Only this evening I found myself explaining to my 10 year old daughter what a TV licence is, what it pays for, and what it was like only having BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. C4 started on my 10th birthday, I can clearly remember watching the interminable 21 MHz test-card being replaced with the animated "4" logo and then Countdown.
First computer, 1984, Sinclair Spectrum 48k for £189.99 (when the 16k was on special offer at £129.99). I recall having to pack it back in its box, polystyrene and all, after every use. And feeling honoured at being allowed to switch the TV on before 7pm.
First mobile phone was an analogue Motorola in about 1995. 40p/min to (fuzzily) call landlines, 120p/min to (virtually inaudibly) call other mobiles, and then only on the same network. There was only Vodafone and Cellnet in those days of course.
Second mobile was a Nokia NK501 on Orange, bought as part of a deal with a Dancall DC1 for the then SWMBO. The Dancall could only receive texts but not send them, as no-one knew whether this texting thing would take off. It was a good couple of years before cross-network texting was enabled, before that you used to have to find out what network people were on before knowing whether you could text them.
First got my ancient PC online with Freeserve in 1995 (hence my old email address which began dave1995...) only dial-up of course, and only from an amateur point of view. Broadband didn't "happen" for me until 2002.
These days I have the cheapest possible home phone & broadband package, under £20/month for both with 6.5mbps speed (no cable in our area, so BT is the only option). PC is a 1.866GHz 768MB bitsa running XP and Firefox. Plus the newly arrived laptop (1.9GHZ, 2GB Samsung R519) with a mobile dongle. My phone is a Sony Ericsson W595 with 'net built in, but I only scratch the surface as far as access goes.
Last edited by: Dave_TD {P} on Sat 27 Mar 10 at 23:43
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