WHERE OLD COMPUTERS ARE WELCOME
Dear Jim,
Last July I found out about the miracles the silicon engineers were performing. I was immediately hooked on home computing. But since I had very little experience with computers, I was worried about all the delays that everyone seemed to complain about when they returned equipment for serving or clearing up the inevitable bugs.
After spending the summer carefully examining the systems avail- able, I went to the PerCom convention in Atlantic City at the end of August. There I saw an Apple computer working. Well, it was love at first sight. I bought one from Itty Bitty in Evanston and took it home with me to New York. Well, it took them three weeks to send me two cables and two transformers and a keyboard that were needed to run it! When they finally arrived (after a prompting phone call), my Apple developed a glitch almost immediately (the only Apple that the Computer Mart of NY has ever seen with a problem!). Fearfully anticipating a two-month delay, I sent it to Steve Jobs at Apple Computer Co. He got it back into my hands in two weeks working perfectly!! He even explained an elementary error in a simple program I had tried! Since it took me over a month to even get literature from Sphere (and I wrote them a personal latter) or the Digital Group, this must be a record for a personal computer company.
My Apple is terrific. Last night I loaded your 6502 floating point routine and can now multiply, etc. Unfortunately all the answers are complemented. I've got an 8K system with a cassette storage unit, keyboard, (used) TV monitor, and a 4K BASIC (that's not quite finished yet but does run) for less than $1 K. Moreover Apple promises (and I'm now a believer) to replace my current memory chips with the new 4K dynamic chips sometime next spring for about $500. The Apple was designed to be pin compatible with the new chips and so I’ll have 32K on board.
Any company that can produce equipment like this and then match it with their service is really great. Companies like them and magazines like yours make home computing an accessible field for everyone.
Yours,
Raymond T. Hoobler 789 West End Ave.
New York, NY 10025
[Apple Computing is at 770 Welch Rd., Palo Alto, CA 94304, (415) 326-42481
