What was your first computer?

[freebird73717]

What was your first computer? Mine was a Packard Bell 486 (don't remember exact speed but it was something like 25hz--VERY slow but fast back then) processor running win 3.1

It had a 5 1/4 and 3.5 in floppies and a modem that connected at a whopping 14.4kbps! I paid around $1,500 dollars for that thing.

When I bought it it was top of the line!

So what about the rest of you? I'm sure some of you have had computers older than that. Tell us about it!

[Baldrick]

Amiga 500! I think my father payed around $1000 for it. Played most games...like Giana Sisters and Boulder Dash.

Then a Fujitsu 486 33Mhz with 28.8 modem. It was really funny to dial up to bulletin boards and download stuff. Internet wasn't that big back then.

[prouton]

Sinclair ZX80 made from kit (aka, solder it yourself)

Membrane keyboard, video output to television (RF), booted to Basic
No floppy or hard drive support, offline storage was an audio cassette recorder
It featured a Zilog Z80a processor running at 4MHz
4k ROM for the BIOS, O/S and Basic Interpretor
1k of static RAM

I hacked an additional 1k of RAM, a composite video output to a CRT monitor, and a movable key keypad. I still have in a closet somewhere...I wonder if the electrolytic caps have died yet?

[freebird73717]

Sinclair ZX80 made from kit (aka, solder it yourself)

Damn! Now that is an old one there! You're a braver fellow than I. Knowing my luck I would solder something wrong and blow the whole danged thing up.

[filmboss80]

Apple Lisa prototype. Was a Beta tester. Somewhere around '83-'84.

[Ai Haibara]

Heh, I get to hint at how old I am, yet again.

My first PC was a Texas Instruments 99/4A, with the optional speech synthesizer and the cassette tape drive, and after that, a Commodore 64 with the 1541 drive and a 2400 baud modem. I actually still have both, in full working order. (Well, okay, and my Atari 2600, 5200, on up...)

[yoda313]

I first had a cartridge computer that didn't even have a monitor - one that hooked up to a tv. Can't remember the brand at the moment.

My first pc was a 286

The first TRUE pc with any power was a 386. I had dos 5.0 originally on that machine than upgraded to 6.2 with windows 3.1 I STILL HAVE IT AND IT STILL WORKS! (it was a COMPUDYNE brand fyi). I also had a soundblaster 8 bit mono soundcard that I got for it. It was the first ISA expansion card I ever bought. Ahh.... those were the days.....

Then I got a Pentium 200 later followed by a HP pentium 3. Then came my Celeron 2.66ghz EMACHINE wiht XP HOME that I still have.

I am currently using a VISTA PERMIUM HP. It was originally a single core 2.5 amd (I think it was 2.5 or maybe 2.3???) ANyway I upgraded that to a dual core amd 2.7ghz processor - I know have a vista rating of about 5.2.

I also upgraded to a soundlbaster fatality sound card, 2gb rams from 1gb initially. Added a sata card for the BLURAY ROM drive I have, a 500gb internal sata drive I added plus a 320gb external usb/firewire/esata harddrive.

I have a ATI ALL-IN-WONDER HD 512mb PCI-E graphics card as well

[DereX888]

Very first wasn't my own. When I was kid my dad or my older bro gave me to play with a one of those old chip-in-a-keyboard, aka Commodore , C=64 I think. That thing connected to TV, used cassette tapes hahaha... it just sucked LOL (yet I wish I had it today though )
But to be fair, I must admit few years later I wrote almost 100-lines long "game" in BASIC on it (my very first own "code" hehe )

[libiec]

Commodore VIC20. 4K RAM, tape drive for storage and loading programs, cartridge games. Used a television for a monitor.

After that IBM PC, one 5 1/4 floppy drive, no hard drive, 128K of memory. Coupled with a wide carriage dot matrix printer and CGA color monitor. DOS OS. Price tag $5,000.00.

After that 286, 386, Pentium,.......

[NoBuddy]

Sinclair ZX 81 - no kit
with a "huge" 16 KB extra memory. Which moved all the time out of the slot. 200 programs on cassette still anywhere in a drawer...

[hudsonf]

My first computer was a Atari 800XL. I later added a tape drive(a nightmare) then a 5 1/4" disk drive followed by a second 5 1/4" disk drive. To top it off I added a printer(used tiny ink pens).

[sambat]

Ti-99/4a
Still have it connected to a CF card through the synthesizer side port (emulates three disk drives) - even has a printer port that's connected to a Sanyo daisy wheel (prints around five cps) and shakes the house.

[painkiller]

Sinclair ZX81 kit. Added a 2K memory module.
This used a regular cassette tape to store/load the programs.
Displayed on a regular television.

I wrote a meager OS on it that took 40 minutes to complete (execution time).

Rewrote that program at work on a Honeywell minicomputer in assembler, 4 seconds execution.

[redwudz]

My first computer was a VIC-20 with the cassette drive and the added memory. Seems like I paid a lot for it. Long gone now.

Feeling nostalgic a couple of weeks ago, I bought a Macintosh SE-30 off Ebay. It came with keyboard, manuals and the 'brick' mouse. Works great. Nine inch B+W screen. It even has Space Invaders installed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_SE/30



Now I have to dig out my old SCSI peripherals and see which ones still work.

I still have a Amiga 1000 and 2000.

[Verify]

Hi All,
Been reading and enjoying this site every day for over four years now, finally decided to join

1st Computer used: Interdata Model 3 Mini (IBM 360 instruction set) 1st built: 1967
8KB Core Memory, 1KB Core ROM (reprogrammable by stringing wires)

1st Owned: Microkit 8/16 development system (S100 bus box with various plug-in microprocessor boards, 16KB RAM, Memory mapped video (16x64) and two tape cassettes (which worked really well). 1st built 1975

Developed the software for a torque monitor for a 1000HP electric motor on it (8080 Assembler). (Also designed the hardware which included an embedded 8080 with 2K of EPROM plus the signal conditioning bits.)

[redwudz]

Welcome to our forums, Verify.

[Verify]

Thanks red,

You're definately one of the several members that have kept me coming to this site.

[craigarta]

I guess my first one was pretty high tech from what I have read.

My Aunt gave me her old Apple IIe. (She gave it to me in 1992)
I remember that it had it's own green monochrome monitor (whoo hoo)
The Duel 5-1/4" floppy drive (yes two drives in one seperate external case)
and I belive it ran ProDos for the operating system and I rember my Aunt did expand the memory to a huge 128kB

[freebird73717]

Yes. Welcome.

Hope to see you stay around and post from time to time. Share some of that knowledge with others.

[Verify]

Thanks freebird (you're also on my 'good list'),

Hope to be of help - if you need to know how to build a neutron-chopper or a vacuum evaporation-rate monitor or a custom smart-card ASIC (brag, brag) just let me know.

Also, I really should thank Baldrick for his heroic efforts at keeping this wonderful site going!

So thanks A LOT, Baldrick.

[SandyB]

Heathkit H8 that eventually ran CP/M os and got to add an 8 inch floppy that held 160kb....even had 8meg memory! Learned how to program in C-Basic. 40 years ago?

[lantern]

TI 99-4a for me and the cassette tape drive and 2400 bps modem.

[prouton]

Heathkit H8...40 years ago?

Yeah, I was one of several high school electronics shop students that put one together in 1978-79. But I think you're off on the memory size -- it took a plug-in board (about 12"x4") full of chips to yield 8kb. We did three of them for a whopping 24kb. Between those and the CPU board, you could practically toast bread. And on ours, you had to load the bootstrap code via the octal keyboard on the front panel, at which point it would load the full O/S from cassette tape).

A contemporary of that computer was the Commodore PET which started at 8kb RAM. I don't recall how much the math lab's TRS-80 had, but I would guess 4kb.

[Bodyslide]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

[gadgetguy]

I bought a Commodore64 at the same time my Dad and brother each bought a TI99-4a. I was still using my C64 long after they both gave up on their TIs. Started with the tape drive, followed by the 5 1/4" floppy drive, then got an actual monitor, and finally the 3 1/2" disk drive. I then replaced it with a Commodore128, which I still have. Cut my programming teeth with Commodore Assembly Language, even getting published once in RUN Magazine, (although they spelled my name wrong). And for those that think it was only a game machine, I even used it for remote programming customer PBX systems.

[Midzuki]

The very first computer I used was not mine at all ---
--- a goode and olde B6700
Hope freebird will consider it a valid answer to the question

[jagabo]

Atari 800: http://www.computercloset.org/atari800.htm

[freebird73717]

The very first computer I used was not mine at all ---
--- a goode and olde B6700

Impressive. Mainframe type computer right?

This thread has been an interesting one. Looking forward to more responses!

[Xylob the Destroyer]

Frankensteined from multiple old broken down PCs.
Intel processor, but before the Pentiums came out...
It ran Win 98.
This probably around late '01/early '02.
I was a late bloomer!
It ran VCDgear & Prassi and lead me to vcdhelp.com though!

[bendixG15]

2 Sinclairs - forget the model numbers - TX1000 and 4068 maybe.
1 had chicklet keyboard.
The other loaded using audio tapes, took multiple tries to read the whole tape without an error. But the games were great even if they were in black and white and low resolution on the TV.

1st "real" PC was the Compaq 8086, desktop - hard drive had 3 month warranty and died 1 day after 3 months, ouch, I cried.
(The Compaq 8086 was 1.7 times faster than the IBM 8088 at the time)