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That's
awesome that some of you had possessed these early computers. The earliest one we had was a Coleco ADAM, basically a clumsy word processor. We traded it back to Montgomery Ward for a Commodore 64. Wards honored that no appreciable promised software was ever created for the Coleco.
The 64 became our first business computer when my son (mostly) and I typed in an Apple Basic "spreadsheet" program that allowed it to calculate payroll. Both Apple and Commodore used the same Z80 processor chip, programmed by MicroSoft. Wish I'd bought their stock back then.
Had about a dozen employees at the time. It was a worthy mad scramble saver since I paid every Friday afternoon for the preceding 7 days. Selected the individual and entered the timecard and voila. Miller time for me an hour sooner. The 64 also allowed me to send a statement out clearly showing a balance of invoices paid/unpaid and the resulting total due. That beat, by far, the handwritten reminder note that I had been sending out with the latest invoices.
Awesome being one of the overused catch-phrases of our present world.
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