View Full Version : What was your first computer?
HalfaBee
10-2-02, 12:36 AM
I thought that this forum was getting more use than most so here is another topic.
This is probably going to date me but --
My first computer was called a "Miniscamp".
It had switches for the data and address bus and 8 LED's to show the data bus and display output. It had a massive 2K of memory and no storage devices. :(
I programmed the first computerised "Coke" sign in Australia with it while I was in high school.
Any other interesting "First computers"?
HalfaBee
Although it's not very "interesting", the first computer I really used was a Commodore 64.
how about the good old micro-bee at least you could save the programs you wrote even if it was only out to a tape recorder
MarkHutch
10-2-02, 01:35 AM
Radio Shack 386 :)
HalfaBee
10-2-02, 01:40 AM
Hi Trigger,
I was invlovled in making the original MicroBee.
Good old "Applied Technology".
HalfaBee
HalfaBee,
so You were the one responsible! Just kidding they were fun and helped me kill a lot of time.
But then we got the Apple IIe with a real floppy drive although the disks did self destruct after a while.
HalfaBee
10-2-02, 01:55 AM
At least when you turned them on they went "BEEP" and were ready to use.
Not like todays super computers that take a week to boot up and a day to shutdown.
HalfaBee
My First. Commodore PET 2001 As soon as I saw it in Popular Electronics mag. cover (mid 70s) I placed and paid for in advance an order that took 9 months to get (1 month earlier than I was told). Had to drive into midtown NYC to pick it up & while placing it in the car a guy fell off a scaffold 10 stories up & missed me by 2 feet so I’ll never forget my 1st.
Boy it had 8k of memory was made of a steel frame with the monitor, keyboard & tape built in. The unit opened like the hood of a car along with the bar to hold it open. There were no programs made for it then & everyone said “What are you going to do with that thing?” We’ll the 1st week I rigged an amplifier & made it beep while drawing pictures. “WOW”… Made my 1st checking accounting program with it, but boy what a wait for the tape to read the data in series. How things have changed Huh…
P.S. Still have it wrapped up & packed away
For me it was Zx Spectrum+
Commadore 128 baby. I was very l337. :)
Harry Doldersum
10-2-02, 03:57 PM
My first was also the Commodore 128. Also got me the 512K memory extension and a second 1571 diskdrive. Worked allright for me!
I used it to setup my first real music database, in it's CP/M mode with dBaseII. (Had tried the cbm basic first, but that took much work, when extending the program's options).
kriviere
10-2-02, 05:20 PM
Genuine IBM PC with with an 8088, dual floppies, 512kb ram, a Quadram color video card (didn't have the 'snow' that the original IBM color cards had), a Hayes 2400 modem, an Epson printer, Lotus 123, and some other software. Fortunately, my employer was supplementing purchases in order to encourage us to buy our own PCs so I only paid $5000 for this deluxe package. :)
RamjetFDO
10-2-02, 05:28 PM
My first was an Atari 400 that I modified to be a pseudo-Atari 800!
Yup... replaced the crummy membrane keyboard with a "real" one and upped the memory from a measely 8K to a whopping 48K!
I still have it in its original boxes -- computer, external floppy drive, cartridge tape (!) drive, etc. -- out in the garage! <snicker>
Ahhhh... the memories of playing Star Raiders and Shamus until my thumbs hurt!!! :D
Roger
RadioRob
10-2-02, 08:41 PM
I was introduced to computers with the Apple IIc, the IIc+, the IIe, etc. I remember when the first Mac came out and what a big deal it was, lol.
First PC was a Packard Bell 386sx. :)
Hmmm... The first one I *owned* was a Commodore 64. I still have a couple on blocks out in the backyard. Then I went thru a succession of Apple IIs, IBM-PC-AT, 386, 486 & Pentium boxes.
I can't remember the model of the first "minicomputer" I ever programmed. It was an IBM with 16K RAM, tape storage, no CRT & teletype-style printer. It did have keyboard terminals instead of card readers, though. About the size of 2 refrigerators. When they rebooted, the lights on that floor would dim.
Anybody else around here remember keypunch? It builds CHARACTER :D
My "First" computer was a CoCo. Which was the nickname for a Radio Shack Color Computer.
It had a whopping 16k of memory and no floppies or even a tape drive and ran at a blazing 2Mhz speed.
I later upgraded it to the max with 64k of memory, of which 32k was set aside for graphics. Then I modified it to use a CRT and added twp 5.25 floppies (160k drives). Then added two 3 inch (yes 3 in. not 3.5's) drives as well.
I had that thing until I finally replaced it with my first super computer... an IBM clone XT running at 4.7Mhz, with a huge 20 Meg hard drive and 2 360k floppy drives.
Wow. My first computer doesn't quite match up to yalls history here. The first computer I ever used was no where close to as old.
Yeah, but I bet you don't have near as many gray hairs as we do either ;)
Actually, I'd be happy if I had gray hair.... any color hair would be better than nothing LOL
Now you know why my avatar has to wear that cowboy hat ;)
And let's not get into dental work, either. Please.
The nice thing about my "hair" style is that I can comb it with a sponge :-D
Man, I hadn't thought of CoCo's in a while. Had a friend who used one to run his ham repeater. Then he switched to a C-64 & believe it or not, just upgraded from that about a year ago...
But you know, I can remember not long ago feeling GREAT because I had an IBM-AT running at 16 MHz with 2 MB RAM & a 20 MB HDD with a monochrome monitor. My current PalmPilot (m505) has a 33 MHz processor (overclocked to 54 MHz), 8 MB RAM & a 28 MB SD card in the slot with a color screen...
Revisiting my post almost immediately, and well, it WAS that long ago that I had that AT...
Bally came out with a small handheld unit (almost like a game boy of today) and I think it had about 2K of memory.
It had cartridges that you could slide in to play the same games they created for the arcades and game rooms.
They also had a cartridge with "Bally" basic. My son and I would spend hours typing in one letter at a time and then the refrigerator would turn on, causing a power dip, and blow our program.
So we would type it all over again and then run whatever silly program we entered. There was no way to save anything so we had to start from scratch the next time we wanted to use it.
Bally promised us bigger and better things in the future but they decided to go into the casino business and changed their company over to making slot machines.
It was a good learning experience for us. From that we graduated to the Trash 80 (radio shack TRS-80).
And so on and so forth.........
<!--begin trip "down memory lane"-->
Ahhh yes, basic language... spending hours typing in a program, then spending more hours finding all the "Syntax Errors" that occurred.
My CoCo came with MS Basic built into ROM and I spent many an hour learning how to use it. Sure was nice when I got my first cassette interface so I could save the programs instead of having to type it in every time I wanted to use it.
I remember writing many programs to help my kids in their school work, and a few just for fun. There was a magazine out at the time called Hot CoCo, and they had an ongoing contest called "One Liners". The idea was to program the most complex program possible, using only one line of code. I must admit, that I kind of miss doing those types of things.
<!--end trip-->
Comodore 64....
First "real" computer
Gateway 33 celeron...<=HAH
My first computer was an Atari 800XL, with an Indus GT floppy drive and a 9 Pin dot matrix printer. With a whopping 64 K of memory. All for the low low price of $800
:cool:
tbonekkt
3-18-05, 09:38 AM
Brought this thread back from the dead.. :D
Since I'm here, my first computer was a Commodore 128.
I apoligize..I mis-spoke...
My Actual First computer was a Commodore 64.
After that..many years later I got a "real" computer, a Gateway with 64MB ram and a 333 Celeron...screamin!
1st - Timex Sinclair 1000 (won it at a carnival!)
2nd - Atari 800 XL - Just had cartrdidges, then broke down and bought the 5 1/4 ext. floppy and got into Zork, Planetfall, etc.. , After a year went and got a tape drive (battle of midway)
3rd - Tandy 1000 HX, EX, and TX - All 8088's, it was like 2 mhz, 2mhz, 10 mhz, no hard drives and tandy 16 color res.
4th - 486-DX2 66 - When it was affordable to build a clone
5th - Gateway G6- Dual 266's - When you buy a piece of junk, go Gateway!
6th - P3 900 Clone - Gigabyte - Worked until I put it on 210v
7th - Compaq Presario - Next higher level on the junk platform. Bad, just not as bad as Gateway.
8th - Nothing but self built AMD Athlon's fully loaded. (AMD can be built for half the price of Intel and is faster for gaming, but not video presenting).
imagesheaven
3-18-05, 11:45 AM
My first computer in the 70's was an Apple II with 28K of memory. I then "upgraded" to an Apple IIe with a whopping 56K of memory. Remember those days? Floppy disks, virtually no software, alien green lettering on a black screen, trying to do what you want by programming in Apple Basic? Whew, we've come a long way.
I had various "kit" computers leading up to it, but the first computer I owned was a TRS-80, just like the one pictured here; http://oldcomputers.net/trs80iii.html. It had 48k of memory an a tape drive for storage, but I quickly upgraded it to the two internal floppy drive configuration. It didn't have a hard drive, but it did have the "Orch-90", an external sound "card" that plugged into the expansion port in the back and produced polyphonic sounds that made the midi files of today sound like mp3's ;)
I remember thinking that it was more computer than anyone could EVER need... The worst part is that I learned how to program for that damn Z-80 processor and it's still stuck in my head! :( I still have the computer and from time to time, still power it up and play with some of the software I wrote way back when.
2nd - Atari 800 XL - Just had cartrdidges, then broke down and bought the 5 1/4 ext. floppy and got into Zork, Planetfall, etc.. , After a year went and got a tape drive (battle of midway)
Zork ruled! "You are about to be eaten by a Grue!" hehehehhehe
My first computer was called a "Miniscamp".
It had switches for the data and address bus and 8 LED's to show the data bus and display output. It had a massive 2K of memory and no storage devices. :(
HalfaBee
Wow! What year was that?
------------
Remember the Osborne 1 Portable Computer with a tiny 40 column screen.
That was back in the days when we could go to Barnes and Noble, and they had the Osborne series of books that had BASIC code you could key in for General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, etc.
I still have a copy of Lotus 1-2-3 v1.2(?). It runs like a scalded dog on today's PCs! :)
I remember in the early days of the Las Vegas Comdexes when people would crowd on to airplanes carrying suitcase size Compac Portables. It's funny to think about.
I first worked with an HP3000 in 1977 using a DecWriter Printer (with a keyboard!) that printed out green screens on greenbar paper. I believe that there were two terminals for those who were lucky enough to get access.
In 1980 I bought a Radio Shack Model II and a 120 cps Line Printer III for $6000. Later Radio Shack came out with phonograph size 8.4 MB harddisk enclosure. I don't even remember how much it cost.
LordGoliath
3-18-05, 04:33 PM
I had the Commodore Vic-20 -- 3.5k of memory. I soon maxed it out and had to go for the tape drive and the 16K expansion cartridge -- I was unstoppable at that point. ;)
I had the Commodore Vic-20 -- 3.5k of memory. I soon maxed it out and had to go for the tape drive and the 16K expansion cartridge -- I was unstoppable at that point. ;)My first was a Commodore PET with a massive 8k of memory, mono-green screen and an external tape deck. I later purchased a twin 5 1/4" floppy drive for about the same price.
Eventually, I moved on to a BBC Model B computer with 32k of memory - upgraded it a lot from the original twin 800k floppy drives to a 10Mb hard disc.
On the way the school where I worked had variously: Commodore PET computers (for serious programming), Vic-20 with 3.5k memory and cartridges (games after school) and a Sinclair ZX-81 (sold as Timex 1000 in the states) with 1k Memory, and 16k expansion memory and a tape deck.
Moving on, school had a network of BBC Model A's and B's with various expansions and upgrades and then a nework of Research Machines 80186's running a proprietary version of MS-DOS and Windows 2.
Later school has moved on to a network of Celeron or Pentium 4's with 40-80Gb drives, colour monitors etc.
Personally I have gone from the BBC model B to a BBC Master 128. Purchased 'second processors' of a 80186 for it and extra 6502A second processor.
First IBM compatible was a 80386 with 1Mb of memory (later upgraded to 4Mb) and a 100Mb hard drive partitioned into 32Mb virtual drives because the MS-DOS of the day couldn't address more than 32Mb.
Later went through 486's, AMD's and now on a network at home including Pentium 4 1.7GHz, 2.0GHz and 2.4Ghz machines (self build) and 2 laptops.
Memory on current machines is 1Gb with other specs to match :D
(And I'm thinking of getting a newwer and better machine!)
Coolviper1985
3-19-05, 05:34 AM
I built my first PC when I was kiddy.
Got my hands on a barebones for cheap after I made some money selling my TY bennie babies on Ebay! lol
I got my hands on a AST Ascentia Pentium 1 133Mhz
12X CD-ROM
Got 64 MB of ram from Santa :) Wo We!
And saved up my money for a 5GB Western Digital HD
Integreated Video :cool:
15 inch monitor
I was the coolest geek on the block :D
Those were the days...
-Lucas
chriscut
3-19-05, 06:52 AM
Mine was an Amiga! Used to manage all kinds of basic TV graphics with it!
Rgds,
Chris Cutugno
ThinkDesign Ltd (http://www.thinkdesign.com.mt) - Web Design Malta (http://www.thinkdesign.com.mt/)
rodaniel
3-19-05, 11:22 AM
My first computer was an Atari 800XL, with an Indus GT floppy drive...
Hey bro! I can proudly proclaim that I'm the reason he got an Atari. I had a couple of them before moving on to a CompuAdd Turbo XT. I'm a little surprised to see as many former Atari owners here. What'd probably be even more surprising would be to find out how many of us now have Pocket PCs (Dell Axim here) that are many times more powerful than our first IBM-compatible PCs and fit in a shirt pocket.
And y'know what I miss most about my old Atari computer? M.U.L.E. Why hasn't someone resurrected that awesome and classic game?
Rob
Life's a beach!
www.2Dolphins.com (http://www.2dolphins.com/)
Hey bro! I can proudly proclaim that I'm the reason he got an Atari. I had a couple of them before moving on to a CompuAdd Turbo XT. I'm a little surprised to see as many former Atari owners here. What'd probably be even more surprising would be to find out how many of us now have Pocket PCs (Dell Axim here) that are many times more powerful than our first IBM-compatible PCs and fit in a shirt pocket.
And y'know what I miss most about my old Atari computer? M.U.L.E. Why hasn't someone resurrected that awesome and classic game?
Rob
Life's a beach!
www.2Dolphins.com (http://www.2dolphins.com/)
I never had an Atari computer, but do have an HP/Compaq iPaq 3700 PDA Pocket PC.
MY first personal computer was a MITS Altair 8800 (http://www.virtualaltair.com/) (in kit format). Not the first computer I'd used but the first I'd owned.
My parents bought it for me (I was all of 8 years old!).
I started my adventure with a 486 dx2 50MHz, 100 Megs hardisk, 24-pin colour dot-matrix .. it was more expensive then the 3GHz beast that I am using now ;)
I did my studies (A - level) on a 286 and used to play games on various Amigas and Atari
For those of you that kept up on the Macintosh, does anyone remember a company called Franklin. Apple killed them real fast.
Also it was interesting to remember how Tandy announced that they had a Microchannel clone, and IBM said, "I'll sue you if you sell it."
rodaniel
3-20-05, 08:50 AM
For those of you that kept up on the Macintosh, does anyone remember a company called Franklin. Apple killed them real fast.
I also remember there being a German company called Basis that offered Apple II clones briefly...
Ugh, Tandy. Coll shivers just ran down my spine. :eek:
And y'know what I miss most about my old Atari computer? M.U.L.E. Why hasn't someone resurrected that awesome and classic game?
Rob
Life's a beach!
www.2Dolphins.com (http://www.2dolphins.com/)
Never having owned an Atari I don't know what I missed :D
I did a little search and got enough hits....
I won't provide a link - (it may violate Powwebs policy :cool: on copyright infringement) but a search on Google or Yahoo! reveals MULE isn't dead - emulators running the cartridge software live.
For those of you that kept up on the Macintosh, does anyone remember a company called Franklin. Apple killed them real fast.
Also it was interesting to remember how Tandy announced that they had a Microchannel clone, and IBM said, "I'll sue you if you sell it."
Tandy still sold the system and was never sued (I worked for them). My first PC was a Tandy (employee purchase).
I remember Franklin but I always owned true Apple's. Something flagged in my mind about these clone operators perhaps not being around long. Good thing I listened to that little voice! :D
Commadore 64! I remeber spending weeks typing in code just to make the freekin screen turn a different color and play mary had a little lamb!
Commadore 64! I remeber spending weeks typing in code just to make the freekin screen turn a different color and play mary had a little lamb!
HAHAHA!!..Oh my Gawd..I did the same thing.
I also spent almost a month writing code that made a little Hot air baloon appear in the lower left corner and float up the upper right corner....STELLLAR!!! :p
David Byrnes
3-23-05, 01:48 PM
For my first, it was a CompuAdd 386 640KB ram, 20mb drive, and 2400 baud modem.
takashi_maze
3-23-05, 07:38 PM
Would Gameboy count? ;) I had one of those for my 3rd birthday :D
Well, first computer I got was an Amstrad <.< Played a few little games. Man I miss that old thing T_T
Meatball
3-23-05, 07:57 PM
Can't remember what I had first, but here is what I had at some stage or another.
Sinclair zx81 wopping 1k system, pretty impressive for what it was.
BBC Micro
Apple IIe
Spectravideo - don't ask, more like a glorified games machine than anything else.
8086, 8088, xt, at, 286, 386, 486, pentium 60 throught to 3gig(current)
Even had an Amstrad PC was an old 286/16 I think. ( got given this one)
Commdore Vic20 & 64
and a few other bits and pieces along the way.
I have only ever bought 1 PC clone, I have built the rest myself.
jeez I feel old, I only saw one other person mention the old Sinclair.
Traded Online Auctions (http://www.traded.co.nz)
OSP Photo Gallery (http://www.osp.co.nz/cpg132/index.php)
Would Gameboy count? ;) I had one of those for my 3rd birthday :D
Well, first computer I got was an Amstrad <.< Played a few little games. Man I miss that old thing T_T
Gawd I'm old. A Gameboy for your third birthday?
My 3rd birthday. I think it was plastic army men, a pet turtle and a 100 dollar bill throw rug for my bedroom. Heck Gameboys weren't invented until 17 years after my third b-day...HAHAHA...ugh!
The first computer we had at home was one my dad bought from my grandfather when it turned out to not be powerful enough to automate his book printing busines in 1975. A PDP-11/05 with 48k words of magnetic core memory, and four 16-inch 2 meg hard disks. We started out with a Decwriter 30 cps terminal and eventually moved up to a Diablo 120 cps and a VT-100 terminal.
Later was an Apple ][ that he had a CP/M card and a 10 meg hard disk for. Then an original IBM PC that he moved the hard drive to.
The first one I bought for myself was an XT clone that I was upgraded several times, with a VIC-20 chip, 2 meg of EMS, and eventually a 200 meg drive that I got a great deal on. Only $900 for the drive. What's that worth these days?
Then, 486, P166, P2/400, P3/1GHz, and the newest is an Athlon 64 3500+ with 1 gig and 160 gig. It's great for playing Doom3 in the dark, with surround sound speakers, as it's meant to be played :)
Croc Hunter
3-24-05, 03:25 AM
I had an Atari with keyboard to.. man thats ages ago, Heh then I got a Commodore 64.. woot!.
My first computer....... I was one of the idiots that bought into the Gateway idea ROFL Ouch!
Not very interesting but that's my story and Im stickin' to it :)
Hugs, Bree
Gateway was a real popular computer back in the late 80's and early 90's. Was stiff competition for PC Limited (which later became Dell).
jeff1022
3-25-05, 10:00 PM
My my....I feel like the young one here!
I used an Apple IIe in college but never bought one.
My first computer was a "mutt" that I bought from my Dad in 2002. He wanted to upgrade for some reason. He has gone through 2 computers since then. The shop by us loves him. Let's just put it this way, I have nicknamed him the Computer Assasin . We have no idea what he does to them but they keep mysteriously croaking on him! The guy now has a real speedy machine with nothing on it :rolleyes:
I just upgraded last fall to a faster computer but the only thing I really use it for is my pictures and my website. Oh....and surfing around all too much :D
Commodore 64, good old days.
My First Computer was a ZX Spectrum 48K ..
Although my dad also had a ZX81 I never really used it.
Some time ago I made a small webpage on all the old computers I have.
Very sad and very geeky... but who cares! :p
http://encryptsolutions.com/english/author/emuls/index.html
I haven't updated the site for 3 years now... but some of you might enjoy the photos.
Oh... notice the customised Spectrum 48Ko! It has an integreted screen and a wooden box... this is my original spectrum that my dad customised back in the 80s.
Cheers,
Bugs.
YvetteKuhns
3-29-05, 12:37 PM
The first computer I used was the Tandy Radio Shack TRS 80 aka Trash 80 computer with the monochrome monitor and the programs were saved on cassettes. My parents bought the Commodore Vic 20 that I later upgraded to the Commodore 64, then the Amiga during my high school days. At school, we used the Apple II c, Apple II e, and they just started getting IBM computers as I graduated in 1986.
Off to community college to use the AT&T computers with Unisys. Gotta love compilers that tell you on which lines it thinks your mistakes appear. Of course, the errors occur BEFORE you get that far. Those dot matrix printers with perforated banner paper in only one ink color was so cool. :rolleyes:
Going back to college in 2000 and having a laptop with that OS called Windows on it was a real experience. Looks similar to the old Commodore Workbench. Hmm.... Now any file I have takes more space than the old computers could handle. Yet my son and my husband will go back and forth between the new computers and the old Atari games.
gillcouto
3-30-05, 12:06 PM
After a few years using a TI programmable scientific calculator, I ported a lunar lander game onto a MITS Altair 8800. You had to use the bit switches to program a tiny cassette tape loader that would slowly read in the BASIC interpreter. The it was an Apple II and a color display, some 23 years ago. The Apple II had more RAM (16K), a ROM with BASIC always in it, and a 5 1/4" disk drive.
Then it was off to college where they had the state-of-the-art IBM card punch stations, with long lines of patient programmers behind them. They punched one line of FORTRAN code per card, your program would fit in a big box full of cards. Anyone who ever dropped one of those boxes would spend some time putting the cards back in sequential order. That was the same as randomizing all the lines of code in a program.
I finally got my first home pc when an affordable Z-80-based pc with a color display came out, I have no idea what brand it was. Here's a photo of an early fractal image (http://coolstuff.gillcouto.com/fractal1986.jpg) from it.
linnetwoods
3-30-05, 12:17 PM
My first computer was... borrowed!I seem to recall that everything I ever did or saw on it was in white text on a blue screen and I remember a big box of floppies being an essential part of the whole outfit but I have no idea what make or model it was.
I couldn't even give you that information about the computers I use now, excepting the one that broke down within its warranty period but was neither fixed nor replaced by one of the major players (who will remain nameless because I'm not here to slag off anyone, inside or outside these forums), because I had to know that stuff to try and get my problem solved!
It's probably an old bag thing - gals didn't get technical in my day - it wasn't considered ladylike ;-)
Atticbat
3-30-05, 12:51 PM
Greets all :)
Didn't even see this forum until today.
My first computer 'relationship' was with an OTIS teletypewriter in my Junior High. Big reams of yellow paper.
I used to play Star Trek ]O vs >- hehehhehe
My first personal computer was a Vic20 with optional cassette drive... omg.
YvetteKuhns
3-30-05, 01:25 PM
My first personal computer was a Vic20 with optional cassette drive... omg.
Don't forget that you could connect it with your television for a monitor. The tv repair man that serviced my color tv has long since been deceased, but the tv still works, sort of. The color doesn't look right and my son can't really use it to play the food game on Atari where you can eat the green pickles, but not the purple ones.
The Vic20 had color and sound which was amazing in the days of monochrome monitors and that Apple bell ding. :)
...MITS Altair 8800. You had to use the bit switches to program a tiny cassette tape loader that would slowly read in the BASIC interpreter.
You had a cassette tape unit? I was lucky enough to have a paper tape reader. I used to hate having to input the bootstrap manually so that it could read the paper tape!
YvetteKuhns
3-30-05, 02:26 PM
In grade 9, we used to save our programs on the cassettes, then change the volume so the next person could not read his or her programs. I always made sure the dial was on five (middle) before I saved MY programs. :D
Atticbat
3-30-05, 04:33 PM
You had a cassette tape unit?
oh yeah, I remember smiling as I wiped a Donnie and Marie tape (by breaking the tab, of course) and recording data over it...
I actually had made my own game, using basic and pixel referencing, featuring our here ]O vs. the bad guys >- (yes, a total rip off of the star trek game on the teletypewriter).
* were photon torpedoes heheheh
I learned about the difference between ram and rom back then when I flew into the ROM and that Vic20 NEVER booted again.
Of course, I had moved on at that point to 'shaving off the ends of a wall socket cord and going item for item down the motherboard... that was truly 'fun' ;) <--- do NOT try this at home, and I am in NO WAY endorsing this kind of behavior...
Oh I got my a$$ spanked hard for that one... kept blowing out the breaker and my parents could not figure out what the heck was going on... had to be just at the start of high school... they followed the smell ;)
YvetteKuhns
3-30-05, 05:35 PM
I remember making a one-on-one basketball game in BASIC when I memorized the ASCII code. That was on that TRS 80 at the junior high school. When I used the Vic 20 at home, the only real problem was burning out the power supply. I didn't fry motherboards until the last few years. ;)
Commodore 64, with optional tape drive, and Little Computer People. :)
The Sinclair ZX-81, the black and white small brother of the color Sinclair Spectrum, a small black box with a membrane keyboard and 1Kb RAM, expandable to 16 Kb (large external RAM pack). I could be programming for a couple of hours and saving the programs on cassettes and if I happened to wiggle the 16Kb pack, I'd loose all I had.
http://oldcomputers.net/pics/ZX81.jpg
oooppps, that was supposed to be a link to, but not the actual pic. Oh well.
HAHAHA!!..Oh my Gawd..I did the same thing.
I also spent almost a month writing code that made a little Hot air baloon appear in the lower left corner and float up the upper right corner....STELLLAR!!! :p
Yeah, the hot air baloon was out of my league. My brother could make the keyboard play different notes though. That was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. And everything was backed up on a cassette tape.
Good times, good times... :cool:
10 print "hello my name is spot"
20 goto 10
run
Hi,
Just realised that in my previous post I gave the wrong URL.
Below is a link with a brief description and some photos for about 20 old computers I own.
http://encryptsolutions.com/english/author/emuls/computers.html
This may bring back some memories to you.
Cheers,
Sylvain.
I remember sittin' in Dad's office programming Tandy Basic and Tandy Color Basic but the first box I actually owned was an IBM PS/1 486SX 33mhz, 120mb HDD, 4mb RAM, 3.5" floppy, 2400 modem.
It still runs, I gave it away to a friend to use as a gaming system a few years ago (for the old DOS games and such). At that time it also had a 75mhz Pentium overdrive chip in it, 24mb RAM, 2gb worth of HDD, 56k modem, 3.5" and 4x4 CD-changer.
Hi,
Just realised that in my previous post I gave the wrong URL.
Below is a link with a brief description and some photos for about 20 old computers I own.
http://encryptsolutions.com/english/author/emuls/computers.html
This may bring back some memories to you.
Cheers,
Sylvain.
The photo of the Apple II is actually a Mac Plus. This (http://digibarn.com/friends/jef-raskin/apple-II/index.html) is an Apple ][ (with a genius I might add).
linnetwoods
4-2-05, 05:43 PM
That's a veritable museum you have there, Sylvain!
Thanks ESC, next time I update my site I'll correct the error.
Linnetwoods,
Yes it starts to feel like a museum :)
Since those photos were taken I got 5 more computers... I don't live in that room anymore, but when I go back home to see my parents and sleep in that room... all those monitors glow in the dark for a while... it looks very weird!!! ;)
Anyway, what I really would like to do is eventually to have them in my house, in a room when they can be switch on anytime...
Bugs.
YvetteKuhns
4-4-05, 11:31 AM
I have a basement full of computers that are not unlike the museum of computers, though many have had parts removed for swapping. There are PCs of different brands and ages, Apples, Commodores and even an old AT&T with the original manuals. I never took pictures of them all, though.
My dad still loves the old Commodore games which were better than the Atari versions. He would always wear out the joysticks. My son loves the PC games which are more affordable and can work on many PCs. But my dad is thinking about buying Mark the Playstation 2. I don't want to pay $50 for the good games or $20 at Walmart for the ones he won't play. I guess we will shop the places where they buy, sell and trade games.
It is funny to see how many versions of Frogger we have for all of these computers. I think that was one of the first cartridges we had for the Vic 20 and we have many PC versions. My husband still has Pac Man Fever, anyone remember that song? I sing it to my boys when they play the Atari games.
We can be nostalgic about the old computers, but I love my upgrades! The AMD processor and DDR RAM really are faster. Cable modem beats dialup Internet. No DSL available here yet, though we are rumoured to get two-way cable modem in the near future. And only a few decades ago, we didn't even have indoor bathrooms! :D
I know what you mean! I don't remember the make/model of my 1st computer, but I remember when we bought the HUGE 325MB HDD for at least as many dollars....it took up TWO tower slots and was heavier than the toaster oven. After about a year it made noises the El Camino NEVER did, but man was I cool to be the first one on the block with all those bytes!
I still have an AMD-K5 running DOS with a Norton Commander clone shell. Just can't beat some of those classic games, and it's not the same on DOSBOX, ya know?
dgates01
6-20-05, 02:58 PM
I got a Wang PC from Wal-Mart.
... And only a few decades ago, we didn't even have indoor bathrooms! :D
I know this is alittle off topic..but where on earth do you live where they have only had indoor bathrooms for the last twenty years? Zimbabwe?..a decade=10years. :D
According to my research:
The first written account of indoor plumbing is documented to the 1840's.
also
By the 1870's high end new home designs include "bath rooms" that contain a tub, sink and toilet.
sorry... back on topic now! :-)
codefreak
6-20-05, 04:30 PM
My first one was a Tandy TRS-80. Fun with BASIC heh ..I run a site about computer history...since it's related to the topic, here's the link..it's new to the server and domain so if you find any problems let me know.
computing.marzopolis.com
YvetteKuhns
6-20-05, 05:31 PM
My first one was a Commodore TRS-80
Is that a hybrid? Maybe that's what happens when you put all your old computers in storage together. I had a few Commodores and I used a TRS-80 (Tandy Radio Shack) in ninth grade.
where on earth do you live where they have only had indoor bathrooms for the last twenty years?
My husband is older than I am. He enjoyed going to school to use indoor plumbing. He is one of seven children and they didn't like using the outhouse, especially when it was cold outside. Not everyone had plumbing in the 1970s on the farms!
codefreak
6-20-05, 05:34 PM
Sorry, was thinking of two different PCs at the time..my second one was a Commodore :p
First computer ever used: Commodore PET, 3rd grade. Remember the principal rolled it into class one day and put it against the students (with calculators) to see who could do some basic math problems fastest, as a demonstration. I guess he was proud. Shudder to think what the school spent on it. Had a few games, one called "Miner" I think... kids started spending so much time playing it that they had to restrict use.
First computer owned by family: Tandy TRS-80 Model 2000. Oddball, used an 80186 processor. Faster than most anything else at the time. Also had higher-resoution display (once we upgraded it w/ a graphics card... couldn't do graphics out of the box). Also didn't have a mouse or battery backed-up clock/date... that was another add-on board. Dual 5.25" floppies... non-standard format, more than a standard PC 5.25"... was probably HD although that term wasn't used back then and didn't know of any others with it to test. Could read/write standard 360K DD 5.25" disks though. Actually got Microsoft Flight Simulator for it (special versions of programs had to be made for it, but it was one of them). Also a lot of Infocom text adventures (Planetfall, Witness, etc). DR-Draw, DR-Graph, Multimate... also cut my teeth programming on it. Learned BASIC on it.
First computer owned by myself: Tandy 1400LT laptop. NEC V20 (XT-compatible, but slightly faster... on par with 8086). No hard drive, had dual 3.5" floppies and a weird squashed blue-on-white LCD screen. Got a 1200 bps modem for it later on. Lived on that for quite a while... BBSes, programming (BASIC, Pascal, C, assembly, machine code). Used WordPerfect to write papers, played all sorts of games (the ones I could get to work anyways, although they looked funny all squashed).
Have had many since (almost all built myself). Current computer is a 1.2GHz Athlon w/ 512MB RAM, 80 + 20GB int HDDs plus 1 ext 80GB backup, 19" monitor, running FreeBSD. Probably due for an upgrade as I've had it over 4y or so but I'm moving so I have other priorities at the moment. Heh.
YvetteKuhns
6-21-05, 04:06 PM
sremick,
Wow! You had floppies with your TRS80?! We had the "trash 80" at school with those darn datasettes to save programs. In fact, we had datasettes for the first Commodore Vic 20 before upgrading to the 64 and eventually the Amiga back in the 1980s. At least we had color monitors (tv switch to computer) at home. The junior high school still had those monochrome monitors.
High school had the Apple IIc, then the IIe before finally getting the IBMs just as I graduated in 1986. The college back then had the ATT computers. When I went back to college a few years ago, I had to buy a laptop that has a Pentium III processor. My son uses it now. The graphics students used Macs, while the rest used PCs.
Wow! You had floppies with your TRS80?! We had the "trash 80" at school with those darn datasettes to save programs. In fact, we had datasettes for the first Commodore Vic 20 before upgrading to the 64 and eventually the Amiga back in the 1980s.Heh, yeah... dad wouldn't spring for a 5 or 10MB hard drive or whatever was going those days. The Commodore PET had a cassette tape though.
The TRS-80 Model II I adopted and played with had 8" disks... that was fun...
ArchAngel21x
6-27-05, 12:07 AM
The first computer I ever had was an IBM 8088. I hated it. It was slow and it had no GUI. The first computer I bought was an eMachines. I had help with MSN's dial up special. Get several hunder dollars by signing up for 3 years. It ran Windows 98, and I was very happy with it.
Heh, yeah... dad wouldn't spring for a 5 or 10MB hard drive or whatever was going those days. The Commodore PET had a cassette tape though.
The TRS-80 Model II I adopted and played with had 8" disks... that was fun...
I eventually had a twin floppy drive for the Commodore PET I owned, it cost as much as the computer - around £700 in those days, which was a lot of money. (Around 25 years ago.)
AbstractApproac
6-28-05, 04:14 PM
My first comp was a standard 486 I have z80 in my garage, but no software or 5.25 floppies for it. I've never seen it run.
I believe I built my first machine at 9 years old, with some help. It was a $2500 300mhz system. I loved it at the time. It's video card still runs in my third machine.
David Byrnes
6-30-05, 02:44 PM
My husband is older than I am. He enjoyed going to school to use indoor plumbing. He is one of seven children and they didn't like using the outhouse, especially when it was cold outside. Not everyone had plumbing in the 1970s on the farms!
Heck, down here you still find those, even in town. A couple of years ago, I was renting a room at a house, where the owner had built 14 extra rooms in back to rent out. There was 1 real bathroom & shower. There was also an outhouse, and a small tin shack with a water hose running into it for showers. No hot water. Brrrr.
rbradscott
6-30-05, 09:51 PM
In public high school, a TRS-80 with an external cassette tape machine for program storage and playback. The most common problem being, people always forgot to turn up the earphone jack volume control (which is how the tape deck was tethered to the main box), so the machine thought it wasn't being fed any data when you pressed play on the tape deck. Also a favored and easy prank (turning it down on purpose, for other people).
Outside school, my best bud Darren was given an Atari 800 (?) for Christmas, which had color (!). I think I recall you had to shove a BASIC language cartridge into the front slot, just like you would a video game cart. We thought we'd cured cancer when we were able to type-in a program that just shot randomly-colored (of like, 16 colors!), randomly placed lines all over the screen!
Well my first computer was an IMAC apple computer.
2nd gen, is what they called it in 99'.
Had all of 6gig's of space.. Did I ever out grow it.
By the time I was ready for my next computer, I was burning cd's for storeage.
Using storeage online too. I had no room. about the only thing I could store was email and my programs.
My Dear Hubby gave it too me on Mother's day in 99'. I learned and learned. With my son's help and a few others I out paces everyone in the family.
Now I have a Dell 4400 that I have upgraded to one gig memory. New video graphics card with 256ram nvida tv tuner. Plus, just added a dvd rewriter.
I transfer cam corder tapes to dvd and other type tapes now.
Nero is the best program that I have found on the net to do this. Very all around type program for burning all kinds of cd's and dvd's..
I am set with this computer for at least another 2 yrs I hope.
I have learned enough in the last 3 yrs that the next computer will be built by me.
Computers are a learning process and the more you change to what is out there the more you will learn.
Kim Tx
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