My First Computer: Behold the Sharp PC-1500a
In 1985, or was it 1986, a box arrived in the mail from my uncle. My uncle was at the cutting edge of technology through most of the 80's. He had left our small hometown to go work at one of the largest software companies in the world, so when he sent packages they always included something cool. I rememeber one year he sent a small bag of ~ 20 circuit boards, which ended up being copied (pirated) Atari 2600 games. So naturally I was hoping for a fresh batch of illegal video games. Little did I realize that what was inside the box would end up changing my life forever. Inside the package was a brown, plastic case with a note attached. The note read "Found this in my office, it's a few years old but thought you might like it".
I quickly flipped open the case to find the epic Sharp PC-1500a Pocket Computer, shiny and unused, smelling of fresh electronics.
To me, the PC-1500a was like something out of Star Trek. I had heard about computers but had no idea "pocket computers" even existed. It featured a single-line 26-character LCD display, 8 KB of RAM and ran programs written in BASIC. There was no hard drive and backups were done to cassette tape using an external tape recorder. (By the time I was done with it, I had amassed 10-20 tapes consisting of nothing but the horrific screech of data backup). Also included in the box was the essential CE-150 Printer Module. The main PC-1500a snapped into this sucker, which featured a 4-color pen plotter. That's 4 little ball-point pens of different color that would scratch out characters and graph plots.
Over the next year or so, I taught myself some simple BASIC and wrote some silly little games. They were mostly text-based adventure games like Pirate Cove, though mine were really nothing more than choose-your-own-adventure stories. I was very proud of a wrestling game I made which allowed you to execute moves and calculated the remaining health of you + your opponent. It was a ton of fun. I'd move on to other PCs; a DOS based monochrome AT&T desktop, then a slick Hyundai PC running Windows 3.1 which I used to first access the internet in the early 90's (go CompuServe), etc. Eventually I'd follow my uncle and also go to work at one of the largest software companies in the world. But I'll never forget that little Sharp pocket computer.
So what was your first computer?
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