When I was visiting my parents last week, I found something remarkable in their basement: my long-lost Tandy PC-4 computer.

This little computer was my first “portable”, and with its whopping 1K of RAM, I could write all sorts of little programs to help me cheat in school. See, most high school teachers didn’t know the difference between a fancy looking calculator and a full-featured computer, and I used this machine to cheat in all subjects.

The CR2032 lithium batteries in it had long since expired; imagine my surprise when a fresh pair of batteries made it spring to life! And - remarkably - some programs from my senior year in high school were still in there.

I graduated high school in 1993. Pretty good memory for a trashy little computer that only cost $69 in its day.

The PC-4 is pretty battered; I lost the screws for the back of the case a long time ago, and the MODE button really takes some pushing to work. But, it’s all there and still operational, and will most definitely get added to my antique computer hall-of-fame at work (next to my Timex Sinclair ZX-81).

When my sister and I were out exploring last week, we also found these dog tags at an antique store between Locust Hill and Brougham on Highway 7. What possessed me is unexplainable, but I bought the little brass tags.

The square tag dates back to 1933. From Whitby, Ontario (and not the fish-and-chips English town in North Yorkshire), it is number 100 and marked “dog tag”.

The round tag is from Oshawa, and dates to 1955. It bears the number 2504 and is marked “dog tax”.

Apparently, dogs were taxed in Oshawa and tagged in Whitby.

Both of the tags are well worn, as most dog tags are. They are slightly bent, suggesting that the pups that wore these were active. Could they have been hunting dogs? Or maybe quiet house pets that did a few too many laps around the coffee table.

We speculated how these tags survived the years; all we could come up with was a sentimental elderly person who kept them as a memory of a long-lost friend. That person probably passed away, and the tags ended up as a curiosity in a rural Ontario antique shop.

Along with oddities like the Thomas Foster Key to the City of Winnipeg and my collection of old motel keys from Calgary, these tags will get added to my “sentimental tidbits of Canada” collection.

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Posted in Blog
Written on Sat, 22 September 2007 at 8:23 am
Tags: Canada, computer, dog tags, PC-4, tandy
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