I did a Google search for an ASCII chart this morning and came up with this link. I thought it looked familiar. Looking at the bottom of the image confirmed it. This is the ASCII chart printed in the back of the manual for my first computer, the Leading Edge Model D!

As you all know, I got into computers rather late in the game. I had used computers before, but my older brother Jason was the computer nerd. I knew enough to start the machine with the right bootdisk to play Doom or X-Wing (ahhh the days of hand tuning config.sys). He left for college in the summer of 1996, the computer broke, and I had to learn how to fix it. There was a 486DX2-66 in the basement that my mom still used, so I didn't have free rein on that system. Instead, one of my best friends Chris Brown gave me his old computer when his family upgraded. It was a dual floppy Leading Edge Model D. I set it up in my bedroom between Freshmen and Sophomore year and hacked on it every night. This is the computer I learned so much of my early computer knowledge. I remember doing things like:

-Using DEBUG to write assembly
-Learning about screen buffers
-Writing to the keyboard buffer to make programs that couldn't be killed.
-Learning graphics programming for a Hercules video card (720x348 baby!)
-Writing a phone call logger that opened the 2400 baud modem (OPEN "COM1" in Qbasic) and listened for the ATA "RING" commands.

I later upgraded it to an MFM hard drive and a CGA monitor. I hacked on that machine every night for almost 2 years. I spent my days sleeping through class or programming on my TI-85.

And I loved every minute of it.

Back in the Day!