GUI paradigm and started my main personal project - a rendering and animation program named 3DRap. Amiga was great, but it couldn't last forever. After having expanded its memory to 3M, and added a 120Mbytes HD its time was over. I turned then to a PC compatible (a Dell) that was a lot faster: 486DX2-50Mhz, 8M RAM and 320M HD. |
Casio FX-850p |
During the college I had the need for a powerful calculator to use in calculus intentive exams. I bought this Casio along with its printer and RS232 adapter. The Casio FX850p is programmable in BASIC and sports an impressive built-in scientific library. |
DX2-66 16M, 525M HD, CD-ROM
Pentium 133
Celeron 400
Athlon AMD 2600+.
The images you find in this page are not shot by me. I have found them on internet. Here you are the credits:
pc-1251 taken from http://www.voidware.com/
Amstrad cpc-6128, Amiga 2000 taken from http://www.old-computers.com/
Casio FA-6 and FX850p taken from http://pocket.free.fr/
