I bought an Atom second-hand, it was my first 'own' computer. My father first had a TRS-80 model III and then an IBM clone XT. So the Atom was definitely less capable, but it was my own. I read all the accompanying manuals front to back and I read the computer magazines that came with it and this is how I learned English. I was 9 years old at that point. It came with schematics and of course I opened the case. I could not get the thing to load or save data on my dad's tape recorder. And it was only so much fun trying to type in a program from a listing which I could not save, especially taking into account my limited typing skills at the time and the fact that I had to do this while the Atom was attached to the TV in the living room. Still, it was a worth wile and forming experience and surely worth my pocket money.
Later on in life, end of 90s, I was re-wiring the building of my students union, with a friend. Many amps main board, 380 volts, 40 circuits or so, kind of big install. We had to create plans and supply them to get approval from the city or the utility company or the architect or such. For this we used the Archimedes of some guy that helped us. At this point the Archimedes definitely was dead as a platform, Windows 98 was just out. But it was still possible to use it to create drawings and schematics and quite capable.
Comments
I bought an Atom second-hand, it was my first 'own' computer. My father first had a TRS-80 model III and then an IBM clone XT. So the Atom was definitely less capable, but it was my own. I read all the accompanying manuals front to back and I read the computer magazines that came with it and this is how I learned English. I was 9 years old at that point. It came with schematics and of course I opened the case. I could not get the thing to load or save data on my dad's tape recorder. And it was only so much fun trying to type in a program from a listing which I could not save, especially taking into account my limited typing skills at the time and the fact that I had to do this while the Atom was attached to the TV in the living room. Still, it was a worth wile and forming experience and surely worth my pocket money.
Later on in life, end of 90s, I was re-wiring the building of my students union, with a friend. Many amps main board, 380 volts, 40 circuits or so, kind of big install. We had to create plans and supply them to get approval from the city or the utility company or the architect or such. For this we used the Archimedes of some guy that helped us. At this point the Archimedes definitely was dead as a platform, Windows 98 was just out. But it was still possible to use it to create drawings and schematics and quite capable.
Nice. I felt the same way - read that book from cover to cover many times.
I could never afford a BBC Micro when that came out and certainly not the Archimedes but I always admired from afar.