[geeks] Found: Ti99/4a!

[Dave McGuire]

On April 9, Mike Hebel wrote:
> I only wish I had had access to such things.  Suburbia did not afford
> me the luxury of Internet/BBS/or Surplus Shops until I was much, much,
> older.

  Me neither.  Radio Shack was the only source of electronics stuff in
the Trenton/Princeton area, and I happened across the PDP-11/34a by
chance when the lab down the hall from where I worked upgraded to a
PDP-11/73.  I had met the professor there, and he'd taken a liking to
me because I was so young and had such a "burning" for this stuff.  He
made sure I got the 11/34a; he pulled some strings and got the
property disposition department to sell it to me for $250.  I saved
most of my salary for that, and my grandmother scraped pretty hard to
make up the difference (we were pretty poor) but I finally made it.

> My mom viewed it that way too.  My only complaint was that it was hard
> as hell to get access to anything in my area except later in
> High-School and people had a fit if you were doing anything but what
> was assigned to you.  Of course that didn't stop me from using one of
> the Macs to forge someone's report card until he could get his grade
> up. ;-)

  Cool. :)

> DM>   I *hate* nickel & dimers.  *barf*
> 
> Yeah, currently they're probably deciding if they can find someone
> with my 'nix experience (small as it is) cheaper than what I'm
> charging them.

  Ahh, gotta love the job security in this industry.

      -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire              "Anybody who is willing to EAT YOU probably isn't
St. Petersburg, FL         such a good person to be hanging out with." -Sridhar