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What was your first computer ?


Bruno

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My first computer was a Radio Shack Color Computer. Original gray color, bad keyboard, 4K memory and a tape recorder to store programs. Later, I got a subscription to Rainbow Magazine and started upgrading the computer. First ordering memory chips and doing all the soldering, swapping keyboards, getting a single sided 180K - 5.25" single sided hard drive and even hooking up a green screen monitor. Those were the good old days of computing. With the Color Computer guys were working out of their garages and performing upgrades that Radio Shack didn't endorse. We even had our own convention - Rainbowfest. The COCO with its 6809E processor was a wonderful machine but it seemed everyone wanted a Commodore 64.Citadel80

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I can't BELIEVE it! ;) I am apparently the first posting to have started on an Atari! In fact, my first TWO computers were made by Atari. I started off in 1985 with an Atari 800xl with a small TV for a monitor (64K which I upgraded to 128), TWO tapes drives and a noisy dot matrix printer. I added two 5.25 inch disk drives (formatted for 64K?) and an IBM emulator before transitioning to my NEXT computer in 1989 -- an Atari 520ST with a "greyscreen" monitor. I upgraded it to 1040 Meg (a BIG deal back then) and added dial-up Internet/E-mail access (8K Zoom modem), two 3.5 (360k) floppys and a tiny HD.It's a big jump (via a 386 IBM "clone" and several "486" home-made systems) from those to my current "home brew" with Gigabyte GA-7VRX, AMD 1700XP+, 384 Meg RAM, 160 Gig HD space, Nvidia GeForce 4 Mx, Xp Pro, perr-topeer network and shared 1.5 Meg ADSL broadband -- but I sorta wish I'd kept them around! ;) Chuck in Taiwan

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The first computer that I used was an RCA Spectra system back in the 70's when I was in school studying for my B.S. in Computer Science. I think it had 512k or 1 mb of memory and we ran programs using punch cards :) My first real work computer (1977) was an IBM 370/168-3 machine. I was a Jr. System Programmer, so had the run of the data center. The 168 was introduced about 4 or 5 years before and this model was a 3.5 MIPS (millions of instructions per second) machine and we had all of 2 MB of memory. It was slow enough that you could watch the instruction flow on the lights on the system console. There was probably 1-2 GB of total system DASD storage in the whole data center. If I remember correctly, these were model 3330 which had 50-100MB of space. They were manually removable disk drives. You opened a draw with the drive, got a huge plastic cover, locked the cover on the drive and lifted it out of the box, replacing it with another. The 168 was a huge water cooled machine that cost something like $5,000,000 when new. State of the art at the time! We also had a brand new IBM 370/158 AP (Attached-Processor) machine.Here's some interesting history links:http://www.isham-research.com/chrono.htmlPicture of 168 operators consolehttp://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/old/events/anniver...682/print38.jpgIBM 3330 disk drivehttp://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/old/events/anniver...70_1682/17.htmlI went without my own PC until 1993 when I cracked and brought a 486/33 DX with all of 16mb of RAM and (one!) 500MB SCSI-2 disk drive. With a 15" monitor and 2mb video card, it cost me a bit over $4,000!!!! With a processor upgrade to a Pentium 1 at 80mhz, a few disk upgrades and memory all the way to 64 MB (maxed out), it lasted me through 2000! ;) I am now running an 866 Pentium 3, 56GB on two 10k SCSI/160 disks, 256MB of RAM, 32 MB video card and 17" CRT. Decidedly not state of the art anymore. But I typically am only seeing 3-5% CPU utilization on Win/XP Pro so don't have any real reason to upgrade right now. And this machine (which cost me about $1200 back in early 2001) is far more powerful than that $5,000,000 IBM 168 computer that I started with 26 years ago ;) :) :)

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The first computer I ever used (although I never saw it) was a Honeywell mainframe, somewhere around 1976, when I started learning my first programming language (Fortran IV!)The first micro I used was either a Commodore Pet or an Intertec Superbrain. The former introduced me to character-mode video games (Space Invaders, and pretty playable it was too!) and the latter to the delights of CP/M. (I don't care what you say, CP/M was great and I still wish IBM had hooked up with Digital Research instead of Microsoft!)The first computer I ever owned... might have been an Oric. Don't think they made it outside of Europe, and the keyboard was the second worst keyboard I ever used, the BASIC interpreter was only slightly better than Sinclair's, but it was fun. Sorta. ;) Next was Amstrad, based on a Z80, had a reasonable BASIC interpreter, a weird 3 inch disk drive and (gasp) the ability to run CP/M. 128K of memory, a dedicated colour monitor, and the facility for a sideways ROM board that meant some stuff could be even quicker than loading off disk.The main outcome of all this? Probably that I still think any text editor that uses WordStar shortcuts is pretty neat. ;)

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:( My first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 64K (Timex to you American cousins).From there I graduated to an Apricot with two floppy drives, no hard drive.Today I use a Dell Dimension.pablo
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hi everyonethe first computer i ever used was in school , it was an IBM Card reader ( you now the one that read cards with 80 places you can scrach ) the first computer i owned was a Sinclair Spectrum with 128 k :( i now own several computers in a network at home .the one i use the most is a pentium 4 1.5 GHZ 512 MB Ram with 2 ide drive , 2SCSII drives ( about 200 GB ) i use it for video editingmy doughters have a P4 2.2 & the others including the server are all P3smy wife says that she is only second & that i love computers to much :(

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The Counselor

You guys are beginning to really make me feel old. I won't fess up to what year it was, but the first computer I programed was an IBM 1620 with all of 4K of Drum memory for a main store! You had to load the program you were running with a card deck followed by your program cards. You got a small stack of cards out which had to be taken to the printer to actually see what had happened. No interpreter on the computer's card punch. You double checked what you wrote because it took a L - O - N - G time to read the program deck and punch your output. It was fifteen years before I got my own first machine. A LSI-11 running RT-11 from a pair of 8 inch single sided floppy drives (disks were $14 each) and Heathkit VT-52 knockoff terminal for input and display. It had a whopping 8 Kilobytes of RAM. Over time it grew to 128 Kb of RAM and an eight inch Shugart 8 MB hard drive. Hog heaven. :(

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First personal computer: IBM 386. I've also used a 286.Current personal computer: AMD Athlon 2000+.From a long and checkered computer programming career: IBM 1620 and 7040, IBM ANFS Q-7 military computer with 30,000 vacuum tubes, Univac something or other shipboard computer adapted for USAF use, Hughs Aircraft Corp something or other used for Swiss Air Defence system, a Varian minicomputer, a bigger Varian at a consulting job for a defense contractor in Fort Walton Beach, various PDP-8's and PDP-11's, numerous VAX machines (still my favorite combination of ease of use and state of the art technology--would you believe big high resolution color monitors and fiber optic networks in 1984?).The Q-7 (see above), despite its vacuum tubes, had software development tools that were touted as brand new twenty years later. Some of its tools, e.g., a sophisticated concordance of assembly language symbols, I have never seen duplicated. But it was so obsolete, even in the late 60's, that the IBM techs who worked on it called the assignment "IBM SIberia." But it was in Santa Monica, a lovely town at the time, hardly Siberia.The Q-7 had "circuit boards," consisting of removable racks of four vacuum tubes each. When a tube burned out, the machine diagnosed itself and told the techs which rack and tube to replace.We had two Q-7's, because of the need for a hot standby, plus 10% spare tubes. That's 66,000 vacuum tubes, 60,000 of which were glowing at all times. That corporation used 10% of the power of the city of Santa Monica.

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The first one I ever used was an IBM RAMAC and some punched card machines. Later an IBM 1620 and 1401. The first one I owned was an IBC Cadet, a Z80B with 2 12 inch 1 MB floppies and 8 serial ports. It ran Oasis OS (later called Theos) and worked like a dream in 1979.

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Mine was a DEC Rainbow with twin floppies and no hard drive. It ran CP/M, but was able to run DOS also. It had the best keyboard I´ve ever used. I still miss it!This was 20 years ago. The D*** thing cost me four months' net sallary.www.eps.ufsc.br/~gio/cmuseum/rainbow.htm

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First one I used was an Apple II in '79-80 and the first one I had at home was a blazing fast Epson 286-12 with the spacious 20 MB HD. It had an early HP Desk Jet printer that was a boat anchor but a great printer, lasted over 10 years.

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My first computer? Actually it was/is my wife! Yes, that's right on our wedding licence her occupation is listed as :Computer:She used to do calculations on a mechanical computer and her job title was, in fact, "Computer"

. You may guess that I'm not a youngster and more than half my life predated what we now understand by computers.BTW I still "have" the original model. :( Bodach

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I'll join the group of long-time users! The first computer, of any type, that I used was an IBM 7094, a very large mainframe (at least, physically) of the mid-60s era. The closest you got to the system was the card deck entry window. The first computer that I actually touched was the DEC PDP-1. This was the machine on which Space Wars was written and which had an octagonal screen that became the logo for the DEC User Group, DECUS. Input was via paper tape or 5 bit FlexoW :( riters. The first computer that I owned was an Apple II in 1981, which I traded for an Apple IIe in 1982. My first IBM-compatible PC was the original IBM PC, with a “hard card†(a disk drive that plugged into an ISA slot).Along the way I've had a DEC Rainbow (I can second the comment about the great keyboard, if only it had the same function key spacing as the standard IBM keyboard), DEC VAXmate (with the odd pizza-slice hard drive and pins that bent when attaching the slice) and an IBM PC-AT.Around 1990 I started building my own clones. My current system is primarily anASUS P4B533, 2.6 GHz P4, 512 MB ram, 2 WD 20 GByte drives, ATI Radeon 8500, PC Power & Cooling mini-tower.Stan Rose

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OK..My first computer was a Commadore VIC -20.. Just hook to the newest monitor(...ummmTV) grab your cassette (disk) and off in basic you go...also had an tandy 1200 w/ floppies and added a 20MB HD( the guy at the store said it would be all the HD I would ever need...LOL. First computer ever used was IBM keypunch system for scenario development for Navy radar Systems..and the OLD Navy NTDS 642's 643,Stack Disk the size of large dinner plates and Mag Tapes...IO channels and F stops applied by toggle switches and push button in Sequence durining boot-up..OK, I'm gonna stop now, I feel suddenly old!!! :(

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Up-And-Running

The first computer I had access to was a DEC PDP-8 at Clemson University. It had a processor unit about 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide crammed full of circuit boards with [this was in 1973], a teletype unit with paper tape option, tiny amber monitor, a mag tape drive, and paddle switches. We newbie EE-majors crashed it quite a bit and had to use the switches first to load octal code, followed by a tattered paper tape and finally the mag tape. Then you could type in your program using BASIC.It also had an acoustic modem [like in War-Games] and one of the girls' high-pitched giggles used to hang up our connection. After that, we used card machines to code FORTRAN onto 80-column punch cards. You submitted your "job" on Monday, and if you were lucky you got your results back on green bar printer paper later in the week. LED display watches were big back then, but the geeks wouldn't even let you in the computer center if you had one on because they weren't sure if it would disrupt the mainframe <grin>. Eventually we conned the sysop into giving us terminal access to the mainframe. One of my classmates got banned from all SC universities by using a TI "Silent 700" thermal terminal in a failed attempt to change his grades. Of course he didn't think about the master tape that was kept in a secure location. Several years ago I found a Silent 700 at a flea market.Years later I bought a Commodore 64 and ran the video through the TV. It is now mounted on the wall of my repair shop.

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My first computer was Texas Instruments in 1982 or 83. TI 4 in think it was called. a keyboard, TV monitor, tape recorder, and programing in basic. In 1984 I bought one of the first Macintosh units.

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I was introduced to my first computers back in January 1966 ... complete with white dustcoats, hairnets, papertape, punchcards, patchleads, magtapes, etc.In my first 5 years I learned to drive :ICT 1004 (a plugboard programmed beastie)IBN 1401 & 1410IBM 360sNCR 315Univac 9000 seriesMY HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED !!!

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My senior year in high school, they started offering this "new" computer course, so I signed up. We were writing programs via a teletype console on a TSO system. The instructor said TSO stood for "teletype system operator" (seriously!)The first PC I ever used was a work PC. IBM PC (not even an XT!) with a massive 10Meg hard drive and 640K of RAM. It had a 14 inch RGB monitor. I don't think the resolution was even 640x480, but I don't remember. It took me two years to fill up that hard drive!Several years later I broke down and bought my first PC. It was a 486/66 with 8Meg of RAM, a 540Meg HD, 2 Meg video card, and I paid an extra $100 and upgraded to a 15 inch VGA monitor instead of the black/white monitor. The salesman assured me I would "never fill that hard drive up!" The monitor is all I have left of that system. That system cost me almost $2,000 because I waited until they came out with the 486/100's and the price to drop.Current system is an Athlon 2000 with 512Mb RAM, a 80 Gig HD, 64Meg ATI Radeo 7500 and 19 inch flat screen. Cost me about the same as the 486 system and I'm pretty sure I'll never fill this hard drive up, although I am down to my last 52Gig free!My other two PC's are a Celeron 400 with 256 Mb RAM and 17 Gig HD, 16 Meg Viper and 18 inch LCD. (This one is really my wife's system - she wanted the LCD) and an Intel 133 with 128 Mb RAM and 6 Gig HD that I've got Lindows on (that's where that 15 inch monitor is!).

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jonyrotten

286-16 (harris processor), 1 meg RAM, 30mb HD, zenith flat screen monitor (pretty cool for back then) on some VGA card, epson dot matrix printer, all circa 1986....what a POS!! i worked for a design company that went broke owing me money, and got this albatross as partial payment.

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trickydick

The first computer I programmed was a Control Data Corp CDC-160A used by NASA in the '60s. It had 4K of "core" memory, a PT reader, PT punch, drum printer, and a 1/2" 800bpi tape drive!! It was programmed using front-panel toggle switches and the papertape!My first "bought" computer was a Commodore VIC-20 with cassette reader! I graduated to a gray-box PC built by a guy in the Seattle area. I've used too many to list here and am currently using a DELL with a 1.7GHZ processor, 512MB RAM, CD-RW/DVD, and 17" Monitor.

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Timex T100019853.5MHz (My cell phone is faster than my first computer)64K RAMmembrane keyboardNo CMOS, 8K ROMUsed a regular audio cassette for storageNo sound, Standard text, no graphicsahhh, those were the days2003 2.4 GHz512MB RAMetc...
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The first computer I ever used and owned was a TI 99/4A B) (and I loved it, although I can't say I miss using a cassette player as a storage device, but it worked for me, at the time).Then I used: Sinclair 1000 (2kb of RAM). Commodore 64. Got a chance to see a 'Texas Instruments PC', which was *not* IBM-compatible, and cost nearly five thousand dollars at the time ... Later on, IBM PCjrs (with 'music', but no hard disk, and of course I can't forget those dreadful CGA colors...), and some XT pcsMy first 'modern' pc was a 286, 2mb RAM, 36mb HD (which had to be partitioned for MSDOS3.30 B), 3,5 and 5,25 floppy drives, matrix printer, which is still working (the printer, mind you; the 286 died when the battery leaked over the motherboard, in a colorful way) Oh, I almost forgot my 1200 bauds modem !! Remember Zmodem protocol?After that, a 386, a P133, and a K6-2 450. And that's all. All of them were (are) clones and I've modified all of them.Looking back, I find I used all of them until they died or were too old to be useful... And I never install the latest OS, but the previous, mature one.I really enjoy using older software on new hardware and watching it speed!!

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B) My first computer was the Commodore 64. I had great fun with it....there were several interactive games named ZORK. Those were the days!Loose

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My First computer was the Tandy 1000 by Radio Shack. Probably 4Mhz Dual 5 1/4" Floppies. Thats it. That was about....hmmm...OMG....18 yrs ago.I first learned to program on the "Trash" TRS-80 and the Apple IIc.Remember when there was no internet and no windows.

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The first "DigitBox" I ever played with was very similar to "up and running's" post re: the DEC PDP-8. In this case(circa 1978) it was used to control an automation system for KHTZ radio in Los Angeles. We named it "Mongo". Mongo played country and western music 24/7 and was never late for work.Never had any curiosity as to it's inner workings. The DEC repair people would show up with a mini-computer in a small suitcase (full of lights and switches) and proceed to fix it when it crapped. The only exciting thing about it:Mongo was programmed to join the network for news on the hour. At the conclusion of each newscast the reporter would announce: "And once again the hours top story " : ..........It was the day that the Pope had died, and the news close was, "And once again the hours top story, Pope John Paul dies at 78"The song that Mongo played out of the news was titled :"Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Post of Life"Mongo had a mind of his own... B)

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humm... My first computer was a Tandy 1000HX... (Radio Shack). No Hard Drive, 256k of Ram. Humm... the days when a program (er.. game) would fit on a bootable floppy disk! B) (Still have it! It's packed away somewhere...) It came with a DD 3.5 Floppy Drive, and I added a external 5.25, a Dot Matrix printer, and a 2400baud modem (internal). Remember the original Prodigy Internet?Current is a home built, PIII 1ghz... I know... not very impressive... upgrade=money! have no money B) But I still enjoy my 21" viewsonic Monitor and Cambridge 5.1 Desktop Theater Sound System B)

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