>>>Microsoft has announced that all support for Windows XP will end April 8.
>>>http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/end-support-help
>>>http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240181208/What-to-do-next-Windows-XP-end-of-support
>>Damn just as I was thinking of moving off 3.1
>
>I wonder if there is any hope of getting an official update for TRS-DOS... Time sort'a stopped for it at 12/31/1987...


My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 in 1983. It started up with 3,583 bytes of free memory, and a BASIC interpreter. I coded so much with that computer before I could even type. I remember lots of POKE() and PEEK() commands to turn on/off hardware settings. I still have that computer, and the cassette storage device it used to record its data on regular audio cassettes.

My second computer was an IBM PCjr in 1984, shortly after they got rid of the original chicklet keyboard, instead having an infrared regular keyboard. It had dual double-sided, single density, 360KB floppy disks, dual cartridge slots, 128 KB of RAM, and IBM DOS 2.1?? I think. It came with a cartridge for IBM Writing Assistant, my first word processor, as well as a BASIC cartridge. I used to execute a command like SET MODE 16,1,1,4 (or something, can't remember), to switch to 640x200 16 color graphics mode. I broke that computer at some point, and got rid of it. Wished I hadn't.

My next computer was a 286 in 1987, then i386 shortly thereafter. I began with Microsoft Macro Assembler 1.0 in 1987, thanks to a man named Alan Earhardt, who had fallen off a roof at his job and was paralyzed. He could only type with a long stick held in his mouth, moving his head around. He was so patient though, and over 300 baud modem chat in a simple terminal emulation program, taught me how assembly programming worked, and the model of the x86 design.

Over the next 10 years I learned everything I could about the i386 architecture, and began working on my own OS entirely in assembly using Microsoft's Macro Assembler 6.11d (https://github.com/RickCHodgin/libsf-full, look in the _exodus/ directory). I was forced to abandon that due to several circumstances in my life, and then I began working on Visual FreePro in 2009 in an earlier version while living in a hotel in a city away from my home, and then a reboot of that effort in July, 2012, and I've been pursuing it ever since.

I got the VIC-20 with my own money. My dad had burned his hand at the welding shop the week of my spring break. And for that first week, I was able to sit in the middle of the pickup truck and do the shifter for him. I worked at the welding shop doing hammering, and chipping for him, some grinding, pulling hoses and cables around, etc. He paid me $140 for the week, which was enough to buy it. One of my fondest memories with my father, helping him out every day so much when he had a real need of help.