Adjusting the volume control was very tricky. Often after nearly 5 minutes loading-time of a bigger programm the display signaled wrong parity.

That was the worst. I remember staring at the two blinking asterisks at the top of the screen, hoping like hell that I wouldn't have to try again. Mostly I was waiting for "Pyramid 2000" to load.

My first project (after typing in 100s of lines of BASIC code from the back of magazines so I could play, for example, a text-based racing game) was a simple drawing program using the number pad to move a cursor around. The '5' key turned the 'pen' on and off. What I couldn't manage was a blinking cursor. I was but a wee lad (8 years old).

For what it's worth, I think I may have gotten a computer too soon, both in terms of my age, and in terms of the computer's capacities. I had a lot of drive, and even tried to learn Z-80 assembler, but I couldn't hack it and found no support for my desire to learn more. I drooled over the pages of BYTE for a few years more, praying for a computer with a color display and something better than the crippled BASIC that came with the first TRS-80. But my family didn't have the money to spend on another computer, and I couldn't do enough on mine to keep me interested.

As a result, computing has for me only ever been a hobby. I wonder if it would have been different if I had had a C64, for example.

BCE
--Your punctuation skills are insufficient!

...praying for a computer with a color display and something better than the crippled BASIC that came with the first TRS-80.

I too started with a 16K TRS-80 (It had Level II Basic!). I got a job at a Tandy store during my school vacation in order to pay for it myself. I too very quickly became aware of it's limitations. Then I read about the Acorn Proton (which became the Acorn BBC) and I knew I had to have one. So I saved again, sold the TRS-80 and got one of the first Beebs to get to my hometown. That was cool - It had colour graphics, BBC Basic and 32K of RAM. I learned 6502 assembler on it. It still used cassette tape though, so then I had to save for a disk drive, and then... and then... and then... ...and here I am today learning Perl.

Boy oh boy, those were the days. It was especially fun when the volume control wheel got dusty, and every minor movement added loud crackling noises to the process. So for myself that meant adjusting the volume, disconnecting the uplink, playing the tape (to see if it was crackling), then rewind/reconnect.

The most entertaining thing my TRS-80 did was whenever it started to overheat (a couple hours after turning it on), it would randomly display dollar signs ($) along the right hand edge. I still wonder to this day if it was coincidence, or an ironic sense of humour on Radio Shack's part, reminding me of the quality of what I paid good money for..... 8)