COMPUTER PAGE

My interest in computers actually started back in 1983 while my son Doug was staying with my mom and dad in Cincinnati and attending the University of Cincinnati. We had driven from our home in Fairview Heights, Illinois to visit my folks and Doug walked in holding a very small Texas Instruments Computer that you could input information to by basically using a toothpick to touch the small keyboard. I doubt that Texas Instruments model held more than a couple k of information but at the time I thought it was astonishing and it sparked my desire to learn about computers.

It wasn't much later (maybe two years) that I bought my first computer, a Commodore64. I enrolled in a computer class at night through the University of Maine and studied computer programming for the Commodore and soon was able to write my own programs. The professor gave me an A+ for the Slot Machine Program that I turned out. It was close to two years before I upgraded to a Commodore128 which I continued to use until Christmas 1998 when my wife gave me an IBM Aptiva. I was very relunctant to discontinue using the Commodore because I had so much software for it plus all sorts of information in data files that I dreaded transferring. I am now simply ecstatic that my wife did not listen to me, but then again she never did.

I received a letter in the mail today and the sender did not include his return address; one guess where I have his address stored. You guessed it! In the GEOS files on the Commodore128 which I no longer have. The IBM was not my first experience being on line. At one time I connected to the internet with my Commodore64 and a model 1670 1200 baud modem but there was no local access line and with the slow linkup I stayed for 30 days and terminated after seeing the huge long distance phone bill.

Thanks to EXPLOREMAINE (My Internet Service Provider) and the Executives at The Lewiston Sun Journal Newspaper who decided to launch EXPLOREMAINE I am now able to connect to the World Wide Web through a local access number and thoroughly enjoy the computer. One of the sweetest deals going is the ICQ Network. You can download the latest version of ICQ by clicking on ICQ99 DOWNLOAD. You will then be able to set up your own chat net with friends and relatives, not to mention the possibility of chatting randomly with anyone in the ICQ Network. Now they even have a brand new download I C Q PLUS where you can customize ICQ99 or ICQ98. You can also go to ICQ SKINS for some excellent examples to download.