First Computer

[GroundStrength]

Bought a used one just like this back in junior high. THose were the days.

[Brown]

My first computer was a 1984 Apple Macintosh, signed by Steve Jobs.

[Mendor]

The joys of rubber keys.

[Bottle or the Gun]

Sealed rubber keyboards are a requirement for many industries (Police, etc) nowadays. Big $$ in those upgrades. I sent a few of those roll-up keyboards (http://www.indestructiblekeyboard.com/default.asp) to friends in Operation Desert Shield because the sand was detroying them. Couldn't find any mice that were Iraq-proof, so ended up using roller-ball type in baggies.

Here's my first computer...

[Peter Jenkins]

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/commodore_c64.jpg
The Commodore C64. I used it to play with 'basic', (and play with the games bundle, that it came with, of course :) )

The first 'PC' I actually used for business was something like this Prestel terminal, which we used for ordering parts from suppliers:

http://www.autoplay.net/sale/albums/album06/aaa.thumb.jpg

Peter

[El Greco]

This was my first computer (http://www.mathlab.sunysb.edu/~tony/whatsnew/column/antikytheraI-0400/kyth1.html):

http://www.mathlab.sunysb.edu/~tony/whatsnew/column/antikytheraI-0400/images/smallgears.gif

[iain]

Originally posted by Mendor
The joys of rubber keys. Yep - me too. ZX Spectrum with 48K of raw power and software loaded from audio casette tape (load up 40k in 5 minutes, jog the volume knob and have to start all over again).

[joyrex]

Nice thread.

I had Spectravideo SVI728..

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=229

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/spectravideo_svi728_3.jpg

[Graham]

Originally posted by GroundStrength
Bought a used one just like this back in junior high. THose were the days.

We had one of those too. My first computer game was a text adventure played on the Texas called "Sorcerer's Castle"

I found the princess under the bed and finished the game and so began a long saga of wasted youth ;)

I think it's still up in my parent's attic somewhere. The printer was a daisy wheel jobbie about the size of a VW beetle and made an unholy noise.

Graham

[GroundStrength]

Graham,

Yes, I too remember. I was hunting the Wumpus most nights.

Scott

[Segnosaur]

I started with a Commodore Vic 20 (a whole 5k of memory, but only 3.5k was usable), then moved up to a Commodore 64. Also bought a Commodore +4 (Commodore's aborted attempt to come up with a 'business' computer).

Eventually moved up to an Atari 520ST... very nice machine (had a 'windowing' system back when PC users were still mostly on DOS, and was much cheaper and faster than the Macs of the time.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Bottle or the Gun
Couldn't find any mice that were Iraq-proof, so ended up using roller-ball type in baggies.

Here's my first computer...


How do ' optical ' mice become impaired in Iraq ?

[Soapy Sam]

They cut off their tails with a carving knife...

[Beanbag]

My first computer was a Sinclair ZX-80 that I built from a kit.

I went to the TI-994A after that, and piddled with it for a while. Ended up with a dual floppy drive system.

My first "real" computer was a Morrow MD-2 CP/M-based machine, where you had to have an RS232 terminal plugged into the box. No hard drive, everything was floppy-based. I used it for cutting code for Z80-based custom microcontrollers I was building at the time.

The good old days...

Regards;
Beanbag

[epepke]

My first computer was a Cosmac ELF based on the RCA 1802 chip that I built from parts, using a design in Popular Electronics (though I used my own design for the front end, using PROMs for a 2-digit hex display.) However, with just machine language and 256 bytes of memory, it was only of modest entertainment value.

My second was a TRS-80 model I, which I spent a summer working with the Youth Conservation Corps so that I could afford it. I eventually got the expansion box with more memory, a disk drive, and a hideous little screen printer using metalic paper, which it burned holes into with a high voltage source. I also put in an extra screen memory chip and rewired it to do lower case, overclocked it, and added an analog joystick made of two 555 timer oscillators that I had to poll in software.

[Cleon]

My first computer, an Apple II+ that my Dad got when I was just a little tyke. A single double-density 5.25" floppy drive, two paddles (for you young'ns--a paddle is like a joystick, with a knob on the top and a button on the side), and a whopping 48 K of RAM. It still works; I crank it up and play Space Invaders every now and then.

[Bottle or the Gun]

Originally posted by Diogenes

How do ' optical ' mice become impaired in Iraq ?

They don't, but they do emit a pretty bright red light, that when viewed through night vision devices will illuminate an area the size of a room. Not tactical at all!

[richardm]

Originally posted by Bottle or the Gun


They don't, but they do emit a pretty bright red light, that when viewed through night vision devices will illuminate an area the size of a room. Not tactical at all!

How does the light compare to that emitted by the display?

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by richardm


How does the light compare to that emitted by the display? I think they turn the brightness wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy down, and use night vision glasses to use the computer...:D

[Bottle or the Gun]

It's just a military thing. If you've ever been in the service you know they come up with wacky rules. There are desired and un-desired levels of light.

[shanek]

My first:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/commodore_vic20_1.jpg

[bignickel]

Me, Shanek, and Segnosaur have the same experiances computer-wise, in that we're all the same age, and all geeks.

I was able to have my dad co-pay on the C64. The Commodore disk drive: just as big as the computer, and just as expensive.

I used C64 all the way until 1994! where I finally upgraded to a pc clone (486DX $1500). Until then, I wrote almost all my papers in college with Bank Street Writer, played endless hours of Ultima 3, 4, & 5, Space Taxi, Manic Mansion, almost every Infocom game ever written, Neuromancer, Wasteland, Murder on the Zinderneuf, etc.

The C64 I had in college had such an overheating problem that I had to put large fan behind it, cover it with a t-shirt, and redirect the airflow thru the back of the machine (which I raised up no stilts to allow more airflow.)

But when I got my first pc-clone, and loaded Wing Commander, I laughed and laughed with glee...

[JimTheBrit]

Originally posted by Mendor
The joys of rubber keys.

*Nostalgic sigh* Atic Atac, Manic Miner, Knight Lore, Rebelstar, R Tape Loading Error ...

[shanek]

Originally posted by bignickel
I was able to have my dad co-pay on the C64. The Commodore disk drive: just as big as the computer, and just as expensive.

Disk drive? Disk drive?

Hmmm....disk drive....

Oh, yes, that thing that I bought to replace the cassette tape drive that wouldn't load anything unless you hit PLAY, nor save anything until you hit RECORD and PLAY!

[Mendor]

Originally posted by shanek
Oh, yes, that thing that I bought to replace the cassette tape drive that wouldn't load anything unless you hit PLAY And half the time, not even then. See "R Tape loading error" above.

[Thumbo]

Here's the core of my first computer. The rest was toggle switches, and LEDs and a couple of 128 by 4 bit memory.

[LW]

Add one more Vic-20 as the first computer.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Cleon
My first computer, an Apple II+ that my Dad got when I was just a little tyke. A single double-density 5.25" floppy drive, two paddles (for you young'ns--a paddle is like a joystick, with a knob on the top and a button on the side), and a whopping 48 K of RAM. It still works; I crank it up and play Space Invaders every now and then. That was the first computer I had at home, as well. Although, we did eventually shell out ($200?) for the 16k memory expansion, which was a card that barely fit into the computer's case.

[Bonzo]

My first was an Apple II+ in 1981. Cost me $1050 if I remember right, 16K RAM and didn't have a disk drive. The first disk drive was over $750. I still have it somewhere, although it no longer works. Anybody remember 6502 assembler?

[mickky]

My first:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=46

Lots of fun when hooked up to a teletype.

[Zep]

A few of us oldies started our computing lives on stuff like this.

http://www.acms.org.au/album/h90012.jpg

This example is in our computer museum collection in Sydney.

[Ove]

I had my first "BASIC" lessons on a teletyper connected to a mainframe on a university via a telephone modem. You called up on a normal telephone and when you heard the whine you slammed the reciever into a holder next to the teletype. You could then communicate. Ohh and by the way we used punch-tape as storage media. Hmmm, them were happy days;)

[Reginald]

I had a Spectrum. I wanted a BBC micro like mad but couldn't afford one.

I also had an illfated Sinclair QL and a Commadore 128 (which was of no benefit at all over a 64)

Then an Atari 520ST (Which I am still in love with) and then PC.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The first machine I used was an IBM 1130, followed close on by a LINC-8, GE 635, and IBM 360.

The first machine I bought was a Heathkit 8080 of some sort. Who can remember?

~~ Paul

[evildave]

Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=813

Note: The 'break' key, directly next to the ''Enter' key, was the warm-reset buton, so if you missed, you reset the machine right in the middle of what you were typing.

Mine had 8K of RAM, and I populated the serial section on the board. Whoo-hoo!

[Ove]

I wanted a BBC micro like mad but couldn't afford one.

You mean like this one? (which we still use BTW) ;)

[Colloden]

~1982/83 Mattel Aquarius (4K RAM+16K expansion pack)
Yes, I know they made Barbie. There’s a long and interesting story behind the Aquarius, not that it was in production for long (less than a year I think).

Then an Amiga – which left the Atari ST for dead (I spit on your STs)

Then some overpriced and underpowered 100MHz 486 and on in PC land from there.

I miss AMOS the most. :D

[ceptimus]

Commodore PET 1979

And I still rememember the magic numbers after all these years:

POKE 59468, 12 (or 14)

SYS 64790

and so on.... Ahhh... Golden days.

[ceptimus]

Originally posted by Bonzo
My first was an Apple II+ in 1981. Cost me $1050 if I remember right, 16K RAM and didn't have a disk drive. The first disk drive was over $750. I still have it somewhere, although it no longer works. Anybody remember 6502 assembler? Hell, I can still remember some of the Opcodes, from before we even had an assembler. Here's 2+2 store answer in $8000, (if memory serves).

A9 02
18
69 02
8D 00 80

[Zep]

Our Australian Computer MuseumSociety (www.acms.org.au) has most of these models in the collection! Most still work too. If you have any good stories about them, please feel free to PM them to me!

cheers
zep

[JesFine]

Nice thread. My first computer was an Apple clone called the Franklin Ace 1200. They got sued into oblivion by Apple approximately three minutes after my parents bought that thing so that was fun from a customer support perspective.

TWO FLOPPY DRIVES BABY...

You're jealous...

[evildave]

As far as I know, the Ohio Scientific C1P still works. It is (for the time being) irretrievably buried somewhere in my dad's garage**. It had the manuals with it, last I saw it. They are probably buried seperately (and even more irretrievably) by now.

** Remember the closing scene of 'Temple Of Doom'? OK, my dad's garage is a bit like that, only a lot less tidy.

[Ove]

Remember the closing scene of 'Temple Of Doom'? OK, my dad's garage is a bit like that, only a lot less tidy.

Errrrrrmm, you DO mean "Raiders of the lost Ark", Right??

[mummymonkey]

ZX81 complete with wobbly memory pack. Then Spectrum, Amstrad CPC 464, Atari ST then PCs.
The Spectrum was like most things from Dundee, cheap, difficult to understand, and rarely worked.

http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/008/specusr.htm

[richardm]

Originally posted by mummymonkey
The Spectrum was like most things from Dundee, cheap, difficult to understand, and rarely worked.



You could do some fun things with demonstration Spectrums in shops, if you were so inclined.

10 FOR n = 1 TO 1000
20 NEXT n
30 RANDOMIZE USR 1331

Turn up the volume on the telly, enter "RUN" and leave.

[Mendor]

Originally posted by richardm


You could do some fun things with demonstration Spectrums in shops, if you were so inclined.

10 FOR n = 1 TO 1000
20 NEXT n
30 RANDOMIZE USR 1331

Turn up the volume on the telly, enter "RUN" and leave. *boots up emulator*
*types in program*
*blinks*

Well that was interesting...

[evildave]

Originally posted by Ove


Errrrrrmm, you DO mean "Raiders of the lost Ark", Right??

As a matter of fact, yes.

:P

[ingoa]

Does this count?



Oh my God, I am getting older and older every day...
;)

[Ove]

OK OK let's get really down to basics :D

[epepke]

Originally posted by Ove
OK OK let's get really down to basics :D

Nice picture, but it's upside-down.

[Ove]

Nice picture, but it's upside-down.


OOOOOPPSS. :D :D

Actually it's not you see, it is a Chineese seen from over here through the earth.;)

But for you:

[richardm]

Originally posted by epepke


Nice picture, but it's upside-down.

It's a Reverse-Polish abacus.

[Peskanov]

C64, 1984-1994. Then Amiga, 1992-2001.
Yes, it is strange. I bought the Amiga when Commodore was closing! However I disliked the PC architecture sooo much.
I still have a load of C64's in the house, and from time to time I download some demos and the ocasional game. I love to learn new programming tricks from this little jewel, the C64.

[ehbowen]

Another Commodore user here. I started out with a VIC-20 in 1983; almost immediately upgraded to a stock C-64 with cassette deck; got my first floppy disk drive when my parents gave me an SX-64 luggable (with 5" color screen) for Christmas 1984. In 1988 I bought an Amiga 1000, and in 1991 I "powered up" to an Amiga 3000--which is still my main computer.

I'd prefer to run the Amiga till it drops, but I get a little tired of surfing the web in 16 colors. So I'm planning to grant it honorable retirement later this year. <sniff>

[Darat]

ZX-80 with my brother as a kit.
Zx-81 already built + RAM Pack, + Printer (well ozone generating silver toilet paper holder)
Atari 400 + Basic cartridge and best graphics of its time, still my fondest memories, joysticks that left a raw hole in the middle of your palm, a membrane keyboard resulting in fingertips that look like sucker pads.
Atari 600XL - for the keyboard! Plus memory expansion & floppy disc drive! Wow.
Atari 520ST, plus external floppy drive.
Archimedes 3000 - best OS in a PC to date - so much fun
Then to the world of PCs :( 386SX, then a 486DX... never as much fun or excitement as the world of non-IBM PCs. (But Delphi 1 & 2 were fantastic development environments/languages - blew the socks off MS's VB & Visual Cs.)

[Darat]

Originally posted by Colloden
...snip...

I miss AMOS the most. :D

AMOS! Oh the pain - well I remember having to use it to produce a suite of office apps, word processor, database, spreadsheet, graphing package....

But Francois was an incredibly talented programmer, he couldn’t help being French - I suppose.

(Edited to add)

And AMOS is stil alive, Francios released the source code quite awhile ago. http://www.clickteam.com/English/index.php

[Jaan]

The first computer I used was a Apple IIe in the 7th grade ... what a nice piece of work that was.

The first computer I owned however was a Coleco Adam. I loved that computer, and for the price it was great, except for one little quirk it had. It came with a tape drive, and if you were programming in BASIC, you couldn't leave the tape in when you shut it off or the tape would be useless. I did it by accident about 3 times before I wised up. the daisy wheel printer was nice too. I still remember the first thing I did with it when I unpacked it ... made a character sheet for D&D (c: I broke it out in '92 and it still worked fine.

The first computer I put together was a Heathkit Motorola microprocessor that I had to program in hex. I did that in high school ... I went to a vocational school and was in electronics. Great memories from that time, one whole week of shop every other week. It wasn't long before we built some Heathkit Hero robots and programmed speech in hex ... we had a little warning system hooked up to an external speaker in the ceiling of the bathroom down the hall to warn us smokers when the dean of students was coming. We had a good vantage point and had light sensors and a camera mounted in the hall (we said it was for open house) ... the dean never did catch any of us, and our teachers (both smokers) were very supportive.

After that it was a ton of Amiga's ... the last one I bought was in '95 or so, a unit from England I believe, with a Toaster 4000 and Anilam editing system. Lots of PC's too, I'm a vender at the M.I.T. flea market and usually come home with more than I brought ... I'm not even sure how many computers I have right now. Hooked up and running I got 4 on my LAN and 2 laptops. Ya gotta love it!

[Bearguin]

My first was a hand-me-down from my older brother that he bought used for $2,500.

A Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. With the expansion module to bring it to 48K, 4 disk drives and a serial port. Came with Visicalc (which I'm sure Lotus bought) and a flight simulator that Microsoft bought. Played a bunch of text Adventure games on it including the original Adventure and a series of games I can't remember the author of but the purple worm was troubling in them.

The flight simulator was tricky to load as I had to load it from tape and could never copy it onto a disk.

My next (also a hand-me-down) was my brothers Heathkit (Zenith) XT Clone. I eventually dropped an Intel 386 daughter card into it.

Now I've got an AMD 2500+ (overclocked to 3200+) clone I put together.

[Jaan]

Originally posted by Gods Advocate
My first was a hand-me-down from my older brother that he bought used for $2,500.

A Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. With the expansion module to bring it to 48K, 4 disk drives and a serial port. Came with Visicalc (which I'm sure Lotus bought) ...


Not sure if you're kidding or not (c: but the guys that made Visicalc never copyrighted it, so they lost millions. They never made anything past the original sales. They don't seem to care tht much either.

[BlueRose]

The first computer I ever used was a Commodore PET about 1979, just played space invaders on it over and over.

Dad bought a Tandy TRS80 model 2 with 16k ram, used to type in pages and pages of Basic text printed in magazines to play "Star Trek" and "Dog Star" adventures, absolutely fantastic machine with the best keyboard I have ever used.

Next up were the usual ZX81/Spectrum about 1982-1984.

Then in 1985 I got a Jupiter ACE which was made by the Spectrum team, totally oddball in that it was hopelessly outclassed by any other machine out there but used FORTH as its programming language. It was good fun making it do things it wasn't supposed to do with Z80 machine code.

The best thing I ever did was display high resolution graphics on it by changing the contents of the video memory faster than the TV raster could display it!

It went in the bin about 1998, I wish I had kept it - damn, I wish I had kept them all!

(Still got the sega mega drive though)

[Robaato]

The first computer that I ever used...well, I don't know exactly what it was. My dad would occasionally bring home this bulky terminal which used a roll of paper as it's output. In the back were two cups that you were supposed to jam a phone handset into -- an analog terminal (!). I would get to play a couple of games of Lunar Lander before my dad would have to get to work on it. Since I had no idea about basic physics, gravitation, and fuel consumption, about halfway to landing the terminal would print, "Our Father, who art in heaven..." and then a list of numbers that showed how fast I was accelerating until I hit the ground.

Since we had a "Trimline"(?) phone, it wouldn't stay in the foam cups, which would elicit annoyed swearing from my dad.

The first computer we owned was a 1984 128k Macintosh. It still boots, although the disk drive eject mechanism is stuck, and the display can no longer draw below the halfway point on the screen....

[EdipisReks]

the first computer i ever used was an Apple II, but the first computer my family owned was a Compudyne Pentium 75 with a then enormous 16mb of ram and a 875 mb hard drive. i have a soft spot for the Apple SE/30, the Classic II and the IIfx.

[Captain_Snort]

Started on the Schools Apple ][e and the Commodore PETS, but I eventually got my own, it was a ...

ZX81, with a full 1k memory, which was mostly useable depending upon how much stuff you had on the screen. I then bought a 16k Ram pack for it. I was recently going through boxes in the attic and came across some old software tapes for it, anyone remember 'Can Of Worms'?

Then I got some handheld Casio think that you could program in BASIC on, with a 512 Byte memory expansion.

Next was a Camputers Lynx

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=158

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/camputers_lynx48_1.jpg

First the 48K, then the 96K. Still have in the attic, working, lots of software and expansions. Saw one on Ebay go last year for over £150 unboxed, mine is boxed with lots of extras, I may sell it. Great Computer, but the bank switching slowed down the screen lots.

I Had a Tatung Einstien twin drive, which was pretty crap

Then I got an Amiga 500+, 1 Mb ram, + a 1mb upgrade, great comp, and I still use UAE to emulate one, great. And yes, I do miss AMOS, what ever happened to the planned PCOS?

Around 1996 I sold my soul and bought a PC, the rest as they say is downhill (apart from LINUX).



What was the one to do to BBC's in shops, something like

10 LED #1
20 LED #0
30 GOTO 10

turned the tape indicating LED on and off very quickly until it broke after a few seconds.....

[Darat]

Originally posted by Captain_Snort
...snip...

And yes, I do miss AMOS, what ever happened to the planned PCOS?
...snip...



It became "Klick N Play" or as I think it is now know "Create and Play"?