Moone and Timolin

Moone and Timolin are villages close to each other in the south of Co.Kildare. My cycle ride this afternoon took me past a signpost that announced I was within a few km of these villages and this brought back memories of purchasing my first PC, as mention of either village always does.

My track, 38.2 miles, 12.45mph average

My route was "go anywhere you like but keep away from Dunlavin". Which you will see from my track that I did very successfully. It's not that there is anything particularly wrong with Dunlavin, just that all roads in this area appear to lead there and it is thus a struggle to keep away.

So - my first PC. This was shortly after my decision to start an electronics design consultancy, Microlite. Having used a multi-user computer in my work for the BBC I at least knew that I needed one but not much else. I left the BBC in 1981 and in the next 7 years before Microlite I was totally out of touch with the world of electronics. During those years I did other things like learning to live in a community, building work, picking potatoes, a painting and decorating business, teaching people to drive, I even helped to cook a meal for a restaurant. And during those years I was oblivious to the birth of the PC.

The decision before me was the lower cost Amstrad PCW which used the CP/M operating system, or the IBM PC. Thankfully I chose the latter. I can't remember how one did market research back then before the dawn of the internet, but somehow I found this outfit in Moone. I must have seen an advert somewhere because I can still sort of picture the front of this XT desktop. And I longed for an excuse to go to Moone to see it for myself and possibly purchase. Back then one couldn't just jump in a car on a whim - money was short and getting permission was the order of the day. How things have changed since then! In the event I ended up buying a PC-AT (286 processor) from a company in Dublin. I remember asking them what colour it was, which bemused the salesperson somewhat - "computer colour of course".

I chose a Hercules graphics card and monochrome monitor in colour orange, though virtually all of my work was text based. Later, when I purchased my first PCB-CAD software, I got a CGA monitor which boasted a resolution 320×200 in 4 colors. How things have changed since then!