This was dug out of the basement the other day. This invoice was for our first real computer. (My family technically started by coding Logo and playing Buck Rogers by tape cassette on an Adam) This AST 286 and its where all of the trouble really began. I remember the night this thing came in the door. Now $27K might seem like a lot of money to spend on a 286, but when you consider how far we’ve come in 21 years I’d say its been probably some of the best money we could have spent.

I wish the invoice was itemized a little better because it would allow us to really gauge the prices. I bet that 1.5MB of memory cost a pretty good portion of the total cost.

The Houston Pen Plotter was an E-Size plotter with an expansion 6 pen tray. I still remember the sound of the pens scraping across the sandpaper when the paper slid out — or rather the sound of my father crying at the cost of replacing that pen. And technically I was the first to figure out how to get that plotter working, but Roberta and my father who were setting it up didn’t listen to me and send me to bed. Around midnight they figured out I was right.

That 286 had two monitors! My machine today doesn’t have two monitors, even if the 286 had one monochrome screen. And that monitor lasted 15 years and could handle the most obsurd resolutions — still the best monitor we’ve ever owned.

The tablet is still around, but today we’re using Wacoms at an eighth of the size.

Eventually this machine was retired for a 386, but it never went to a scrap heap, it was converted to the BBS that we ran for ages.

All in all, a good trip down memory lane. Good find Neil.