Guest Mopar Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 quote:Originally posted by BassoonPilot: Mopar, what did you connect with? An Altair? A Timex-Sinclair 1000?? An Apple II??? When did the first Mac (graphical interface + mouse; no keyboard) come out? 1983?? Mopar's Computers in History-101 Lets see: Had a friend with an IMSAI. That is STILL the coolest looking computer in the world, IMHO. Programed that in binary if i remember right, via toggle switches. I built an ELF. It could only read out in hex on a calculator type display. I had another friend that was a tech for a company that marketed a Z80, S100, CP/M minicomputer. He used to get all the old prototype boards, and we would sit there and hardwire the revisions ourselves. Played my 1st games of colossal Caverns and Star Trek on that one. Then the TI 99/4A came out around 1980 I think. 16bit CPU. Dedicated color graphics processor. Had to have it. Must have spent about $4-5k after the dust settled. 3 floppy drives. Speech synth. 32k mem card. RS232 card. Thermal and dot matrix printers. EVERYTHING. Had played around with some 110 baud accustic modems on the Z80 box, but nothing serious. Bought a 300 baud accustic for the TI and I got hooked. Soon as Hayes came out with the Smartmodem 300, got me one of them. Think it was about $4-500 or so for that. Those were the days. SSDD 5¼ floppy disks were about $4 each. RAM was $10 per KILObyte. When the Winchester drives came out, they were $5000 for 5 megs. ALMOST bought me one of them, hehehe. Compuserve cost $6 per hr for 300baud access. Boy, I miss those days.......NOT! From there I went to an original IBM PC and its been a downward spiral ever since. Quote Link to comment
Guest BassoonPilot Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Mopar: ... When the Winchester drives came out, they were $5000 for 5 megs. ALMOST bought me one of them, hehehe. Compuserve cost $6 per hr for 300baud access. Boy, I miss those days.......NOT! Those Winchester drives are still really useful, Mopar. They make TERRIFIC doorstops. I remember reading a few years back that Bill O'Brien, of the "Hard Edge" column fame, fashioned a few into door knockers. [This message has been edited by BassoonPilot (edited 17 January 2002).] Quote Link to comment
Guest tak1 Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 I think that it comes down to demographics. Perhaps the people in this GPS community are the type of people who think that their chioces are infallible, thus defend their stance to all ends. Maybe this is the kind of people that the Groundspeak forums attract. L:K Magellan for all!!! Quote Link to comment
Guest jfitzpat Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 quote:[b}Originally posted by Mopar: Lets see: Had a friend with an IMSAI. That is STILL the coolest looking computer in the world, IMHO. Programed that in binary if i remember right, via toggle switches. I built an ELF. It could only read out in hex on a calculator type display... [snip] [/b] My coding experience goes back to the 4004., did a lot of 8080/8085/Z80 CP/M stuff ("Big Board", Kaypro, Jonus, etc.) and quite a bit of 6809 and 6502 stuff, but never never played with the TI. I do miss big 'ol 8" floppys... -jjf Quote Link to comment
Guest jfitzpat Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 quote:[b}Originally posted by Mopar: Lets see: Had a friend with an IMSAI. That is STILL the coolest looking computer in the world, IMHO. Programed that in binary if i remember right, via toggle switches. I built an ELF. It could only read out in hex on a calculator type display... [snip] [/b] My coding experience goes back to the 4004., did a lot of 8080/8085/Z80 CP/M stuff ("Big Board", Kaypro, Jonus, etc.) and quite a bit of 6809 and 6502 stuff, but never never played with the TI. I do miss big 'ol 8" floppys... -jjf Quote Link to comment
Guest JamieZ Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 quote:Originally posted by BassoonPilot: ...my membership in AOL when there were only a couple of hundred thousand users, AOL 2.0 (1991 I was a member of Q-Link... way back. If you do your research, you'll learn that Quantum Computer Services was the previous name of America Online. The first time I saw AOL, I laughed aloud because it was so similar to Q-Link, home of the Commmodore 64 since 1985. That little Commie could do a lot. http://www.sillious.net/QLink/ Jamie Quote Link to comment
Guest VentureForth Posted January 17, 2002 Share Posted January 17, 2002 So should I get a Magellan 330X for $200 or a Garmin eTrex Vista for $300? ------------------ VentureForth out to the wild, wet forest... Quote Link to comment
Guest BassoonPilot Posted January 18, 2002 Share Posted January 18, 2002 quote:Originally posted by VentureForth:So should I get a Magellan 330X for $200 or a Garmin eTrex Vista for $300? Yes. Seriously, as an owner of both a Magellan and Garmin Vista, if you can afford the extra $100, I feel the Garmin will serve you better, for no other reason than you will save TONS of time not waiting to reacquire satellites. You'll also grow to like the other features. Quote Link to comment
Guest BassoonPilot Posted January 18, 2002 Share Posted January 18, 2002 quote:Originally posted by VentureForth:So should I get a Magellan 330X for $200 or a Garmin eTrex Vista for $300? Yes. Seriously, as an owner of both a Magellan and Garmin Vista, if you can afford the extra $100, I feel the Garmin will serve you better, for no other reason than you will save TONS of time not waiting to reacquire satellites. You'll also grow to like the other features. Quote Link to comment
Guest brokenwing Posted January 19, 2002 Share Posted January 19, 2002 quote:Originally posted by BassoonPilot: I feel the Garmin will serve you better, for no other reason than you will save TONS of time not waiting to reacquire satellites. OK, you're going to have to explain that comment. I own a 330x and I don't spend any time waiting to reaccquire satellites. What do you mean? ------------------ Brokenwing http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching Quote Link to comment
Guest brokenwing Posted January 19, 2002 Share Posted January 19, 2002 quote:Originally posted by VentureForth:So should I get a Magellan 330X for $200 or a Garmin eTrex Vista for $300? You should get whichever unit best matches the features you need, and your budget. You're not going to get any consensus here. As jfitzpat orginally stated above, there seems to be too much brand and even model loyalty to get a straight answer. If you have not checked it out, I'd recommend taking a look at http://joe.mehaffey.com/ Joe and Jack are pretty honest in comparing different units. In the end, only you know what's most important to you. For example, from my perspective, I personally would never own any model of eTrex due to poor reception problems I have had with one. jfitzpat seems to feel very differently about this particular issue and is entitled to his opinion as well. I happen to like the Garmin GPS V, the Garmin MAP 76, the Magellan 330x, (if you can find it) and the Magellan Meridian line. Bottom line for me: If I were buying a new unit today and I had the money, I'd probably go with the GPS V, but that's because it best matches what "I" need. Your needs and experiences may be very different. Best of luck in your search. ------------------ Brokenwing http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching [This message has been edited by brokenwing (edited 19 January 2002).] Quote Link to comment
Guest bradrobb Posted January 19, 2002 Share Posted January 19, 2002 I see from all the post here no said they owned a Lowrance gps. I have the gm100 and like it very much. I bought it because I have one of there fish finders and was a name I knew. I am hapy with it and the gps does all I want it to do. Quote Link to comment
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