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- ME AND MY COMMODORE
- by Jim Brain
-
-
- When I was in grade school (early
- 1980's), I decided that I wanted to
- buy an Atari 2600 game console. I went
- up and asked my Dad, who promptly shot
- down the idea, saying that I was going
- to have to buy it myself, and he
- wasn't going to allow me to spend my
- allowance on a game machine. He
- reasoned that I should buy a computer
- system, which could do useful work in
- addition to play games. So, I looked
- through the magazines, and the
- cheapest computer system was a
- Commodore VIC-20, at $233.00 I believe
-
- I had $280.00, so I went to
- Montgomery Ward's and purchased a
- VIC-20, some game titles, and one of
- the original CBM joysticks. That was
- how I got into Commodore computers.
- Surprisingly, I received the machine
- in 5th grade, but put it on the shelf
- after the novelty of playing games
- wore off and didn't touch it again
- until I entered 7th grade and found
- the math classroom had VIC-20s. That
- prompted me to pull the machine out of
- the closet, and become proficient in
- BASIC.
-
- I was hooked on the power of
- computers from that point on, and
- became very knowledgeable on Commodore
- systems. The VIC-20 gave way to a C64
- in high school (1985), and I used the
- system all through high school and
- through most of college to write
- papers, calculate math problem
- solutions, and even edit programs for
- computer classes in college by
- remotely dialing into the UNIX systems
- at the University of Illinois.
-
- I credit my Dad's refusal to buy
- me a game console with my career in
- computing. At this stage, I'm a senior
- applications architect in a
- well-paying position and having lots
- of fun working with computing
- technology every day.
-
- JB
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