Jose Collado
Skilled Investigator
It all started with Commodore Vic 20 and a cartridge called Omega Race
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What was your first computer?
- Thread starter Gareth
- Start date
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DrLogic
Skilled Investigator
Well I reckon it depends how you look at it. The modern desktop pc (Windows, Linux), one could argue, hasn’t had much of a facelift in terms of overall architecture. It's still steeped in overtures of the IBM days for a variety of reasons. Indeed the biggest noticeable difference IMO is having the big widescreen LCDs rather than the small CRTs, but interface and big beige box is still pretty stagnant.
Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if ergonomic and sleek design is to continue at a pace (which to me appears to be adding an extra few degrees of curvature to the previous design) I say we should take a stand right now and design everything in spherical form
Xylo
Paranormal Adept
Commodore SX-64. My HS teachers requested that I use a word processor due to my poor penmanship.
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/sx64/
Funny to think that my Treo has more computing power than my first 3 or 4 computers combined.
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/sx64/
Funny to think that my Treo has more computing power than my first 3 or 4 computers combined.
Flatwoods
Paranormal Maven
Growing up in the 1980's, I begged my parents to get a Commodore 64 or an Amiga so I could use it for word processing, games, etc. They weren't interested in the slightest - for some reason they couldn't understand why anyone would want a computer in their own home.
Years later, with my first job, I scrounged up enough money to purchase a Packard Bell Packmate 65 486 computer. I then purchased an internal modem and installed it. It was blazing fast at the time - 14.4 mb. Can you imagine that? I badly wanted to get a membership to CompuServe, but their insane usage fees scared me away. Luckily, I started getting free signup disks in the mail from America Online, and that was how I discovered the internet.
Years later, with my first job, I scrounged up enough money to purchase a Packard Bell Packmate 65 486 computer. I then purchased an internal modem and installed it. It was blazing fast at the time - 14.4 mb. Can you imagine that? I badly wanted to get a membership to CompuServe, but their insane usage fees scared me away. Luckily, I started getting free signup disks in the mail from America Online, and that was how I discovered the internet.
ghoul
Skilled Investigator
My computer history....
TI/99-4A (still have it in the basement in storage...wrote a few games for it)
Commodore-64 (sold it in college when I needed some $)
Apple Macs and Apollo stations in college
386 (purchased after college because I found out what apple wanted $)
486 DX/2 66 (wow was this fast)
PII 450 (served as my web/mail server until about 18 months ago...poor little guy)
Many home built whatchamacallits since then, updated whenever my system can't keep up with the latest games.
TI/99-4A (still have it in the basement in storage...wrote a few games for it)
Commodore-64 (sold it in college when I needed some $)
Apple Macs and Apollo stations in college
386 (purchased after college because I found out what apple wanted $)
486 DX/2 66 (wow was this fast)
PII 450 (served as my web/mail server until about 18 months ago...poor little guy)
Many home built whatchamacallits since then, updated whenever my system can't keep up with the latest games.
paraschtick
Paragilmorian guy
Mein gott. My first computer was an ORIGINAL SINCLAIR ZX81. All it had was 1K of ram to start off with and no colours or sound. I got an infamous 16K ram pack not long after I got it I think. The ram pack was infamous in that it had a tendency to wobble on the back of the computer while typing in a program. If it did the computer would crash, and you'd have to start typing in your program all over again.
The keyboard was infamous in itself in that the keys held not only letters, numbers etc, it also held the words you used to program in Basic with. Very odd but then again in 1981, I didn't really know any different.
Most people who started with a ZX81 usually went onto the ZX Spectrum. However, a friend of my fathers had bought a new Welsh computer ie it was made in Wales by I guess Welsh people, and I'm Welsh as well ... although I was born in England ... oh you get the picture
...Anyway this computer was called the "Dragon 32" and so it was decreed that I would get it as well. Luckily a friend of mine had known he was getting a Dragon 32 for Christmas himself, and in the months leading up to the great day, when I went over to his place, and we were left on our own devices, he would retrieve it from its hiding place and we'd play around with it before his parents got home
.So by the time I got it I could program it. Oh, and I've still got both (well sort of ... had to replace a few bits, and I had to replace the entire Dragon 32 after a while ... dodgy connections inside it) ... but they both still work.
In fact, several months ago I programmed (using a D32 emulator) a program to recreate Allen Greenfields Cipher of the UFOnauts in Dragon 32 Basic (which was a Microsoft O/S) ... even though I hadn't programmed anything on it much for 20 years or so.
Greatest fun with the Dragon 32?? Blinking full screen colours at certain rates to create a strobe effect. In a darkened room jumping around to this and some music ... who needs one of those nightclub things
ZX81 at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81
Dragon 32:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_32/64
(wikipedia entries above, since I'm having a few problems uploading pictures on their own ... for some strange reason)
methshin
Japans Underground Robot Army
Walking around with a HUD inside my head would be awesome. Telling me ranges, temperatures, pressures, wind speeds, direction. Not to mention what song my iBrain is playing.
Don't they usually come in pairs?
Roro
aka Arlen Royal Woods
IBM PCjr
It eventually looked just like the one in the Wikipedia article, with dual floppy drives and 640kb ram, accept mine also had the hardware Microsoft built to add a mouse which attached to the expansion bus on the right side (you could keep stacking modules out to the right, IBM sidecar adapter). Over time I replaced both floppy drives and at one point had to build a custom cable to attach them together because the interface on the new ones didn't match the original. Kept using it until the power supply died.
It eventually looked just like the one in the Wikipedia article, with dual floppy drives and 640kb ram, accept mine also had the hardware Microsoft built to add a mouse which attached to the expansion bus on the right side (you could keep stacking modules out to the right, IBM sidecar adapter). Over time I replaced both floppy drives and at one point had to build a custom cable to attach them together because the interface on the new ones didn't match the original. Kept using it until the power supply died.
Jose Collado
Skilled Investigator
Dude, the disk drive was way better than the Data Cassette! I had to live with one of those for a couple of years and it almost drove me insane. I agree with the pirating though. Everything from a quick copy on your home HiFi to the action replay cartridge that filled the gap between the data cassette users and the disk users. The action replay also allowed you to manipulate sprites which was pretty cool if you didn't go too far and kill the title.
DolphinDOS on the C64 was amazing. You literally waited a couple of seconds for the software to load.
Worst game ever on C64 goes to The America's Cup. It took over an hour to load on cassette (I think it was only available on cassette) and it blew dogs for spare change.
gerasmus
Skilled Investigator
I grew up in South Africa.
1. C64, in 1984 when I was 13 years old.
2. Amiga 500 in 1989, then expanded it to gigantic 1Mb memory & 60Mb HD.
3. A 1200bps modem in 02/1991, costed $200 in 1991. As a kid, my life savings.
4. Amiga 1200 in 1993, expanded it with 120Mb HD, 4mb Ram, Genlock, "Framegrabber" (primitive sort of digital camera). Fraps can nowadays do all the special box can.
5. 1997-1999: Bit the bullet and dumped the Amiga. My first custom built Pentium I @120Mhz, and later 8Mb 3dfx card.
6. 2000: Various crap laptops.
7. 2001: onwards various custom machines built by myself to keep up with latest games.
Currently I have 4 laptops and 2 desktops (desktops for gaming).
Desktop1: Core2Quad Q9300, 4x 2,5Ghz CPU, 1Gb Geforce 9800GT Gfx, Creative x-Treme Gamer audio, 8Gb Ram, Asus P5Q Pro SLi motherboard, TrackIR headmovement tracker, Saitek X52 joystick/throttle, Logitech G52 Surround sound, Windows 7 64bit & Ubuntu 9.04 64bit dual boot, 2Tb combined HD space, 2x Samsung 22" widescreen, 1x 19" Flatscreen, XBOX and PSP connected to PC via a TV card, Creative HS-1200 wireless headset to block out the wife's when she's moaning.
Desktop2: AMD Phenom x3 8750 @ 2,5Ghz, 8Gb Ram, 1Gb Radeon 4670, 2,5Tb combined HD space. All machines connected via wired LAn and wireless N router + KVM switches & wireless laser mouse & keybord.
And yes, it all looks like a crow's nest !
1. C64, in 1984 when I was 13 years old.
2. Amiga 500 in 1989, then expanded it to gigantic 1Mb memory & 60Mb HD.
3. A 1200bps modem in 02/1991, costed $200 in 1991. As a kid, my life savings.
4. Amiga 1200 in 1993, expanded it with 120Mb HD, 4mb Ram, Genlock, "Framegrabber" (primitive sort of digital camera). Fraps can nowadays do all the special box can.
5. 1997-1999: Bit the bullet and dumped the Amiga. My first custom built Pentium I @120Mhz, and later 8Mb 3dfx card.
6. 2000: Various crap laptops.
7. 2001: onwards various custom machines built by myself to keep up with latest games.
Currently I have 4 laptops and 2 desktops (desktops for gaming).
Desktop1: Core2Quad Q9300, 4x 2,5Ghz CPU, 1Gb Geforce 9800GT Gfx, Creative x-Treme Gamer audio, 8Gb Ram, Asus P5Q Pro SLi motherboard, TrackIR headmovement tracker, Saitek X52 joystick/throttle, Logitech G52 Surround sound, Windows 7 64bit & Ubuntu 9.04 64bit dual boot, 2Tb combined HD space, 2x Samsung 22" widescreen, 1x 19" Flatscreen, XBOX and PSP connected to PC via a TV card, Creative HS-1200 wireless headset to block out the wife's when she's moaning.
Desktop2: AMD Phenom x3 8750 @ 2,5Ghz, 8Gb Ram, 1Gb Radeon 4670, 2,5Tb combined HD space. All machines connected via wired LAn and wireless N router + KVM switches & wireless laser mouse & keybord.
And yes, it all looks like a crow's nest !