I remember my first home computer in 1982-3, it was one of the better ones out there because there were a lot of different cartridges, tapes and 5 1/4 inch disk programs you could get for it, particularly games. (not one of the first though). It was an Atari 800XL. Back then I used it for word processing and to play games. I did dabble a little into basic programming too. My first printer was an Okidata thermal transfer. What a pain that was!
I graduated a few years later to a Radio Shack Tandy 1000RL hard drive. It had about a 4 meg hard drive. That was a big deal then. Looking at it now, I don't think I have one program or application that would be able to use it. I had a modem, a really primative one...but I never used it.
This all kind of reminds me of my personal ski history.
I started on wooden skis with beartrap bindings and leather lace boots in the mid 60's. I had several more pair of beartrap hand me downs and lace boots and used rental GLM's with Spademan bindings before I finally got my first pair of (used) HEAD standards with step-in bindings and Rosemont buckle boots. From there I went to a (used) pair of Rossignol Freestyle J skis with a bright orange pair of very leaky and cold ALPINA boots (their first year out). My first NEW pair of skis came when I was a freshman in college. I bought myself a pair of HEAD SL163's/S404 bindings with money that I was supposed to spend on books(we all chipped in $20 and bought one set of books to share). Through the mid 80's to 90's and after the HEADS got run over by a van at the residential school where I was working I bought several different pair of K2's. I was a pretty loyal K2/solomon binding person for a while. I also went through several pair of boots, usually the cheapest ones I could find at the ski shop. In the mid 90's I bought a pair of VOLANT skis on pro-form/ they had a marker binding. I also bought a pair of Dachstein Pro 66 boots and had them custom fit. In the late 90's I bought some BLIZZARDS (straight ski-worst ski I ever owned), and skied them 4 or 5 times then went back to the Volants. In the early 2000's I was convinced to try "shaped skis" and bought ELAN Integra 6.0's. I liked the shaped ski, but found this ski didn't have enough for me and went to the Rossi Bandit X in the spring of 2003. I owned a pair of Dalbello boots, which I fondly refer to as my "fat lady" boots, for a year. "Fat Lady" because they had a really large cuff with a ratcheting closure...my calf didn't fit other boots. I lost 75lbs and traded those boots for Solomon Evolution 8.0 boots which I love and am currently using. I am currently looking at a pair of Volkl 6*'s that I think I am going to buy.
