My Retrocomputing Page

I've recently begun pursuing an interest in retrocomputing, although I'm old enough to have used many kinds of old computers firsthand and have always had an interest in preserving and continuing to use various computer systems from the past. Here is a short list of the various old computer systems that I've had or used significantly in my lifetime:

• When I was a kid, we had a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A Home Computer; I still think of the TI-99/4A as my favorite retrocomputer to this day. See My Texas Instruments TI-99/4A Page.
• We also had, for a time, an Epson QX-10 with CP/M as its operating system. Although we didn't have this computer very long, I fondly remember playing the Colossal Cave Adventure text-adventure game on it with my dad.
• In my kindergarten classroom we had a Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 (Model III, if memory serves), and because of my experience with the TI-99/4A at home I was the only kid in the K/1 class who already knew how to write programs in BASIC.
• From first through sixth grade we had Apple II computers:
  • My favorite game, educational or otherwise, on the Apple II was Gertrude's Secrets; little did I know that Gertrude's Secrets would prep my mind and even shape my future career as a philosopher and logic instructor.
  • As in kindergarten, I was the only kid in the class who really knew how to use a computer, and the teacher would often let me hang out in the back of the classroom at the Apple II and teach other kids in the class how to use it; I was always a teacher at heart, it seems!
• Shortly after I received my ham radio license in 1991, a kind fellow ham radio operator in the local ham radio club gave me what was then already an old 286 IBM PC AT clone, complete with DOS as the operating system, an awesome little menu program (called "Automenu," if memory serves), various other pre-installed DOS-based software and a color CGA monitor.

This page was last updated on 11/6/2025.