Your first computer

[Rogue]

What was your first computer like?

Mine was an old Tandy ( a now extinct brand manufactured by radio shack).

It only took 5.25" diskettes. I remember playing all sorts of old games on it.....like maniac mansion (which actually tested the computer's limits)

Whenever it booted up it sounded like it was groaning "errrrghhh errrrghhhh ERRGHHHHHH ERRRGHHHHHHK".

I had a little joystick for it too. IT was about the most pathetic joystick in the known universe (but that was really a match made in heaven because i was only playing the most pathetic games in the known universe).

http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Tandy/trs80joy.jpg

:rolleyes: That is about what the joystick looked like (but i think the one in the picture is older than the one i actually had).

So anyway i made this thread for people to share stories about their first computers.

[Dødens Knekt]

when I was 3 years old my parents bought a 286

it had a 12 mHz processor, 512 kb of RAM, 20 mB of HD space, and a 16 colour monitor.

it stopped working the 1st of January year 2000 :(

my parents were considering buying a 40 mB HD, but couldn't imagine ever using that much space...

[Mr_Moo]

http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Atari/atari-st-box.jpg
Ahhh my first comp, Age 7, Atari STe 520
the 520 refers to the amount of ram it had, though I forget why they had 520Kb as opposed to 512Kb.
You could whack in another 520Kb chip if you had a soldering iron handy and where prepared to pay 50 quid at the time.
3.5"floppies, and it always sounded like It was Tearing the thing apart.
Dodgy Joystick/mouse port at times so youd have to Jam a piece of wood underneath to make the contact, or maybe that was just my one.
And for some reason, Gauntlet (and a few other games) would only ever work if the sodding thing had been on and "warmed up" for a good half hour, otherwise itd always crash, Vice versa for some other games, they could only be played for Half an hour then it'd lock up on me. ahh bless its twisted soul

[tbite]

My first was an Atari 65XE which I got when I was 6.

It had a 1.79 MHz CPU and 64K RAM, hehe.

Still had a lot of great games though. My favourites being Blinky's Scary School, Henry's House and Leaper.

Games came on cassette (there was a separate tape deck which you plugged into it) and took AGES to load. Sometimes over 30 mins, and it made awful, awful screeching noises while the games loaded.

[Sloth]

the oldest computer i ever had... that i can think of... is the ole' c64 with 5.25" 20lb. harddrive... tape deck.. and a printer.... ooooooo!
no monitor... hooked it up to the tv...

my neighbor had an apple II er i think...

[Panto]

Originally posted by Mr_Moo
http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Atari/atari-st-box.jpg
Ahhh my first comp, Age 7, Atari STe 520
the 520 refers to the amount of ram it had, though I forget why they had 520Kb as opposed to 512Kb.
You could whack in another 520Kb chip if you had a soldering iron handy and where prepared to pay 50 quid at the time.
3.5"floppies, and it always sounded like It was Tearing the thing apart.
Dodgy Joystick/mouse port at times so youd have to Jam a piece of wood underneath to make the contact, or maybe that was just my one.
And for some reason, Gauntlet (and a few other games) would only ever work if the sodding thing had been on and "warmed up" for a good half hour, otherwise itd always crash, Vice versa for some other games, they could only be played for Half an hour then it'd lock up on me. ahh bless its twisted soul

That was my first comp too....but the great thing is I STILL HAVE MINE!!!!!!! Although, a lot of my favourite games (Shufflepuck, Terminator 2) seem to have corrupted or something...and I've lost the manuals and password sheet thingies for a few games like Murder!, T.M. Ninja Turtles and Chip's Challenge

[prodigy69]

my first comp was about age 10

it was the old skool wonder that is a
commodore 64 :)

I had many great nights playing manic miner on it

[freddiestarfish]

the first computer i had at home that i could remember was some really old amstrad, with windows 2.0 and dos 3.3, which i still have.

i threw out the computer

[PoofBird]

mmm yes... Commodore 64, back in 1984!

20 years ago... oh my

Imagine, someone would tell me back then, that in 20 years, i would be able to have a phone, like for instance the T Mobile Pocket PC phone...

a little hand held computer with 512 times the memory capacity of my current computer, or an iPod that can store 40GB...

[prodigy69]

hobles of into the sunset with a zimmer frame muttering*

just look at my first gaming console..
hell the average gif image has more kb's lol

[Smeagle]

My first computer was a bunch of crappy equipment thrown together and given to us by a mate of my Dad's, because the guys workplace threw out all the old computer parts for newer models. It took over 5 minutes to boot up, had a 400 mHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 16 MB graphics card, and would randomly reboot without warning at irregular intervals.










I still use that pc :(

[Rogue]

Sometimes i wish i had my old computer still. What is it about outdated games and software that makes the heart happy?

[Spoo]

My first computer was a BBC B Micro. 5 1/4 " floopy drive and a cassete drive.

i used to copy BASIC programs out of books and play space invaders on it :D

[leeroy]

Originally posted by Rogue
Sometimes i wish i had my old computer still. What is it about outdated games and software that makes the heart happy?

nostalgia dear, its from times which were better because there was less to worry about and you could play video games all day which were simple and enjoyable, *cries*

[Destrukto]

Started in the beginning of the '80s with a Philips Videopac G7000

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ubu365/philips_videopac_g7000.jpg

Besides playing games you could do some BASIC on it...
"basic" BASIC that is ;)

After that in mid-eighties a Philips MSX2 8250

http://www.xs4all.nl/~ubu365/PhilipsNMS8250_1.jpg

Lovely machine, good games and I programmed a lot of simple games in BASIC...

After that 486SX-25 > PII > P4 that I have now...

I still emulate my MSX2 on it though...

Gotta love KONAMI games :D

[queenofself]

my first computer of my very own was a sony vaio laptop about 3 years ago. the one i bought over christmas is pretty much the same ~ how i hate change ~ just not broken and with no spilt lime cordial eating away at the insides.

i havent been computer able for many years, & intarweb able for even less. i would like to blame my ignorance of doing anything other than posting on this.

[Lewiji]

Originally posted by Mr_Moo
http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Atari/atari-st-box.jpg
Ahhh my first comp, Age 7, Atari STe 520
the 520 refers to the amount of ram it had, though I forget why they had 520Kb as opposed to 512Kb.
You could whack in another 520Kb chip if you had a soldering iron handy and where prepared to pay 50 quid at the time.
3.5"floppies, and it always sounded like It was Tearing the thing apart.
Dodgy Joystick/mouse port at times so youd have to Jam a piece of wood underneath to make the contact, or maybe that was just my one.
And for some reason, Gauntlet (and a few other games) would only ever work if the sodding thing had been on and "warmed up" for a good half hour, otherwise itd always crash, Vice versa for some other games, they could only be played for Half an hour then it'd lock up on me. ahh bless its twisted soul

My first too :D Except it was a 240ST.

[Dr-Electro]

The first computer I ever played with was a "retired" IMB model 370 mainframe. The first computer I was ever paid to work on was a monstrosity the Navy called, "Mark 1 Able." It was the suckiest analog computer ever concocted out of someone else's nightmares.

The first personal computer I ever owned was an 8086 PC clone I built from parts salvaged from a friend's scrap bin. I had to ;ay for a monitor and power supply - used - $53.00 total.

In 1984, I ponied up all the bucks for a McIntosh 512. Woo - the power. Yay - the fun.

Next month, I will buy a brand new Dell Pentium 4 machine with everything including gravys. Full circle journey.

[Mr_Moo]

Originally posted by Panto
That was my first comp too....but the great thing is I STILL HAVE MINE!!!!!!! Although, a lot of my favourite games (Shufflepuck, Terminator 2) seem to have corrupted or something...and I've lost the manuals and password sheet thingies for a few games like Murder!, T.M. Ninja Turtles and Chip's Challenge
Oh you bugger!
Had to sell mine for 100 quid to help towards getting my next comp, Pc, 100mhz,16Mb ram, 2mb graphics card (had a "Turbo" button which would supposedly up it to *gasp* 133Mhz)
Still, not a bad sell, think it woulda only been worth >30 quid by then

http://atari.st Handy place to read up about ye olde games of, uh, old, I guess. They dont keep disk images there though.
http://www.blimey.strayduck.com/ ST emulator called STeem (oh the humanity) need a copy of the ST's OS (tos) to run though, which i thinks on the site anyway, theres several versions and some old games only work with an older Tos.
http://www.spiny.org/medway/ Old disk compilations

theres other places if y'look hard enough.

[Stringy Pete]

I was bigging it up with an Amiga 500

twas upgraded to 1meg of ram tho

I remember playing Monkey Island on that bad beast....those were the days.

[l33t k1w1]

In some logical order

* Amstrad CPC464
* Amstrad PC2286/40
* 486DX2/66
* P133
* P266
* K6-2/500
* Duron 1.3

[Scribbly]

Well... we ('the family') had a PC pretty soon (as in: earlier than most people). I was little, so I don't know much about it, but it certainly didn't have windows; dos only. The second one was a Pentium 1, 100 mhz on which I remember
- playing monkey island
- secretly playing mortal kombat

My first pc was a pentium 1, 120 mhz (which I got, at the age of erm...12, or something like that). My father gave it to me (his job is editing for tv and such, so he had to have new stuf.. I got the old stuff :) ).

My second one was a Pentium 3, 500 mhz (big leap forward, huh?). I was very happy because I could finally play half-life and UT and such. I bought it for 500 guilders (220 euro's) from my dad.

My third and current one I bought from dell.com, is a P4, 1.9 Ghz and cost me about 1200 euro's.

Oh, we ('the family') were one of the first people to get cable.. it was fun to have it while everybody was still on 56k :p

[terrorbite]

My order:

Atari 65XE
Master System 2
Amiga 600
Saturn
PC - 133MHz Pentium 1
Game Boy Pocket
N64
PC - 566MHz Celeron
PS2
Xbox
Gamecube
PC - 2500+ Athlon XP

Items that are not in itallic are ones I have still got.

[Playbus]

My list of computers.

I got my first when I was 4 years old.


ZX Spectrum 48k
Amstrad CPC464 (Great machine!)
Commodore 64
Amiga 500
Amiga 1200
486DX266


and from then on I just got more and more powerful PC's
except for a HEAVILY upgraded Amiga 1200 which I bought
about a year back from a friend for nostalgia. I still play on it, although since I discovered how good emulation is, I now mainly played all my Amiga games on my PC.

[hyperboy]

My first computer was a megadrive aaaaahhh bless it playing streets of rage 2 as skate and anyone know where i can get a cheap ZX80?

[MissMoo]

My first computer was a Commadore 64, then we got a Amstrad but i don't know what model as i was only ickle!! :p

After that we had a Time machine.. not sure what processor or anything but it was pants,

then we had a AMD 500mhz which my mum still uses

My first own PC was a AMD 300mhz which died after my dad took it apart and blew out the motherboard!!!

Now I have a 1ghz AMD and Dad has a 1.6ghz AMD

:weebl:

[Dom]

ii had a c64 and then i moved over to macs and then to pc's and then to macs and now i use 3 platforms

miss moo.. you had a time machine? deloreans rock

[Mr_Moo]

Originally posted by Dom
miss moo.. you had a time machine? deloreans rock

Think she's meaning the brand name "time machine" by, well...time computers
I remember advert for that with the bearded bugger (anyone feel like giving him a name?)
Incidentally that was our 2nd comp at the time, cant remember the specs now.

[Cloud]

my 1st games console: sega master system when i was 6

my 1st pc: when i was 10 i think i had a realy realy bad packard bell (which we still have)

it had a lil 15" moniter
the speakers fell off the moniter alot when eventualy they become un-reattachable

its processor is 450, it had 64mb ram but i have upgradded that to 256.

it crashed on adverage of 10 times a day.

[terrorbite]

Originally posted by Mr_Moo
I remember advert for that with the bearded bugger (anyone feel like giving him a name?)

Mr. Beardy?

Or how about Leonard Nimoy?

[Dr-Electro]

I suspect she meant Timex. I had one, also. Same as the little Sinclair. I had an audio tape deck with mine for program storage. I got finger cramps writing on it.

[leeroy]

Originally posted by Dr-Electro
I suspect she meant Timex. I had one, also. Same as the little Sinclair. I had an audio tape deck with mine for program storage. I got finger cramps writing on it.

na she meant time, they are like a crap version of dell, except only in england, and as someone said they got Leonard Nimoy to do their ads

[Dr-Electro]

Leonard makes a pretty fair pitchman, doesn't he. He sold Timex/Sinclair in the States right after the first Star Trek went off the air. Already had a beard, too.

Googled up Time. Not very impressive. More like e-Machines than Dell.

[Mr_Moo]

Originally posted by terr0rbite
how about Leonard Nimoy?
Thats the one.

Dodgy company, are they still about? I remember our first comp from them. Arrived with the motherboard unsecured, a buggered power button and making odd noises.

Oh, no wait. My first Pc came from an exceptionally dodgy company called "wild west components" who just happend to be going through financial difficulties at the time, which explains why we got one of their >office< computers, they hadnt botherd to give the damn thing a proper Format, just deleted everything on the Hdd and boxed it up. Wonderful people :rolleyes:

[MissMoo]

Originally posted by Dr-Electro
I suspect she meant Timex. I had one, also. Same as the little Sinclair. I had an audio tape deck with mine for program storage. I got finger cramps writing on it.

Just to clear up the issue i meant Time. From Time Computers in the UK, sorry about the confusion :D they were really pants, everyone i knew who had one it fell to bits in no time!!