{"id":2102,"date":"2018-05-02T12:46:15","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T17:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=2102"},"modified":"2018-05-02T15:41:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-02T20:41:20","slug":"retro-scan-computers-in-kids-bedrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/2102\/retro-scan-computers-in-kids-bedrooms","title":{"rendered":"[ Retro Scan ]<\/span> Computers in Kids’ Bedrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Apple<\/a>Simple beginnings<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Since I first saw this in a magazine about 12 years ago, this Apple IIc (\/\/c if you prefer) ad has probably been my favorite Apple ad of all time.<\/p>\n

The reason is nostalgia — it portrays a kid’s bedroom in the 1980s, and it reminds me of being a kid back then.<\/p>\n

I also like the details tucked in there, such as the Motley Crue poster, the Bazooka bubble gum, the ATV helmet (next to a tiny photo of a three-wheeled ATV), the hamster, and an Apple Modem 300\/1200 sitting under the telephone. I also wonder what those circuit boards up on the shelf are supposed to be (and what they were actually from).<\/p>\n

The Apple IIc was indeed a great machine for young students in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

* * * <\/p>\n

At 37, my circa-1985 bedroom was outfitted mostly with He-Man figures and stuffed animals, but my older brother’s bedroom looked more like the room in the ad.<\/p>\n

Come to think of it, I actually have a photo of my older brother’s bedroom from December 1985, and part of it looked exactly like this:<\/p>\n

\"Benj's<\/a><\/p>\n

You’ll notice the nice Atari 800 setup, which I have no doubt talked about many times before.<\/p>\n

At that time, we did have an Apple IIc as well, but my dad kept it in his home office. It was the first computer I ever used a mouse with.<\/p>\n

And what do you know, I have a photo of my dad’s office too — labeled July 1985:<\/p>\n

\"Benj's<\/a><\/p>\n

You’ll notice the Star brand dot matrix printer<\/a> on the floor beneath the desk. I still have many vivid memories of crawling around the floor and watching Print Shop banners and calendars emerge with an intense and persistent screech.<\/p>\n

Good times.<\/p>\n

In 2016, I did a whole slideshow<\/a> about my family’s computers through the years for PCMag. If you enjoyed these family computer snapshots of mine, you’ll enjoy that as well.<\/p>\n

[ From Popular Computing, February 1985 ]<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Discussion Topic:<\/strong> Did you have a computer in your bedroom as a kid? Tell us about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simple beginnings Since I first saw this in a magazine about 12 years ago, this Apple IIc (\/\/c if you prefer) ad has probably been my favorite Apple ad of all time. The reason is nostalgia — it portrays a kid’s bedroom in the 1980s, and it reminds me of being a kid back then. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7,27,26,10],"tags":[545,72,150,101,216,1601,169,168,1055,1600,680,595,1599,1603,1534,291,1217,60,408,1604,1602],"class_list":["post-2102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbs-history","category-computer-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-computers","tag-1980s","tag-72","tag-advertisement","tag-apple","tag-apple-iic","tag-apple-modem","tag-atari-400","tag-atari-800","tag-bedroom","tag-bmx-helmet","tag-brother","tag-dad","tag-hamster","tag-home-office","tag-kids","tag-popular-computing","tag-printer","tag-retro-scan","tag-school","tag-star-printer","tag-stuffed-animals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2102"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2129,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2102\/revisions\/2129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}