Shalom,
I got my 1st computer when I was 16 years old, which was 1981.
This was during the time of Hobbyist computing, when Byte magazine was 200 pages of homebrew computing. And people built their own microcomputers from the CPU up. It was much different than building a machine today, where all you do is select the components and snap them together. In the 80s we used to solder the sockets onto the PC board and program the ROM chips. I still have a bunch of that technology. I have my Aim-65 which was a 6502 based microcomputer learning kit. The Apple II used the 6502 CPU also and I was very proficient at this microcode. The 6502 was an 8bit CPU which ran at around 1MHz.
Then I moved on to the 68000 CPU from Motorola which was a 16bit CPU which had a very nice assembly language. I learned about this CPU from the Commodore Amiga which I started to develop for around 1989. The Amiga used various generations of this CPU, up to the 68040 chip which had improved virtual memory controllers. I liked Amiga architechture because of its integrated Video and Audio processors which allowed 16 voice multisynth music and high resolution multi-plane graphics. I was involved with development of the Video Toaster which boasted the ability to do 3D graphics with mixed in special fade effects. It was used to render the 3d graphics of the TV series Babylon 5. I went to the studios where they rendered this show and met the writers and staff.
After working on the Amiga I immediately started to work on digital video on the IBM PC which we know today as the PC. I started on Windows 3.0 which ran on a 386 CPU at 60MHz. I worked on the device drivers and Microsoft Multimedia drivers which were required to allow digitizing video into Motion JPEG files. This was just before MPEG2 became popular. The AzeenaVision 500 was the product which I worked on and developed.
I went on to work at various video game software developers including JVC where I helped develop a video game system targeted to kids learning. It was developed around a 386 which i thought was crazy, because pentiums were already out and they were becoming cheap. I worked in 386 assembly language and developed a game development system used by a team of artists and musicians and game producers.
Ive been in the Computer software business for 20+ years now and it is awesome to see what I had forseen back in 1984, when I was famous. I knew that computers were going to become an integral part of our daily experience. And it turns out that I was right.
muman613