Hard to believe today, $3K was a lot of money in 1983, by then I’d opted for an Apple ][+ so a different path… One survived, one did not…
I lusted for an Apple][e, but the base unit with a display, keyboard and maybe even operating system was $2,499. So I got an Osborne - about 2 weeks before the company folded. While that was bad, it may be one of the best things that happened. I had to learn a great deal about computers.
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At the time I went for the Apple ][+, we had 2 or 3 local computer shops, including RX, but the one shop was really good, open, good folks, so I dove in, stayed connected for years, on into Macs, LaserWriter nt, ImageWriter, software, and along the way, joined our local NCMUG, BMUG (Berkeley), and the SF Apple Core. Watched as many members found new ways to do business, desktop publishing, repairs, so many years of that world. There was a local PCMUG, in fact one of out NCMUG Presidents also presided over that group for a while, too… Today, all are long gone, I retain the bits of once was the NCMUG on Facebook, a couple hundred members, but only a few actually active as the need for help has faded away… Fun times, lots of fun folks…
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You all were way ahead of me. I was working with mainframes at work, and had a top of the line Compaq 386-20 with VGA and a Sony monitor, with a terminal emulator board so it could pretend to be a mainframe terminal. At home I waited a bit, then got a Gateway 2000 in a very similar configuration; 386-20, VGA, 80 meg hard drive, NEC monitor. Along the lines of this ad.
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Thinking back, monitors were a problem, small TV eventually, a Sony, but before, a green screen, then an amber screen upgrade… So many miles from today’s monitors, they were all CRTs! Now weldon’t even have any, altho I think I still have an Amdek amber screen in the garage for a remaining Apple //e out there… A long way from my current Dell 32: flat screed…
One I had, don’t recall the brand, but it could be rotated to portrait mode, big heavy monster…
Oh, and printers, before I had an ImageWriter, I use a 23 TTY, partly because I found it for $10 at a surplus shop in the Sierras, but also it used pin feed paper, and I had access to boxes of paper from work, never ending… Noisy, but magical at the time, an opto-isolator to use the TTY’s current loop, I forget what that card cost, but it worked great!
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