What was the first computer you used and/or owned?

[Gary D]

The first computer I ever "used" was an IBM mainframe in high school. It was in a computer programming class. The language was fortran and it used punch cards. What a pain to use because we had to type/punch our own cards after school and send them in to the school board's head office to run/debug the program.

The first computer I owned was a Commodore VIC-20 in basic language. It sucked because I was always running out of memory.

The 2nd computer I owned was Commodore 64. By the end, I had 3 external hard drives and 2 printers. At least this was easier to program.

I would like to here about other ppl experiences etc. about their first experiences.

[TNT]

You might find this thread interesting.

Radio Shack TRS-80 was the first one I laid eyes on. I think I had my name fill the screen about a dozen times.

[Jack Lurker]

Sinclair ZX80, came in kit form and had a whole 1k of memory!!

[tigerman8u]

commodore colt. a screaming demon with 2 5 1/4 floppy drives. IIRC 3 1/2 floppies weren't out yet. 640 k memory and iirc an 8088 cpu. 286 cpu's were just coming out.

[photo_angel2004]

OMG the first computer that I used my grandfather bought when I was a kid it was a Texas Instuments computer the specs on the computer I do not know or remember.


The first Pc I bought I bought through Milwaukee pc and had it custome built.

It was a pent. 3 I cant remember any more what speed the proccessor was it had a plextor cd burner and a cheap cd rom that went out in like a week of use. I had 2 hard drives the c drive was 18 gigs and the d drive was 30 gigs with 256 mb ram

[anonymez]

the first was an "amstrad"

after that, several years later, a PI 120

[TNT]

OK, who's first 'computer' was the abacus?

[Gary D]

http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/abacus/history.html

[Furiousg]

OK, who's first 'computer' was the abacus?

Dang that was going to be my joke

[TNT]

I was going to name some names, but didn't want to insult anyone!

[vw56german]

Like GD8ck I too first had access to a main frame through the school. Interface was through a teletype (with a phone modem) via direct access or punched paper tape for loading the programs in basic or fortran. I remember my brother and dad putting together an s100 bus system, 4 8" floppy drives, a decwriter printer, monochrome screen, and 64k of memory. The memory was 8 boards about 5"x12" with row after row of chips, each board was 8k. The speed was incredible, the printer would actually have to wait for the data to catch up so it could print. Printer speed was about 32 charactors per second. When they added an 8087 math coprocessor the speeds were just about matched. Next I had a clone of an IBM PC made by Sperry, 5 1/4 floppy and a 20 mb hard drive (spent almost $500 for the drive!!!) 256k memory, and my brother wire wraped up a board of 256k more for me. I considered myself very cutting edge when I bought a new flat screen amber monitor, I hated the green monochromes. I must say it has always been interesting to see how the field has grown and progressed over the years.

[uufta]

Commodore Vic 20>then the 64>then the 128 ! wow! computer heaven, TWO 1541 5 1/4 floppies ,modem hooked up to Compuserve (.10 per/min) a daisy wheel typewriter/printer....the good old days.

[atifsh]

first i used was Commodore some model i have no clue, first i owned was pentium 133.

[Experi-Mentor]

atari 2600 with a special k/b add-on.
c64.
amiga 500.
ahh, those were the days for mods. "a500" designers dream (still going strong). these days, everything needs a built-in aircon.

xt(3x), at(2x), 486sx ..... most were over-clocked to the max. & in those days, your p/sup fans had ball-bearings & not these modern-day plastic-bush-type fans that make crap noises after a few months.

[jmet]

Mine was a Tandy 1000