Poll: Your first personal computer? [Archive] - Page 2

cheekyspanky

Mar 18, 2005, 07:25 AM

The first computer I used was an Acorn Electron..happy days playing Snapper (a cheap rip off of Pac Man!), and trying to write some code to make my own games work! We still have it and I'm fairly sure it still works!

The first computer I actually owned..well, I was a little late to the table, so its a Hewlett Packard 1.3Ghz AMD Athlon, 256mb RAM (bought in mid 2001)..which I just replaced with a Mac mini.

puckhead193

Mar 18, 2005, 12:08 PM

My first computer was a Mac. LC. I later added on the cd-rom (what ever happened to cd-caddys :rolleyes: ) and i got the stylewriter printer, man that was slow! I still have it, i posted a picture of it somewhere, prob the "post your mac setup past or present" thread

dpclark

Mar 18, 2005, 04:21 PM

My 1st computer was a Sinclair Spectrum ZX128k +2, imagine that a whole 128k of memory!!! :D

MacSA

Mar 18, 2005, 04:43 PM

Amiga A1200, 14.1mhz Motorola 69020 processor, 2Mb RAM, 20Mb Hard drive.

Up until 2001, I did ALL my word processing on it..with Wordworth... I still works :) Fantastic computer for games too. :D

~loserman~

Mar 18, 2005, 06:16 PM

TRS-80 model 1 1979
Commodore Vic 20 1980

Plymouthbreezer

Mar 19, 2005, 10:44 AM

Mine was a Macintosh Performa 5300CD, we got it when I was 5. It was an all in one, with a 15" display I believe.

The first computer I really used a lot was my uncles black MacTV. I can't tell you how sad I was when she got rid of it a few years ago...

~Shard~

Mar 19, 2005, 10:48 AM

~loserman~

Mar 19, 2005, 11:29 AM

Your uncle is a she? ;)

That is possible now days :eek:

selloutvixen

Mar 19, 2005, 01:33 PM

I don't recall all the exact specs, but I always got my brother's hand-me-down computers.

Commodore 64
Mac Classic
Mac Performa
286
386
486
Green iMac
Generic pentium I machine
Fujitsu Lifebook (dubbed Magnatron)
Generic windows machine (dubbed Magnatron Temp)

Magnatron died. The hard drive just crapped on me one day. That thing was my baby! Now I have my crappy windows machine that will shut down if I turn on my television when it's on. I am saving up for a new iBook, though. This windows machine is massive and makes baby jesus cry. :(

miloblithe

Mar 19, 2005, 01:42 PM

Commodore 64!!!

What a great computer. Peeks and Pokes. Good fun.

~Shard~

Mar 19, 2005, 02:31 PM

That is possible now days :eek:

Quite true... ;)

sokukodo

Mar 19, 2005, 09:09 PM

G3 iMac Summer 2000 DV SE

Covington

Mar 19, 2005, 11:31 PM

The first computer that I bought was aiBook G4 1.2 GHz.

All the earlier computers that I considered mine were PCs that I "borrowed" from other family members (but conveniently returned them when something better came along ...)

vieoray

Mar 19, 2005, 11:42 PM

hewlett packard pavillion. i believe it was 166 mhz. still have it, actually...last year i turned it on and it still works. never had a problem out of it except for the usual windows stuff.

feyd_ehway

Mar 20, 2005, 03:26 AM

486dx pc ... all i ever did on it was play solitaire and cruise bbs (old fashion forums)
-feyd

jonat8

Mar 20, 2005, 03:29 AM

My first computer was an Acorn Archimedes A3000 which were quite popular in the UK with schools etc. but we had one at home.

It had 2Mb of RAM and no hard drive, so everything had to be run from floppy disks. The operating system (quite advanced for the time - RiscOS) was run from ROM.

I did a lot of word processing for school on it and some of the games you could get for it were pretty addictive too ;)

I think it must still be lying around somewhere, wonder if it still works... lol.

sourcemonkey

Mar 21, 2005, 05:32 AM

ok...first computer/console: atari ??? with fake wood effect plastic vinyl panels on black corrugated plastic: best game: empire strikes back
THEN: used school's BBC Micro basically for playing FRAK
THEN: 16k sinclair zx spectrum [later upgraded to 48k-what a day]: best game[s]: horace series/lunar jet pack/man; knight lore/alien8; lords of midnight/doomdark's revenge..damn-anyone remember the animosity between spectrum and commodore users??!!
THEN: atari st :best games: err...falcon; dungeon master; and of course cubase [which started me using computers for more constructive applications]...oh, and anyone remember the tension between atari st and commodore amiga users?
THEN: pcs using windoze>>pcs using linux>>MAC.
one thing ive realised while typing this is that at every stage in the evolution of personal computers there's been real anomosity between the two groups using the two main rival systems...so nothing's really changed then it seems...

jlewis2k1

Mar 21, 2005, 05:02 PM

my first computer was that gateway astro thingy ... one of those computers that try to be apple's imac style. it had windows 98 se.

http://www.theapplecollection.com/design/pcreleased/images/gateway_astro.jpg

noel4r

Mar 21, 2005, 05:35 PM

a 386SX 25 mhz PC w/ 4 MB RAM and 40 MB HD, upgraded the RAM to 16 MB.

Chrispy

Mar 21, 2005, 06:08 PM

It was a Packard Bell Legend Desktop with a Pentium 75MHz, 8MB of RAM, Windows 95!!!, 800MB Hard Drive, 1MB Cirrus Logic graphics, 16Bit Sound Blaster Emulated Sound, and .. oh yeah... a 14.4kbps modem! I had a 15" Packard Bell monitor to go with it and I think I was running at 640x480 at 16bit color. But hey, it ran SimCity 2000 so that was all that mattered. All that computing power only cost about $2500 :-)

emmawu

Mar 21, 2005, 11:27 PM

Commodore 64 for $399 and then we bought a disk drive for another $399 and used an old tv set for a monitor. Who says Apple is expensive? That was in 1982 dollars (Yipes!)

Chappers

Mar 29, 2005, 10:57 AM

Sinclair ZX81

buryyourbrideau

Mar 29, 2005, 11:10 AM

hahaha man do i remember my first. anyone remember a little comp called zeos? that thing was the hotness

azrussell132

Apr 16, 2005, 01:32 PM

First computer was a Compaq "luggable". Looked like a portable sewing machine. Had a carrying handle on the top. You laid it on it's side and opened it from the bottom. The bottom came off and was itself the keyboard. Had a 5 or 6" mono (green/black) screen and two 5 1/4 floppy drives. I WAS HOOKED FOR LIFE after buying it used.

darrion

Apr 19, 2005, 06:58 PM

first one would be an Atari 800 with the cassette deck. I think it had a tremendous 32k RAM :)

paulsabo

Apr 20, 2005, 01:58 AM

Must say I remember the classic mac with the b/w screen. I've used macs in school since 1985. Old man. But the first mac I actually owned was the original iMac 233mhz Rev A with 4 gig HD & 32meg ram. I got it up to 256 megs, before it died on me. I got alot of use out of it. It served me well. I'm sure it's remaining parts are serving someone else very well.

Paul

Deus

Apr 20, 2005, 04:15 PM

A roommate had a Commodore Vic20 back in college in the early 80s and I use to play/program with that. But the first computer I bought myself was a Power Computing Power Tower Pro....150 MHz machine, 20 inch CRT, 4 Gig Harddrive, 256 Megs of ram (about $2k for that alone). Still have it, but not using it.

Accepting offers on it, though :D

D

I started with a VIC 20 too. :)
Used to buy compute and ahoy magazine

blackscooby

May 12, 2005, 11:40 AM

Sinclair ZX81 followed by
Commadore Vic 20

Dr.Gargoyle

May 12, 2005, 02:10 PM

Mac 512....:D God, how I miss it...

gkarris

Jun 11, 2005, 11:56 AM

TRS-80 Model I with 16K and Level II BASIC (was an add on option).

First one ever used was an Apple II (original II) at a computer store that opened up down the street. I sat their a couple of times and fooled around with the Apple BASIC. The store closed soon after they were robbed. The robbers stole all the TV sets the computers were hooked up to. They left the computers...

Whoa, am I getting old...

Time for some Atari Asteroids.....

MacBarry

Jun 12, 2005, 11:48 PM

8th Grade.....1981.....Commodore Vic-20. I believe it was $299 plus tape player...wow that was alot of money back then....Thanks Dad!! :)

vatel

Jun 13, 2005, 12:05 AM

TI-99/4A 16k Memory and a Tape Drive.

I remember begging my parents to spend $400 on a FLOPPY Disk Drive

The operating system was a BASIC interpreter.

We had Pirate Adventure an early rip of Adventureland
And Munchman, the best Pac-Man ripoff ever

sacear

Jun 13, 2005, 12:35 AM

Hmm, I had a Texas Instruments computer, but I don't know if it was a "personal computer." Then I had a Commodore 64, an Atari, and an Apple || all about the same time. I don't know which was first.

Xiabelle

Jun 13, 2005, 08:57 AM

~Shard~

Jun 13, 2005, 10:13 AM

First I remember /clearly/ was a Franklin Ace 2000. I know we had an Apple IIe, as well.

Mostly, I remember being able to sit down at a computer and play in 4th grade (83? 84?), because I took a logo class the summer before 4th grade. I remember my father also once put a card into the Franklin backwards and turned it on. It smoked. It still ran, though!

I learned to program BASIC from those old Apple magazines that had the programs in them, too, that you could type in.

That brings back memories for me as well. I was 5 when my brother bought an Apple //e, and I just loved playing around on that thing! We'd play all sorts of games together, and I started learning BASIC at an early age thanks to him. :)

camomac

Jun 14, 2005, 02:50 PM

ahh sweet...

My first love was a Commodore 64,
with the 1541 disk drive.
all hooked up to a 12" B&W TV.
My friend had a color screen, and
a TON of games.. He always hooked me up.

:)

Dagless

Jun 14, 2005, 07:19 PM

Commodore Amiga 600

the single most influential and fun machine i have ever touched. still got mine in my room, not hooked up but protected from dust and other evil goblins.
cant believe the power that had. so ahead of its time. my dad used it for crude video editing back in 92. lets see any other affordable home computer (other than mac :P) do that!

the first machine i ever bought myself though was my GBA SP back on my 18th birthday. :)

Jason Vene

Jun 18, 2005, 11:15 AM

I'm not sure if this would qualify as a personal computer by current definitions, but....

I had a Motorola 6800 (the 8-bit CPU, that's not a 68000) evaluation kit. It was shipped in a 3 ring binder notebood, unassembled. One had to SOLDER the thing together.

It had no display - purely an assembler based excersize, reading results on an LED display.

So, if that doesn't qualify, then I'd have to move forward a year to a PolyMorphic 8080 based machine. It was physically like the case of a small UPS power supply, a bit of a clone of the Altair 8080, which I had used but didn't own.

So if "ownership" is a pre-quisite, not just use, I'd have to move forward to the TRS-80 Model 1, with the expansion box (a full 48K of RAM). Now, I didn't actually own that one either, it was my father's machine, but I used it more than he did.

So if personal ownership is required, I'd have to say the first I bought with my own cash was an Ohio Scientifc G2 - at 6502 based machine. It was also my first overclock experiment. Originally designed for 1Mhz, I pushed it to 2, upgraded the CPU to the 4Mhz version of the 6502 - had some circuit subsitutions to do with that, then pushed that to 5Mhz. I was all of 15 years old.

wdlove

Jun 18, 2005, 12:37 PM

I'm not sure if this would qualify as a personal computer by current definitions, but....

IMHO you qualify with the very first one mentioned, the Motorola. You have a very interesting ownership history. Don't know your age, but it would be interesting to know the actual year for each computer. What is your current computer?

CubaTBird

Jun 18, 2005, 11:33 PM

Power Macintosh 6100CD.... 1994.... :cool:

zap2

Jun 19, 2005, 12:47 AM

Pentuim , 1ghz(I think i ,but i could be wrong, iit had some 1ghz for 1gb HD, i was young and knew little about compters, it ran on windows 95, i know that cuz of the nightmares i had about it)

Jason Vene

Jun 19, 2005, 01:04 AM

wdlove:

I'm 42 :eek: A developer (mostly C++, cross platform) of 25 years.

The 6800 evaluation kit was purchased in 1976, when I was 13. My father was going to build it, but I ended up soldering all the sockets (used in those days for nearly every little chip) in place. We mounted it on a wooden shelf board; powered it by a Sola power supply (obtained seperately).

I used the 3 ring binder as a notebook in school - it had nice artwork showing the board and components, really geeky for '76.

The Polymorphic (and dubious flirtations with various 8080/Z80 boards, all Altair 8080 like in nature) were all through '76,'77,'78.

My father bought the TRS80-1 in '78 (Manufactured July '78).

Then, in '78 I bought the Ohio Scientific G2. Odd thing was, the physics teacher at the high school had a computer shop, and sold the thing to me on credit!

It's also the first computer upon which I wrote and "sold" an application. I cobbled together an "X-Wing / Deathstar" first person shooter sort of game, and sold it through the little computer store were I bought it for $5 (I think there were 10 or so sold - probably every customer the man had that year, it was part time for him).

At present my primary development machines are:

Dual AMD 1.5Ghz (MP, 32bit chips), 1G RAM - self assembled, Win2k, Linux (Redhat)
Dual AMD 2.0Ghz Opteron, 2G RAM - self assembled, Win2k, WinXP, setting up FreeBSD soon

Several lesser testers for "client" usability reference include:

Compaq P2-450 with 386M RAM
P3-700 based 'trash' - literally in the dumpster, ran fine....
AMDK6-333 - Ye old VX Intel
AMDK6-233 - as above
NEC VERSA2000 Laptop 486DX100 with 48Mbytes RAM

That last one is my acid level low end performance evaluator. If it can actually run on that thing, any Windows machine ought to be a candidate.

Even the AMDK6's demonstrate to me that if a client can run on that, everything's fast enough. If they don't at least have a P2-450, they probably aren't going to be a paying customer.

sethypoo

Jun 19, 2005, 01:24 AM

My family's first computer was a Dell 386DX PC. It ran Windows 3.0 (very stable, but slow).

My first personal computer than I owned was my trust PowerBook G4 rev. A. :)

We also had an Amiga. That was the hottest hottness.

wowser

Jun 20, 2005, 06:13 AM

ahh sweet...

My first love was a Commodore 64,
with the 1541 disk drive.
all hooked up to a 12" B&W TV.
My friend had a color screen, and
a TON of games.. He always hooked me up.

:)

Apart from the disk drive, that was my exact same set-up! The b/w tv added atmosphere, methinks.

macaddictann

Jun 27, 2005, 04:03 PM

My first computer to own is what I have now, actually, bought a few years ago. But I grew up on the old-school stuff, those sassy monochrome CRTs...ah, those were the days. We had an Apple IIe, but it was a Laser 128 or something? I don't know. I think we may have had an education model. And we had Windoze, of course, 3.1 and up. An old 386 or 486, I forget, which my dad threw out, and that annoyed me because we still had a game for it.

I remember those old word processors, those dot matrix printers, the old Carmen Sandiego and Oregon Trails games...plus you had Atari, blah blah.

Lacero

Jun 27, 2005, 04:05 PM

The first computer I ever used was a Vic-20. The first computer I ever owned was a TRS-80. The first computer I ever fell in love with was my PowerBook 12" G4 with Superdrive. I have yet to marry my first computer.

michaelrjohnson

Jun 27, 2005, 10:24 PM

The first computer I owned personally was a Lime iMac DV. 400MHz of raw G3 power, baby!

First computer I used on a regular basis? Laser 128k.

Best computer? I've had several since the iMac (iBook 800MHz, Rev C 12in PB), but hopefully the 15in Rev C PowerBook currently en route to my doorstep.

chipz

Jun 27, 2005, 11:10 PM

My first personal computer was a Tandy 1000 HD. It had a 286 processor, 1 MB RAM, 30 MB HD, iMB Video Ram andf built in sound. It came with Tandy's proprietary software called Deskmate which was a Gui/DOS program similar to today's MS Works or Apple Works. It wasn't as powerful, but it showed what could be done with a computer.

I've had many other computers through the years, befpre settling on an Apple iMac G4 700 GHz with 256 MB RAM and a 30 GB HD. I n ow have a G5 17" iMac with 512 MB RAM and an 80 GB HD as well as a 1.5 GHz 12" PB with 80 GB HD and 512 MB RAM.

In the future, I don't know what I may move to. It all depends on what Apple decideds to bring to market. It has to be a big improvement over what I presently have before I'll switch to a Mactel unit.

Daveway

Jun 27, 2005, 11:17 PM

My very first computer was back in 1996. It was given to me by a friend who found it. I only have faint memories of it and don't know what happened to it. I think it was propietary.

My first real computer was given to me/family for Christmas of 1998. It was a 400Mhz PII Gateway with 10mb video card, 64mb ram, and a DVD drive. $2300.

This computer was a work horse it hadn't skipped a beat until last November when I (purposely?) killed the motherboard. The next week a shiny new iMac G5 was at my door. :D :cool: Coincidence?

efoto

Jun 28, 2005, 05:06 AM

This computer was a work horse it hadn't skipped a beat until last November when I (purposely?) killed the motherboard. The next week a shiny new iMac G5 was at my door. :D :cool: Coincidence?

Haha, nicely done.

My first to memory was, I want to say, a Pentium Pro 200MHz, unknown ram/vid/HD, but it was pretty sweet back in the day. The most memorable older system I had was a PII 350MHz that ran Sega Rally Championship, the first 'real' graphics game I played (aside Solitare, Tetris, etc etc Atari stuff). Pretty sweet, used to love that computer....but all things must go.

michaelrjohnson

Jun 28, 2005, 11:17 AM

...the first 'real' graphics game I played (aside Solitare, Tetris, etc etc Atari stuff).
Well, I don't know, I was pretty good at "Police Sketch Artist" on that 128k and that was pretty fancy, back in the day. ;) :D

alexf

Jun 28, 2005, 12:16 PM

I think it was an Apple IIc in the mid-80s.

1 MHz - wow!

~Shard~

Jun 28, 2005, 01:27 PM

I think it was an Apple IIc in the mid-80s.

1 MHz - wow!

Yep! My brother's Apple //e had a 1 MHz processor and a mind-boggling 16K of RAM! :eek: :cool:

Aplpe should bring back the 5 1/4 drives... ;)

wdlove

Jun 28, 2005, 02:24 PM

Yep! My brother's Apple //e had a 1 MHz processor and a mind-boggling 16K of RAM! :eek: :cool:

Apple should bring back the 5 1/4 drives... ;)

No thank you, that would be a nightmare. :eek:

Dead and buried just like the floppy. Can remember the installations with message please put in the next disk. :(

~Shard~

Jun 28, 2005, 02:43 PM

No thank you, that would be a nightmare. :eek:

Dead and buried just like the floppy. Can remember the installations with message please put in the next disk. :(

Totaly agreed. :) I had enough headaches caused by those things that I don't miss them at all - although in some strange way it is fun to reminisce.... ;)

mjstew33

Jul 6, 2005, 12:23 PM

i've been using Mac since I could walk... My first computer was a Quadra 630, or something like that ...specs here (http://www.lowendmac.com/quadra/q630.shtml)
then I got an old PowerPC G3 beige i believe, not sure much about it ... got it when I was 6 or something and then broke when a thunderstorm came around :( then after that broke i got a iMac G3 333MHz 190MB RAM, Lime, slot load... still works!!! my bro is using it as his main computer at our dad's house, running OS X 10.2.8... Then my little sister got a iMac G3 500MHz Indigo off eBay 2 months ago.... running OS X 10.2.8, Office and all the good stuff she got it for $150 plus printer, keyboard, mouse

Currently I don't have a personal mac.... I have 2 peecees a HP Athlon XP 3200+, 1gb RAM, 200GB, XP Home, Dual Layer DVD Burner 8x, 128mb ATI graphics, 15" HP LCD soon to be a 19" GEM monitor... then i got a Compaq Presario 2.7 Ghz Celeron(soon to be 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 w/ Hyperthreading), 1.5 GB of RAM, 80GB (adding a 300GB HD) 256 MB Graphics, DVD Burner 8x, XP Professional, 19" GEM monitor, the best monitor for $250 retail!

To tell you the truth... I have no fricken idea why I switched to PC, I think it was because at the time I didn't know about all the latest Mac hardware and I really wasn't into OS X and never really used it... and my dad talked me into it... CURSE HIM! just joking......... Now that I've upgraded the iMacs, I'm in love with OS X and I will do whatever it takes to get OS X at least fast, because those iMacs are good with OS X but a beachball comes up with using Internet Explorer so I need to get a new Mac... the one I'm saving up for is the PowerBook in my sig...

I hate windows, so hard to use sometimes... gets very fustrating... So I'm switching back to Mac :D :p :) ... I can't wait I've got a bit to go because the PowerBook is pretty damn expensive but... I don't give a shi*!

I've only got like $800! :o

I'll soon to be joining the Mac community probably in November/December! :D

FF_productions

Jul 6, 2005, 01:02 PM

~Shard~

Jul 6, 2005, 02:33 PM

started out with a performa 500 in 1991 (i was like 2-3 years old), that lasted me till 2002, went to windows (hp pavilion, its dying on me), and now (few days ago) I've switched back to the mac (and its my mac this time)

Congrats! Enjoy your new Mac, and I'm sure it will make you wish you had switched back ages ago! :)

rickvanr

Jul 6, 2005, 03:18 PM

My first mac was a Macintosh LC 580 (http://www.apple-history.com/frames/580.html) , and the only 040 I ever owned. My next computer was a Macintosh Performa 6400 with an Apple Multiple Scan 15AV (http://www.apple-history.com/frames/6400.html) followed by years later by the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White) 400MHz with 17inch Apple Studio Display (http://www.apple-history.com/frames/g3blue.html). Then a few years ago I got my first portable, the PowerBook G4 1GHz (http://www.apple-history.com/frames/pg4_1_867.html). Finally, most recently my G5 with 23inch Apple Cinema HD Display, which I love dearly.

ReanimationLP

Jul 7, 2005, 06:37 AM

:D A Tandy 1000 SX.

Jedi128

Jul 7, 2005, 04:25 PM

Well, since I'm only 17 the first computer I used was a Preforma 550 with a 66Mhz 68030 processor. That was before PowerPC, but it seems like you guys have been buying Apples since the Apple II. Well, why did so many of you go to Windows in the 90's?? come on. My parent's like to get their money's worth out of a computer so the next one we bought was a iMac G3 at the end of 1999. My family still uses that thing, now running OS X 10.2.8, but for me I recently got an iBook(see signature) so that might be my first computer, but I would still consider the Preforma to be. Well I've only had 3 computers in 10 years, my parents only 2. It has really sucked. Well thats all I've got.... At least we never switched to Windows.

feyd_ehway

Jul 11, 2005, 11:18 PM

486 SX Something or another
all it was good for (or all i used it for) was:
1) to make some crappy goth club flyers
&
2) to play solitaire for hours upon hours as the sun rose and i came down
-feyd

aussie_geek

Jul 12, 2005, 12:08 AM

First computer was a Commodore 64. First REAL computer was a mac Color Classic - still works!!

aussie_geek

wowser

Jul 13, 2005, 04:25 PM

Hmm. I would say the C64 is a 'real' computer.

~Shard~

Jul 13, 2005, 07:02 PM

Hmm. I would say the C64 is a 'real' computer.

I'd agree - those things were sweet.... ;) :cool:

Sly

Jul 14, 2005, 06:25 PM

The first computer I properly used was a Commodore P.E.T. The first computer I owned was a Dragon 32, given to me for Christmas 1982. I spent many hours on that machine, I remember entering hundreds of lines of Basic out of the Dragon Owners Magazine for pathetic programs, many of which would never run due to a misprinted comer of colon. Happy days, I still have the Dragon boxed in the loft.

~Shard~

Jul 14, 2005, 06:35 PM

The first computer I properly used was a Commodore P.E.T.

My brother programmed on those in High School, along with PC Juniors - and then I thought I was so much more advanced than him when I programmed on a 486SX when I was in High School 10 years later. Then our class got a screaming Pentium-90 and I was blown away! :eek:

rosalindavenue

Jul 14, 2005, 09:21 PM

First used: Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 (http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=409) (7th grade; 1979)

First owned: Timex-Sinclair 1000 (http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html) (My parents were really cheap. It had the 16K ram pack, which fit loosely so that it reset the computer when you "typed" on the membrane keys).

I'm 36; computers were model-Ts in my childhood.