Remember When

Quote: AZDuffman

Are you sure you do not mean the 60s or 70s? Punch cards would have been gone by the 80s. The IBM PC would have been used after 1981,
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Nope started programming in 1981 and worked on the IBM-360/30 until 1984. I started programming in Fortran 66 on that machine and then learned COBOL on it. I bought an Apple ][e in 1984 and programmed professionally on that until about 1987.

In 1984 I got a 300 baud acoustic modem for my terminal and I was then one of the "cool" kids (read that as Nerd). The display on that terminal was 24 lines by 80 characters. Everytime you scrolled down one line it had to redraw the whole screen. It would take over one minute just to scroll down one line.

Like the Timex Sinclair 1000 sneaking into the frame.
About 1984 I obtained a Hayes SmartModem 300 and immediately racked up a huge phone bill calling BBSes around the country. Then I ponied up for a CompUServe acct. with a local access number and kept that account for about a dozen years. Even had a CompUServe branded credit card that had my ID embossed on the front.

What was the computer in electronic magazines? It was more like an electronic kit. I don't know that it did much more than a calculator. I can't find a picture that looks like anything I remember. Probably in the 70's?

Quote: rxwine

What was the computer in electronic magazines? It was more like an electronic kit. I don't know that it did much more than a calculator. I can't find a picture that looks like anything I remember. Probably in the 70's?
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Practicaly every home computer before 1977 was sold as a kit in electronics mags.

https://oldcomputers.net/

According to Steve Wozniak, the early Apple III had "100 percent hardware failures".

1987: March - Apple Computer makes its 1 millionth Macintosh personal computer.
1987: Apple Computer begins shipping the Macintosh II.

The Macintosh II is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from March 1987 to January 1990. Based on the Motorola 68020 32-bit CPU, it is the first Macintosh supporting color graphics. When introduced, a basic system with monitor and 20 MB hard drive cost US $5,498. - Yeah, I didn't have that kind of money

The Motorola 68020 accessed memory 32 bits at a time. The Intel Pentium Pro is also a 32 bit cpu, but some versions had 36 bits of addressing, that required using address translation schemes.
Reference: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/8-bit-32-bit-64-bit-processors.536630/

Quote: ChumpChange

According to Steve Wozniak, the early Apple III had "100 percent hardware failures".
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(trimmed)

I believe one of the factory recommended repair techniques was to pick the computer up about 5 inches and drop it.
Heat cycling would cause some chips to rise up out of their sockets; dropping the computer would tend to push them back in and make it start working.

Percussive maintenance is (was?) real.

In the Fall of 1976, one of my fraternity brothers got his father to buy him a computer for a business he wanted to start. The project was supposed to cost around $15,000 but was closer to $25,000 and took almost a year to complete. It took up most of a room and needed its own air conditioner. Gary's business failed, but he hooked up with some other guys from a start-up called Computer Associates and did very well for himself.

Remember layaway?

A few stores still have it. But I think it's dying. I think what substitutes for it is like what Best Buy uses. You pay no interest on a credit card purchase, and if the product is paid for before that date it is interest free. Miss it, and an exorbitant interest fee kicks in. One difference, is the product doesn't sit in a back room until paid off.

I don't remember what fee layaway had for penalties. I assume it was minor until companies figured out how many ways to Sunday, they could hack out new fees on top of actual selling price.

I too think layaway is mostly gone, with installment payment services like klarna and afterpay trying to fill the niche.

I seem to remember a big kerfuffle when a store went out of business (possibly bankrupt) and customers could not get the layaway items nor their money back. (No, I don't remember the specifics.)

Layaway was more about limited run items or sale items. Clothing was one of the biggest things, more women's than men's. Also could lock in the sale price of an item.

It was also before Capitol One would give your dog a credit card.

Stores probably liked it because you had to keep coming back in to make the payments, maybe buy something else.