There was a period when DOS based PC’s were still too  expensive for the average computer nerd.

By the time I’d actually bought a Commodore 64, I’d already had (and sold) an Apple ][+ and owned both a console model TI-99 (this computer was way ahead of it’s time). And an Timex-Sinclar ZX-81.

I no longer have the console model of the TI-99, but I still have the silver “toaster” model. With a few cartridges (thanks Jeff!)

I can’t quite give that one up yet.

I also still have the zx-81, 958 bytes of screaming ram. Although I did get a 16k memory pack from someone I worked with a long time ago.

The other computer I invested quite a bit of hardware and software in was an Amiga A500. with a BASEboard so 4.5meg of ram total.

Amiga is over 30 years old and it could do at least two things that still can’t be done with todays Windows PC’s

Oh? You ask. What would those be?

At least two different resolutions on the same monitor at the same time. So yes, a 640×200 and 640×400, a few others but that’s probably what was used the most. You could slide a screen of one resolution over another. Very cool at the time. The Amiga became the basic tool for a lot of video work.

The other was non-volatile ram. That’s right. You could reboot your Amiga, and contents of some of it’s ram would still be there.

Big deal! Sure, means if you had a ramdisk, where you saved something you were working on, it would still be there after a reboot. If you put a wee bit of thought into it, means you could put boostrap code there, and boot from your ramdisk. That was a great demo at Amiga user group meetings.

So speaknig of rabbit holes, this led me down another one…