Category Archives: Down Memory Lane

Thinking Back on ‘Turbo Pascal’ as It Turns 40

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Blake Patterson

November marked the 40th anniversary of Turbo Pascal, the first Integrated Development Environment (or IDE), which allowed a user to quickly and easily write a program in the Pascal programming language and see it compiled and linked — all in … Continue reading →

Posted in Amiga, DOS / Win PC, Down Memory Lane, Just Rambling, Multi-Platform, Other Platform, Programming | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Lost Amiga “Four-Byte Burger” Painting Digitally Recreated (And Looking Amazing in Glowing Phosphor!)

Posted on April 24, 2023 by Blake Patterson

It was in the late summer of 1985 when I first heard of the Amiga. I learned about the forthcoming system in an issue of Personal Computing magazine that featured the Amiga on its cover and contained an in-depth dive … Continue reading →

Posted in Amiga, Down Memory Lane | Tagged , | 5 Comments

BBSing in the Snow Is the Best Way to Login

Posted on January 11, 2022 by Blake Patterson

I logged into my first dial-up electronic Bulletin Board System in the spring of 1986 at the house of a friend I was visiting. His family had an Apple IIe setup with an Apple Modem 1200, the kind that sat … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple II, BBS, Down Memory Lane, Just Rambling | Tagged | 7 Comments

Looking Back on 35 Years as an Amiga User

Posted on October 27, 2020 by Blake Patterson

Thirty five years ago I became an Amiga user. One of the first, actually. This is a meandering and reminiscent post of sorts, written to mark the Amiga’s 35th birthday and the 35 years I have known and loved the … Continue reading →

Posted in Amiga, Down Memory Lane | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 36 Comments

An Archive of Newsletters from My Users’ Groups Past

Posted on April 5, 2019 by Blake Patterson

A computer geek all my life, in my youth I was a member of several different local computer users’ groups in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. In 1983 I joined my first, becoming a member of the Peninsula ’99ers, … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, Down Memory Lane | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Remembering an Atari Computer Lab in Hampton, Virginia

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Blake Patterson

Recently, I’ve been playing with Atari 8-bit computers for the first time ever, really. I purchased a bundle including an 800XL and 130XE through eBay back in 2002 but I never really did anything with them. What with the recent … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, Down Memory Lane | 3 Comments

Remembering the Apple IIgs Sales Demo

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Blake Patterson

It was a Saturday morning in September when we saw the Apple IIgs for the first time. By “we,” I mean those of us who headed to local authorized Apple dealers across the country (which for me was Chaney Computer … Continue reading →

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The Year that ‘Starglider’ and the Atari ST Saved Halloween

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Blake Patterson

(The U.S. presidential election took place yesterday, and today I am greatly in need of some serious distraction, so I thought I’d write a post about a particular computing memory from decades past that’s been on my mind lately, but is not … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, Down Memory Lane, Gaming | 9 Comments

33 Year Old Roll of Film Offers a Glimpse of My Vintage Computing Beginnings

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Blake Patterson

I got my first home computer on Christmas morning in 1982. It was a TI-99/4A with 16K of RAM. My parents purchased it from a sewing machine retailer. In the years that followed, I moved on fairly frequently to a … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple II, Atari, Down Memory Lane, Just Rambling, TI-99 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Remembering the Opening of the First Apple Store, 15 Years Later

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Blake Patterson

Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the opening of the first Apple retail stores, one at Tysons Corner Center in McLean, Virginia and one at the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California. Together the stores saw nearly 8,000 people and $600,000 in … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple, Down Memory Lane, Just Rambling, News | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments