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What was your first computer ?


Bruno

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My first computer was a ZX Spectrum 48K (The original one with the rubber buttons)Followed by:128K Spectrrum (The one with the black keyboard)+3 Spectrum I think Atari ST (These were Brill computers at the time too!!!)486 PC With 16Mb RAM ran Win98 on that! :rolleyes: Now got a AMD Duron 850 (Asus A7VE Motherboard) with 640Mb RAM, 128Gb HD Space and WInXP...

Edited by martinjh99
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RichNRockville

I started out with an IBM-PC 64K 2x160K floppies, TV video interface and all for over $5000 in 1981I now have a Pentium 4 3.06GHZ, 1Gig RAM, 40Gig 320SCSI 10K Hard disk. 128MB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti-4600G The P4 of course includes HyperThreading Technology.Of course that is just one of my computers on my home network. :rolleyes:

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One of these days (I retire, again, at the end of September) I may get around to assembling my own PC from components but I keep hoping and praying that someone will bring back the Amiga OS so I can pickup where I left off with the Amiga in 1995.
Your prayer's may have been answered? :rolleyes:
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Guest LilBambi
One of these days (I retire, again, at the end of September) I may get around to assembling my own PC from components but I keep hoping and praying that someone will bring back the Amiga OS so I can pickup where I left off with the Amiga in 1995.
Your prayer's may have been answered? :rolleyes:
Wow! Cool! A blast from the past and back to the future!Will want to keep an eye on this one ... Amiga was a great system for its day and I would be very interested in seeing it's progress now that it appears to be revived! I wish them well.
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My first one was a ZX-81, i returned it the same day.. my fingers are just to big for those kinda keyboards B) and got me a VIC 20. B) spent same amount of money on the 16 Kb memory expantion when i discovered that the adventure game i wanted to run on it needed that B) then got me a C 64, followed by a Atari ST [still love that one :P ]at the same time a PC XT came into my house followed by a PC AT all 8 Mhtz of them :)Now i run a AMD 2600 selfbuild rig, with the MSI K7N2 Delta MoBo love the Nforce 2 digital dolby on this one although my wife kinda errr not likes that :D

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First computing: 1972: Fortran punched cards turned into the window for the Univac 1108 at UW Madison, wait 1/2 hour to get green bar line print out with errors to do over. That mainframe seemed like it was always down for an hour or 2 whenever you wanted to submit a job also. If you numbered your cards, there was a machine that would sort them back into the correct order if they got mixed up.Thought it was a miracle using the Harris minicomputer in the ECL where you got to feed your cards into the reader yourself, collect them and walk over to the printer where your output was coming out on the green bar line printer. Took the microprocessor class the second semester it was offered. Used a National Semiconductor 16 bit development system with teletype and high speed paper tape reader. You used the little computer (bigger than altair) to put in your assembler source one line at a time and punched it out on paper tape. Than you ran your program tape into the reader 2 times I think because the actual assembler had to be run into the tape reader 2 times on tape also as it was a 2 pass assember. 4K of memory in the beast.And yes, the Lunar lander program running on the PDP-11/40 was pretty neat vector graphics. As you got close to the moon, detail went to "closeup TV coverage". If you landed next to a place with 2 arches, the astronout would get out to go in with the text something like "2 Big Macs and a Cheeseburger to go". Then he would go back to the lunar lander and take off. But woe to the guy who crashed into the arches: "Congratulations. You have just destroyed the only McDonalds on the moon!"First Home Computer: RCA Cosmac ELF that I wire wrapped (built) from articles in Popular Electronics. 1976?Had the obligatory 256 bytes of memory, leds and switches for programming.Over the next few years, added hex keyboard, wirewrapped 40 column by 24 row video card, video modulator so it could display on a tv, full ascii keyboard, servo controlled cassette tape drive, 4 k of static ram on a board (only $75!), 2 digit hexadecimal display. I got a hold of a memory dump of Tom Pittman's Tiny Basic, keyed it in on the hex keyboard, stored it on tape and I actually got to use a high level language at home!Since then Apple][e, 486/33 pc, Gateway P2 333, Toshiba 1.8G celeron laptops on home network with DSL, router, wireless 802.11b.

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I do not remember the name of my first computer, but I do know it was an IBM clone.It had two 5 1/4 " floppy drives and no HD. This was in 1987 or '88. It took me about 2 months with a computer book to learn the commands to run this machine. I learned enough DOS commands to print my documents written in edlin. I really enjoyed going to my local Shop-Rite store buying programs for $3.99.Those where the days of the computer for me. It was a time when you learned something new everyday. It was a real challenge to keep a computer running.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just looked at this for the first time. There are just too many posts!Anyway, I first computed on an IBM 650 machine, in 1959 (yes!) as a student at Stanford. You signed up for using the machine for an hour at a time.It had a main memory consisting of a rotating magnetic drum with 2000 words. Each word stored 10 decimal digits which could be program or data. That's all the memory. You fed it with IBM cards and output also was via punched cards. There was a rudimentary assembler for programming, but no higher level language (it was pre-FORTRAN).I also learned FORTRAN in 1959 and used it later to program a computer at UCLA, an IBM 704, I believe. I mailed boxes of cards from Stanford to UCLA - turnaround time was 1 week!Hey, aren't we spoiled now?

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  • 2 weeks later...

My first computer was a Compaq Deskpro. It was a 386DX-33MHz w/ 4MB RAM. I had to pay $200 to add 512KB of VRAM to display 1024 x 768 x 256 colours...The OS was Windows 3.1.

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  • 1 month later...

First computer ever used? Whatever was on the other end of the phone line, from my high school, circa 1975.First computer game ever played at length? Hunt the Wumpus( I smell a Wumpus, I feel a draft!) http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.c...Hunt+the+Wumpus Spent some quality time using TRS-80's and HP85's in college.http://members.cox.net/obsoletetechnology/...y/trs80iii.htmlhttp://www.old-computers.com/museum/comput....asp?st=1&c=353First computer I ever owned? An Atari 800, 48k ram, w/5 1/4" floppy drive and dot matrix printer, circa 1979. http://oldcomputers.net/atari800.htmlFirst programming language? Atari Basic, for what it was.First "real" computer? A Commodore Colt (XT clone, circa 1989), 640k, amberchrome monitor, & a 20 Mb harddrive! Life was good... http://www.old-computers.com/museum/comput....asp?st=1&c=905What am I using today? Nothing earth shattering. Home made monster, 1.8Ghz P4, 512Mb, dual 36Gb 10,000 rpm SCSI hard drives, 20" LCD flat panel, yada yada yada.I have a small computer museum in the basement. Including all the units mentioned above, there's also an Atari 600XL, an Apple 2+, an 8" floppy drive, Bell 103 modem, and a pile of other relics.Wonder what I could get for a Timex Sinclair 1000 on e-Bay... http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html

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  • 2 months later...

Hi,I just found this topic. My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 2. Eventually I had the interface kit, 48k RAM (48K, not M-<LOL>) two floppy drives. A group of us met regularly. One of the group found a lower case chip that was better than Radiio Shack's -we had true descenders. At some demonstration we had one of our systems and the RS people could not believe that we had true decenders. Went throught the Mod 3 and 4, and even had the portable one, 4??What a trip down memory lane.

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  • 1 month later...

The first computer that I built was an Altaire 8080 CPU, with 256 kb ram. It was the first personal computer that started this industry. The boards were mounted on an S-100 bus. Everything had to be soldered by hand, and the machine had to be programmed in machine language, using the front toggle switches on the panel, to enter the information. The machine was eventually upgraded to run a DEC wide carriage printer, and to run Basic, using floppy disks.The next machine that I bought was an INTERSYSTEMS; also an S100, with a much improved Z-80 CPU chip. On that one I had a printer, a video terminal, a modem, and one megabyte of paged memory. I ran three large fans in the case to keep the boards cool. Those fans made so much noise, that it got very annoying very quickly. I still have that computer. It has bright shiny orange paddle switches on the front panel, to manually enter machine language data. Those data lights are forever blinking when it is processing data. On this machine, I ran BASIC, PASCAL, and FORTRAN. I also still have the Zenith video terminal that I used with this computer.The next machine was an Apple II. That one was filled with all kinds of boards. I ran BASIC, Pascal, and Fortran on that machine. I had a color monitor connected to this machine. I used to get very annoyed that the keys were only upper-case characters, and when using a word processor, a set of keys had to be pressed to get lower case characters. And yes, I still have that machine.The other machines that I have (had) are classified as modern computers. I still have the Compaq i486 50 MHz machine. I never liked it very much. It was way underdesigned, although it was very well built. It still runs today. ONEderer

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  • 3 weeks later...

My first was also the Commodore 64 with a tape deck. I remember it took 6 or 7 minutes for a D&D game to load on that tape deck. But loved Jumpman! My first desktop was a 286 12 mhz system with a 40 meg HD with Windows 3.1. 5 1/4 floppy with 2 meg of ram. What a system! Built it myself for just over a cool grand. Chilly

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  • 1 month later...

My first machine was a Timex Sinclair. I think my second was an Apple IIe, then GS. After that I went to the PC side. Several different PCs from a 8088 to 486 DX2 66. Now, have a tablet convertible, regular laptop for my wife, PowerBook, AMD 950 desktop and 2.2 Ghz P4 server. Got a 600mhz pIII collecting dust (think that's what it is)

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My first computer was an Altair 8080, which had to be built from scratch, one solder joint to the other. I then bought an Intersystems from upstate NY. This is a Z80 system with paged 1Meg memory. It runs CP/M and various programming languages. It looks quite impressive with all those flasing LED's, and those wide orange paddle switches on the front panel. By the way, I still have that Intersystem machine. Good museum piece. :D ONEderer

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An original IBM PC with 64K of hard wired memory and two clunky 360K floppy drives.Ah, the good old days...when we thought an XT with a V20 chip was hot stuff. Popping memory in...then looking for that one chip in what, 36, that had the bent pin, because the machine wouldn't pass the post test. 10 meg Seagate hard drives that weighed 10 pounds, cost $500, and would irreparably crash if bumped while the heads were writing. WordStar. Lotus. And DOS 2.0.

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  • 4 weeks later...

My first pc was a Pentium 100MHz with 16Megs of ram, a 1 Gig hard drive and Diamond Stealth graphics card.I now have 4 pcs all built by myself the best of which is a P4 2.8Ghz on a 533MHz fsb with 1Gig of DDR memory,Nvidia Fx5900XT and two 80Gig hard drives.How time flys, my top PC is now a 3GHz P4@800MHz fsb, 2Gigs of DDR ram, Nvidia Gforce 6800GT and two 80 Gig hard drives. Things move on so quickly in the computer world.

Edited by broadkipa
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  • 4 weeks later...

Great thread! Nice to know we're not alone, huh? :)My "first" was also an IBM 1401. For a "keyboard" it had 16 toggle switches. They let you boot it and mount the cardreader. When "PC's" came along, a friend started with an Altair, then went to Apples, then Amigas. He was hooked on games. Finally, he showed me Deluxe Paint, and I got the bug myself.The first I owned was an Amiga 1200. Upgraded it to 30MHz and 10Mb. Bought it '94, just before they went under. :D Got a modem and spent $1/hr to play MUDs and read usenet.Guess I was born a curmudgeon. I also resisted the WWW. The NASA pix took a 1/2 hour to download, who'd bother with that? I coulda had "www.jef.com" for free, back then. Alas....But the Web caught on, and I figured with my graphics experience I could re-career as a web designer (was building backbones in the 80's, removing them in the 90's, when the downsizing downsized, we were out of business.) Not wanting to get burned again, I skipped over Apple (wrong again) and built a PC.

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My first computer: Some model of an Acer with a 75 MHz Pentium, 8 MB RAM, 400-something MB HD, Windows 3.11/MS DOS 6.22, and a 4x CD-ROM drive. Plus a floppy drive, the only thing it's really good for anymore. :o I've upgraded it to 64 MB RAM, Windows 95, and the CD-ROM drive has stopped working, and I've ("wirefully") nextworked it to this computer ... but I replaced it four years ago with this one and rarely use it, though I did use it occasionally for a week when I traveled.Speaking of traveling, my latest creation should be here next Thursday, a new HP ze5700 (I think?) laptop. It'll have a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, a 2x DVD+R/RW/CD-RW drive, an 802.11b/g WLAN card, a 30 GB HD (not impressive, I know, but I'm fine with the 20 GB I have now on *this* computer, and I did get a DVD burner for large stoarge I don't need on the HD, so I figure I'll be fine), a 15.0-in. display (1024x768), and a carrying bag--which should arrive this afternoon (remember the laptop's ETA is next Thursday). Talk about torture. :D Oh, and I didn't include the $50 floppy drive, but now I'm thinking maybe I should've--I forgot their usefulness as start-up disks. Oh, well. I'll have to see if you can create MS-DOS-style bootable CDs/DVDs. Oh, well.

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  • 1 month later...

Back on page three of this thread I posted about my TRS-80, but professed that my true, unrequited, love was for a Processor Technology SOL-20. I had seen my love in a Byte-shop in Palo Alto while attending a class in the 70's. There was just no way to date this beauty. It didn't respond to my "I have worshipped you from afar" line, it had heard it all before.Twenty five years later I found this: solace.gifWhich is a display of a Windows based SOL-20 emultor. The site has the above pictured "Target" game. If you follow the link to the binaries, you can even find a copy of "Electric Pencil", one of the earliest PC based word processors.SOL-20 emulator

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  • 3 weeks later...

My first was a Commodore Vic 20. Was great for Jetpack and for those adventure games where you type in the commands but my Spectrum 48 (rubber keyboard) blew it out the water!Current rig is a P4 2.0Ghz with i850 chip. And it's not bleedin' working :'(

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  • 4 weeks later...

The first computer I USED was a PDP-9My first purchased computer was a CP/M based Olivetti 300 ...basically it was a complex typewriter. I got a first generation Commodore PET "Fat 40" not long after that and spent a month or two making an interface to use the Olivetti's typewriter as a printer. I spent about another month figuring out how to convert "PETSCII" to ASCII. After these two, I owned a number of Commodore machines, notably a PET 9000 (with all the Waterloo language packs on it), a 64 then a 128. Switched to Mac briefly when the first Lisa came out until I grew frustrated with it's lack of expandability. After my first 386 SX 16 AST system I migrated generally to the PC platform but briefly owned a few Sun computers where I became aquainted with the concept of Unix.Today I'm running a somewhat outdated Asus TUV4X motherboard, p3 1.2Ghz, 1Gb RAM, Adaptec 29160 with 6 matched 36Gb Seagate HD, ATI 7500 AIWFor OS I am multi-booting, one OS per driveWin 98se,2K Pro,XP Pro on the first 3 drivesMandrake 8.2, FreeBSD 4.8, FreeBSD 5.2.1(dev system) on the last 3 drivesIn addition I use Basilisk II on the 2K Pro partition to emulate Macintoshes, CS64 to emulate Commodore 64, and if I really need to I can boot Win 3.1, WFW 3.11 and 95 on the 98se partition, they are in separate installs on that drive (for those that want to do this make sure you have them set not to use swapfiles, 3.1x and 9x all want to use the same file)For day to day use I prefer 98se or FreeBSD 4.8 with KDEBTW I'm still hanging on to my old PET, with the multi-coloured chiclet type keyboard. I also have a working 4040 and 1520 ... someday my great grandkids will haul it all in to "Antiques Roadshow"....

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  • 2 weeks later...

Timex Sinclair! Well actually it was a friend's that I got to play with. In the same general time period also toyed with a Commodore 64 and one of the early Apple's (don't recall the model though).

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  • 3 weeks later...

First system that I actually owned myself was a p166 mmx cpu w 16 mbs edo ram w 4mb video card & a 1.6 gig quantum fireball h/d on an at mobo which within a six month period I had replaced every thing, h/d died got a 4.3 gig w/d replacement then bought 512mbs of ram x2 sticks an tnt 64 mbs vid card new non isa sound card *pci* & another 6.4 h/d both 5400 rpm & of course a p 233 mmx cpu retail & a sony cd/rw 4x8x32 & it still works & i've got it as a backup system.computers are likely the last thing made to stand up to the test of time! Stay Cool w the Hot Chix fellow Dudesi.e. threat em right & they'll do likewise & if not at least you got that! :thumbsdown:

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  • 3 months later...

Kaypro2Plus as I recall CP/M, w/ Wordstar, Datastar, then Tandy Model 100, Toshiba T1100+, w/ 3rd party 10MB hD.I still use Wordstar daily (WS6), some datastar.

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  • 1 month later...

Cool thread.My first machine was an 8088 xt "turbo" everything mounted on a piece of plywood. Ran at a blazing 4mhz and if I recall correctly the turbo switch would set it up to around 12mhz. A 20meg hard drive and a Hayes 1200 baud modem card which had to be initialized manually at each use. I ran a PCBoard BBS for a few years in the Los Angeles area "Freeway Flyer"; we had about 30 regulars used to come in and play the door games.. at it's heyday we were fielding over 500 visits weekly. Eventually I had to get a dedicated phone line.I remember when the 386's and then the 486's came out, we weren't able to afford one of these speedsters.. Same thing when the 9600 and then the 14400's started proliferating we were both embarrassed and proud to be running this old bunch of parts mounted on a piece of plywood, at some point a friend of mine gave me his 2400b card when he upgraded to a 96.Ah the memories..

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