december 15th, 2015:Amiga 2000

Whazat, you say, when it's clearly an Amiga 2000 personal computer from Commodore.
......

This was the latest offering from Commodore in 1987, and it's a stock photo since I couldn't get a good shot of the one I'm going to tell you about, which is not customary protocol for IOtD, so sue me.

Anyway, shortly after the introduction of this PC the Grand Rapids, MI, School District bought one, not for the students, or the teachers, not even for the big wigs. They bought it for the maintenance dept. With the Amiga's 1200-bit modem and wireless radio signal, they used it for controlling the heat and A/C in 19 schools. And near 30 years later, it still does. How many PCs have you had during that time?

Many years ago, I was shocked to see a Commodore 64 being used to handle and control Sea Sparrow missiles on my first seagoing ship. This was 1987.

I found out that that ship was sunk as a target in 2006. Talking to a guy who was there, I was told that it didn't go down without a fight. After hours of gunnery bombardment, it took TWO Harpoon missiles to put her on the bottom, and that was because the Captain of the lead ship heard that the Admiral was calling in the Air Force to finish her and refused to allow a Navy ship to be sunk by Air Force planes, requested permission to use Harpoons and the request was granted. Each missile, IIRC, cost half a million back then.

At least they were put to good use...protecting a Capt's ego.

Not ego, Navy honor. I can grok that.