{"id":215,"date":"2003-08-06T19:07:14","date_gmt":"2003-08-06T22:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=215"},"modified":"2003-08-06T19:07:14","modified_gmt":"2003-08-06T22:07:14","slug":"wonderthing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=215","title":{"rendered":"Wonderthing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>t was a
\nmemorable day. We had worked all summer, the summer of 1985, 1986 or
\n1987 (I truly don’t remember), saved money and we were ready to buy our
\nfirst homecomputer at the local mall. We had no idea what to buy. I
\ndon’t remember why we chose to buy a Philips NMS 8245. Why would
\nanybody buy an MSX-2 compatible computer? Why didn’t we go for the ZX
\nSpectrum? Or the Commodore 64? Was it in our budget?\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The magic word was most likely, compatibility. The other word was
\nMicroSoft. MicroSoft had written the MSX’s operating system and the
\nprogramming language called MSX Basic: both were loaded from ROM,
\ninstantly available. Naturally, the MSX-2 was technologically advanced
\nand way ahead of the other competitors: Z-80, an onboard integrated
\nvideo processor, a 3 channel music chip. We could go anywhere with this
\ncomputer. Not to mention that data files on the MSX were (practically)
\nexchangable with the MS-DOS powered PC.\n<\/p>\n

The rest is history: we outgrew our home computer to buy our first
\n286 AT PC (and I frequently hit myself on the head for daring to
\npropose to buy an inferior XT those days: that extra money was well
\nspent). We learned programming with Borland. We laughed when they
\nbought out Ashton-Tate. We watched the demise of DR-DOS, the rise of
\nWindows, the fall of Borland, trademarked slogans (Push button
\nspreadsheet power, Crash Protection), copyrighted buzzwords and all
\nthat. We saw Peter Norton literally grow older (and grey) every year he
\nappeared on a box-cover, always his arms folded.\n<\/p>\n

The best thing I can remember? The bold prediction that computers
\nwould change our world to become a prominent place in the living room.
\nOnce a nerd. Always a nerd. <\/p>\n

Hello World<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a memorable day. We had worked all summer, the summer of 1985, 1986 or 1987 (I truly don’t remember), saved money and we were ready to buy our first homecomputer at the local mall. We had no idea … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}