Requiem For A Day Off. The Internet - in 1995. Google Groups: biz.test. Commodore VIC-20 computer. The VIC-20 was the first inexpensive color computer available, costing less than $300. It can only display 22 characters of text per line, so its use for business applications is minimal, but people loved it for games - it has good color, a joystick port, and it was cheap. The VIC-20 is also the first computer ever to sell over 1 million units, just a few months ahead of the Apple II 1 million mark, and production of the VIC-20 was up to 9000 units a day, with sales reaching $305 million.
The price of a VIC-20 eventually dropped to less than $100, the first color computer to do so. The VIC in VIC-20 stands for Video Interface Chip. This chip was designed by Commodore two years prior for video game machines, never intending it for use in their own computer system. There are numerous rumours as to what the 20 in VIC-20 refers to, some say: The systems memory almost adds-up to 20: 5K (RAM) + 16K (ROM) = 21K.
The Lone Sysadmin » Alt-248. Alt-248 is the first thing that I discovered on my own on the IBM PC. At least, the first thing I discovered that I still use today. I was messing around one day with the keypad one day after I discovered that the bell was Ctrl-G. It was shortly after my parents bought me my first PC. An Epson Apex 80. 10 MHz of 8088 goodness, 640 KB of RAM, and dual 5.25″ 360K floppies. I was absolutely distraught that BASIC wasn’t included. I indexed my baseball cards with the database. I wanted to play SimCity, but it required a mouse. Somewhere in there I discovered Ctrl-G. Most of what I did on that PC wasn’t directly relevant to my everyday life now.
And I still smile every time I get to type Alt-248.