Your First Computor

[Iceaxe]

My first computer was an Everex 386, with a 70 mb harddrive and two megs of ram, running DOS 3.0..... it was the absolute best you could buy and cost $30,000 plus or minus a few quarters with softeware and printer. This was in 1984 I believe.

http://widelec.org/stuff/stare_fotografie2/stare_fotografie_32.jpg

My first computer programing class was 1979 in college on an IBM computer the size of a house.... we programed the damn thing with "punch cards".

But does it run Windows Vista?

http://widelec.org/stuff/stare_fotografie2/stare_fotografie_23.jpg

Punch Cards

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2831963/2/istockphoto_2831963_punch_card.jpg

Punch card machine

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/images/4506VV4002.jpg

I also had some experience on the first mac's as the Physics department at the U had a couple of these bad boys. They were a real POS but were cheap in comparison to what else was available and this was also the first time I saw a mouse which I thought was pretty cool.

http://www.oli.tudelft.nl/uselog/pictures/The_first_mac.jpg

My first video game was a Magnavox Odyssey... this had to be about 1972 or 73. It could only play pong in black and white. This was the fore runner of the first Atari's .

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Odysseye2m.png/300px-Odysseye2m.png

Next up was an Atari 2600 in 1980.... these were awesome and is the game system every kid on the block owned.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Atari2600wood4.jpg

[accadacca]

Ha yeah. I remember those old Atari's. :popcorn:

[Alex]

I'll play your game.

My first was back in 1986, called Sinclair ZX Spectrum+

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/images/spectrum_plus.jpg

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/zxspectrum/specplus.htm

My dad brought it to Russia from Germany, and my parents told me not to tell any of my friends due to KGB investigation and a possible arrest. How the hell did they expect a kid to keep it quite! I was sneaking kids into my house to play games on it. :cool2:

Then I upgraded to Commodore 16, which followed by Commodore 64

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Commodore_16_002.jpg/256px-Commodore_16_002.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Commodore64.jpg/320px-Commodore64.jpg

Then I came to the states and owned a Mac II

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/MacII.jpg/250px-MacII.jpg

Then in 1995 I got into IBMs, Win3.1, and Linux.

[asdf]

holly carp your old :roflol:



I remember playing some crazy games on the old Atari system...
Anyone every play with this bad boy?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/ColecoVision.jpg

I recall being blown away by these graffix
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9e/Smurf.gif

[asdf]

My first machine.... Commodore64 baby
http://cybernetnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/08/Commodore.gif

[Cirrus2000]

My computer class in 10th grade ('79-'80) had some kind of big old DEC computer, with a card reader as well. Didn't have to punch the cards - could just use a pencil on them. No monitor or anything, of course. Just a scary printer with a very long continuous stream of paper coming out.

My first computer was in late 1979, a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1. 16K of RAM, Level II BASIC. Yup, it came with a tape recorder - no disc drive on that baby. I seem to recall Dad spending around $1200 on it...

http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/design/images/computers/trs80b.gif

That was it for years. Finally I got a PC in 1992. 386DX40 - 40 whole MHz processor speed. 1 MB of RAM, and an 80 MB hard drive. 14" monitor. 9-pin dot matrix printer. All for the incredible price of $1700. Zoinks.

[stefan]

in 1984 my father brought home the original mac. i was a kid, it was epic.

http://cauber.blog.lemonde.fr/cauber/images/mac_128_1984.jpg

in 1987 we added a mac II to the scene ... ooo color :eek2:

http://erikloyer.com/images/site_images/macintoshii.jpg

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<tr><td>
and, of course, apple was the first to go commercially mainstream with a fully functional GUI-based operating system, something which microsoft, unix, linux, etc. have incorporated and is the standard today. apple and xerox pioneered a lot of the ideas behind this, and from the apple lisa to the first macintosh was significant jump.
</td></tr>
</table>

[Shan]

http://www.buycomputermemory.com/images/dell-dimen.jpg
Dell Dimension 2350

Wait that's what I am using at home now!! Seriously, I didn't buy my first computer til 2002.

If anyone is interested in have every NES game but for the home computer. 95% of them are crap games though.

[trackrunner]

Well I remember when my dad had a 286 for his work. Then we upgraded to a 386 at home. But when we got a 486 at home man I thought that was bad ass. :rockon: I brought all my elementary school friends over to play on it. The games were so fast. :lol8: It loaded so fast too, man it only took under five minutes now for Windows to start up. I thought there was no way computers could get faster. Well now I know better.
:roflol: :roflol: :roflol:

My first computer that was mine own was in 2003 when I started college back from the

[JP]

Atari :lol8: Tanks, Pong :roflol:

[Skylinerider]

If anyone is interested in have every NES game but for the home computer. 95% of them are crap games though.

Actually, I would be interested. :2thumbs:

[Gutpiler_Utahn]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Tandy1000HX.jpg/285px-Tandy1000HX.jpg

Tandy 1000 HX back in the mid 80's. It came with a whopping 256KB of RAM, an Intel 8088 processor (pre-x86), no hard drive, and a dot matrix printer. I thought I was so cool to have this. :roll:

Later on my brother got some IBM compatible 286. Next time I got a system Gateway 1505 or some such for $1531 in 1999. Had 64MB RAM, 10GB HDD, and a Celeron 400MHz processor.

Now, I'm running a home built ssytem. Celeron 2.13GHz processor, 1256MB RAM, roughly 400GB in HDD space, 2 video cards. I'm slowly replacing everything out for new parts.

The new system will be 2.4GHz Quad Core, 2GB RAM, 4 320GB HDDs setup in an RAID 0 configuration, GeForce 8800 SLI video card with an extra GeFroce 5500 in a PCI slot for running dual monitors for my stuff while playing a movie for the kids on a third monitor. :2thumbs: Then I'll get a water-cooled heatsink and overclock the processor to 3.2GHz. Oh yeah :nod: this system's gonna kick a$$.

[Mtnman1830]

When I was a kid, my parents bought us a computer that you hooked up to the tv.

http://www.ricks-graphics.co.uk/area99/computer_pic1.jpg

It was a Texas Instrument, an nearly 23 years ago or so. They didn't get a real computer until I was out of high school, (after 1993) Hell, I used Word Perfect 5.0, and learned to type on a real typewriter

In elementary, we used the used punch cards to make a poinsettia.

GOD I AM OLD

[DiscGo]

My first computer programing class was 1979 in college on an IBM computer the size of a house.... we programed the damn thing with "punch cards".

Are you serious? That is crazy!

[Iceaxe]

Are you serious? That is crazy!

True story... the language we learned to program in was Fortran. The year was 1979.

And I remember this because..... We used to sit in the computer lab and smoke cig's as we tapped out our punch cards. Then some goody-two-shoes posted a big sign at the front of the room that said "You are smart enough to know Fortran, Don't you think you're smart enough to stop smoking?"

At the time you could smoke most places on campus.

Damn... I'm old :haha:

[accadacca]

holly carp your old :roflol:



I remember playing some crazy games on the old Atari system...
Anyone every play with this bad boy?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/ColecoVision.jpg

I recall being blown away by these graffix
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9e/Smurf.gif
I played those too. :popcorn:

[sparker1]

My first job was operating an IBM 705 computer, big as a house and in its own room, all tubes, no transistors even. It had a 20K memory and a 60K drum (pre-hard drives). This was 1960 and my company had 5 of these largest commercial computers in the country.

My first programming class was 1961, Assembler language for the 705, followed by Autocoder for the newly announced 1401 (4 K RAM, still no hard drive).

My first personal computer was an IBM PC (first version). It had Intel's 8088 chip, 64K RAM, 2 floppy disks (no hard drive). With a monochrome monitor and a dot matrix printer it cost $5000 (but I got a 20% discount). I used this machine from 1982 until 1995.

[RedMan]

Bought it with my own hard earned cash in 1978

It is an Apple II, not and Apple IIe. It had a cassette player to load programs and I tought myself to program assembler then basic.

I had this same ultra sleek looking 9" BW monitor.
Later I upgrade to 16K (thats a K folks) and the floppy drive!! Woohoo.

I still have it and it runs just fine. NEVER HAD A VIRUS, NEVER. (LOL how could it get one?)

http://www.edwardsamuels.com/illustratedstory/chapter%204/AppleII.jpg

[Felicia]

I guess I'm old too....I took Fortran on punch cards..........it sucked when you dropped the deck. I also took Basic, Pascal(sp?) and Cobal(sp?)

I think I have had exposure to every machine noted, except Alex's early machines, over the course of my time.

[Iceaxe]

I took Fortran on punch cards..........it sucked when you dropped the deck

Been there.... done that... :lol8:

[Udink]

The first machine that I personally owned was a Pentium II 266 MHz with 64MB of RAM. I built it myself from parts bought from EBC (don't know if they're still around).

The first computer I used on a regular basis was bought by my mom while I was still living at home. I don't recall the exact specs, but it was a 486 (DX-33, I believe) made by Packard Bell. Quite the quality computer, right there. :roll:

[R]

Early 2000-era iMac Special Edition (the grey one), 400mhz processor, 13GB hard drive, 512 MB memory. It was actually a pretty decent machine. I edited a lot of photos and movies, downloaded a lot of music, and played a lot of Quake III Arena on it. Replaced by the eMac that is now our son's computer. The eMac became his as it passed down the computer food chain, now that Abby has an iBook and I have a 20-inch flat-panel iMac.

Photo of me in my apartment with my grey iMac, shot by Abby in 2003.

http://richardbarron.net/personal/rbapt03.jpg

[Scout Master]

TRS-80 Color Computer
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/TRS-80_Color_Computer_1.jpg/320px-TRS-80_Color_Computer_1.jpg

[LOAH]

Coleco- Played it. Hardly remember it, but I played it.

Commodor64- My brother had one and we had so many games. I remember the "cheat sheet" full of codes for the games. I think they were codes...I was really young.

Atari2600- Oh yeah, baby. Combat, Smurfs, Pitfall, Defender, Adventure, Pong, Pac man, Joust, so many games, we had...Do I remember a Donkey Kong type of game back for the Atari??? So foggy.

I remember in 1986, my elementary school was fortunate enough to receive a computer lab full of Apples. They were the coolest things around and we were forced to learn typing skills (thank you). I was never very fast, but the teacher blew us all away with her amazing 72wpm!!!

The science teacher was quite handy with the new computers and developed his own game.

I also remember playing plenty of "Oregon Trail" later on in that lab. Those graphics were sweet. :2thumbs:

Personally, my first computer was an Epson IIe. I know nothing about its specs, but I had a monochrome monitor and a printer that was capable of printing 3 different fonts! :lol8:

I used Wordperfect to write stories and I remember having to use a C:// or something like that (Dos, right?..Sorry, not much of a pc guy) to get to my saved files. I still have that computer and I'm sure it would still run if I dug it up. I wonder if I could pull up all that old crap in it. I'd get a kick out of reading the entries from a warped young boy (me). :haha:

Nice thread. It's good to reminisce.

[accadacca]

Speaking of computers. . .

Gotta love kids. My 20 month old watches his brother stick CD games in his iMac. Well, he decided to stick some pennies in the slot loader and a ticket to the UCLA vs. Utah game. :lol8:

Needless to say the drive is toast and I had to order another one on ebay. :compthrow:

[Joe Gardner]

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/ibm_portable.jpg


My first computer was my dads first "laptop", an IBM PC Portable - Model 5155, 4.77 Mhz, 256 kb of RAM, PC DOS 2.1! :D

He needed a portable computer he could take to his office. It weighed over 30lbs. After a few years he replaced the laptop with two desktops, one at home, one at work, I got the laptop. :D

The first computer I ever purchased was a used 386dx, 4mg of ram, I remember riding my bike to the computer store and buying an additional 4mg of ram at a cost of $100 a meg... I had to sell a lot of baseball cards to pay for that upgrade! :D

[greyhair biker]

Atari 2600 - COOL! - I used to sell these in '81 at Gibsons' Discount Center during the holidays. I think I mastered 'RiverRaid' :haha: . In Highschool electronics class we had monster of a system with a cassette tape deck that we'd spend a half hour of a two hour class letting it load...we played a game called 'swords' - dungeons & dragons forerunner - for about 20 minutes because the system was so slow you'd have to wait for a few minutes for your commands to load. Then I though I was uptown with my 286...with one game cause thats all it would play...man, we've come along way!

[Gutpiler_Utahn]

Speaking of computers. . .

Gotta love kids. My 20 month old watches his brother stick CD games in his iMac. Well, he decided to stick some pennies in the slot loader and a ticket to the UCLA vs. Utah game. :lol8:

Needless to say the drive is toast and I had to order another one on ebay. :compthrow:

:lol8: :lol8: Acca, my kids decided to turn my cd-rw into their piggy bank a year or so back. I lost my Office 03 and XP pro cd's before taking it apart and finding over $1 in small change in it. :roll: Kids... can't live with 'em, and they taste gorrible with bar-b-que sauce. :twisted:

Alex, you raise some very interesting and valid points in regards to the hdd's and the raid setup. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'll look into getting 4 80GB drives and 320GB drive partitioned into 4 80's and setup a RAID 0+1. That will handle my striping and redundancy for the games and personal data. Then I can add a 500GB drive for use as my media drive.

I did not know that DirectX 10.0 was in need of a patch, though it doesn't surprise me. Did some research and decided on downgrading the graphics card for now. I'll just get an 8600GTS, which is more than enough graphics card for anything on the market right now. Even the top of the line games don't require SLI technology and the difference isn't enough for me to justify the extra $100 for the video card if I'm gonna be upgrading in a year anyways.

Now, that list you sent about the games supported by 64bit Op Sys is really interesting. Thinking about it, I may well install Vista x64 and then install a virtual environment and install XP Pro there. Then I could install allof my 64bit non-compliant software on there and not have to mess with the dual boot hassles.

I enjoy games, but am not a hardcore gamer. I've got several hard core gamers for friends and would like to try my hand at the newer games on the market. So, if I'm gonna upgrade my system to handle them, I'm gonna REALLY upgrade my system. :2thumbs: :haha:

[donny h]

Next up was an Atari 2600 in 1980.... these were awesome and is the game system every kid on the block owned.

Every kid on the block? Pffffht. Please.

All your Pitfall, Defender, and Kong are belong to me.



About Pong:

I remember the very day that the full sized pong arcade game appeared in my local arcade (bowling alley) in the late 70s.

When I went in to play pinball after school no one was playing pinball, all the kids were gathered around the Pong game, in a trance watching two stupid paddles bouncing one stupid ball, with that stupid *bonk* *bonk* *bonk* sound effect, it wasn't long before Space Invaders, Asteroids, PacMan, and Galaga took over the world, and my arcade.

I miss pinball.