[dba-Tech] What got you interested in technology? IT's rich and famous share their memories

Arthur Fuller fuller.artful at gmail.com
Fri Nov 18 08:33:27 CST 2011


My first box was purchased on March 15, 1983. It was a Unitron, a clone of
the Apple II. It came with Apple SOS and a CP/M card containing 48K of RAM.
First thing I bought was a 16K expansion card. I used to run WordStar,
Supercalc and dBASE II on it. It took about a month to become skilled at
dBASE II and from then on I've been hooked on databases.

Speaking of OS/2, at that time I was a freelance journalist working for
several magazines, writing mostly software reviews etc. IBM flew a bunch of
journalists to Bletchley Park to unveil OS/2. Bletchley park initially
became famous as the place where they cracked the Enigma machine.

A.

On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 8:43 AM, Gustav Brock <Gustav at cactus.dk> wrote:

> Hi Arthur
>
> I'll share a part of my memory that for some unknown reason popped forward
> the other day:
>
> Do you remember the time when OS/2 was moving ahead, that a major issue to
> discuss was if it would be able to launch in a machine equipped with 4 MB
> of RAM?
> I don't recall what made 4 MB a magic number but today, where 4 GB is
> standard in main-level machines, it is hard to imagine that this parameter
> could get any attention at all.
> Perhaps it was cost - I guess 1 MB of RAM at those days equals 4 GB today.
> Didn't Compaq manufacture a full-length(!) add-in board with 3 MB extended
> RAM? At a fortune.
>
> /gustav
>
>



More information about the dba-Tech mailing list