What was your first computer?
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People much more important than just country titles
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My first toy was the Spectravideo Compumate, an add-on keyboard for the Atari 2600!
I forgot I also had an Atari 2600 with the Spectravideo Compumate shortly before the Mac 512K.
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Boy, I'm young. My first computer at home was a Pentium 100 in '95 or '96.
I'm much younger by this measure. My first verifiable computer purchase only occurred in spring 2013. It's Dell Inspiron 15 3521 laptop with Ubuntu preinstalled.
However, I have had intensive exposure to computers since about 1994 starting with the public computer halls of my university. There were two kinds of computers there: Unixes and Macs. It has turned out that I'm intuitively more tech-savvy than people on average, so I have been instructing friends and family on software and effectively adminning their computers already a decade before I actually paid for a computer myself.
My ownership of mobile phones has been more extensive. While other people around me have owned computers that I use, I have been buying mobile phones that I have given away to other people. One of the most notable purchases was Sony-Ericsson P800, the first true smartphone. Naturally, a major reason why I selected it for purchase was that Opera Mobile was downloadable free for it.
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When I was about 12, my dad brought home a RadioShack TRS-80 color computer. I typed in the programs, but it wouldn't remember anything when it was switched off, so I had to use the cassette tape backup. (I think it was the economy model, which had no built-in floppy drive.) I could remember the programs, so why couldn't the computer?
The TRS-80 was my first also. Had the cassette drive with it too. Only learned how to do BASIC on it though (understood GOTO, but didn't understand GOSUB at the time). Never really figured out assembly for it.
I later got a Tandy Color Computer III, which was the same thing as a TRS-80, but had more ram (don't remember the other improvements). It also had a cartridge slot for games (although I only had one), but the slot doubled as a hookup for the external floppy drive.
I forget if my color computer III had 64K of ram and was upgradable to 128K or if it had 128K and was upgradable to 512K. But, at the time, I alwaysed dreamed about maxing out the ram. Don't remember what my TRS-80 had.
For games, I remember having Pitfall at least. Don't remember what else I had.
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The TRS-80 was my first also. Had the cassette drive with it too. Only learned how to do BASIC on it though (understood GOTO, but didn't understand GOSUB at the time). Never really figured out assembly for it.
I don't remember the hardware details of ours, either. I remember doing a lot of BASIC, and started on another language before I got distracted, but I don't remember what it was. So long agoβ¦
For those who were familiar with computing in 1994, here is a funny Norwegian song text that I translated to English: https://vivaldi.net/blogs/entry/jeg-sprengte-tv-n-i-gar
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My first computer was an Atari 400.
I hated the stupid membrane keyboard. I should have shelled out more money and gotten the Atari 800. -
ΠΠ-61 programmable calculator
ZX-Spectrum compatible computer
Intel Pentium II 300
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I was watching an episode of the US version of Being Human when I noticed this in the background;
[attachment=21]Commodore.png[/attachment]
A Commodore monitor! w000t!
They tried to obfuscate it by blanking the name "Commodore" and blurring the logo, but the overall style of Commodore's monitors cannot be hidden!
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First, let me say that I'm quite old. Obviously.
The first computer that I used was this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WITCH_(computer)
I was doing a BSc in Computer Science at Wolverhampton College of Technology (now, a university) in 1967 and programming this was part of the course. You typed up your program on punched tape and ran it through the reader β very slowly -- and watched as the dekatron valves ran round and round and showed the computer thinking!But, because Jon didn't specify digital or analogue, I think I'll offer this one http://youtu.be/DvonTL_7k-4 as the oldest computer I've worked with. (Also at Wolverhampton). I was fascinated by this type of computing and went on to create a program for a similar MAC for calculating inertial stresses in the undercarriage jacks of Concorde aircraft. (I could go on and on about recirculating ball screw jacks!)
The first computer I actually owned was a Sharp MZ-80K. Having had it for a few months, I hacked it (literally!) to double the processor speed.
After that came an Oric and then an Enterprise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_(computer) (until last year, I had one of the very first ones off the production line -- number 43). Then came an Amstrad CPC6128 and on and on...
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In the 70's I first had TI-57 programmable calculator, for which we did mathematical calculation programs which could run for at least 2 days and had to charge the battery several times during this process.
First real computer I used/programmed and later administered was the Digital PDP 11/70 Minicomputer (only 3 cabins plus separate disks).
My first programs were FORTRAN punched to cards and then batch-run. Pretty soon moved to MACRO-11 assembly, because it was used for system programming. The highlight was when we loaded Bell Labs Unix V7 for the first time in the spring 1980. The V7 printer daemon was known to be broken (was still kind of beta version), but we had paper terminals, which we used to produce lots of evidence of this historical moment. Then I spent hours figuring out from the C-code listings what was wrong with the daemon, but finally got it fixed. You may guess I was a very proud young man when our 900 LPM printer beast started to rumble and all the senior administrators were there to witness.
My first own real computer was that compact Sharp MZ 80A.
The Sharp MZ 80A was the "enhanced" version of the Sharp MZ 80K. It had about the same technical features but offered a typewriter keyboard, better display, enhanced text mode and a Parallel printer port.
Somehow I grew out of it soon, and traded it to get that brand new Spectravideo SVI-328 Mk I. It had floppies and expansion cabinet with several slots for expansion memory and peripheral cards. I saved some money by making my own printer card for it. To get better software had to hack the CP/M to recognize my 80 track double side alien floppies. Still got it somewhere, wonder if it could be started safely after all these years⦠-
Mention of the TI-57 reminds me⦠Hands up all those with programmable calculators who wrote moon landing programs!
For all those who have never seen one of these, you were in charge of a lander which was plummeting moonwards. You knew your height, speed and seconds of fuel left and it was up to you to burn that remaining fuel in such a way as to soft land on the surface. The calculator display would show something like 1.400120 E17 meaning that you were 1400 metres above the surface doing 120 m/s towards the moon and with 17 seconds of fuel left. Every 2 seconds, the display would freeze for second to allow you to enter, say, 7 - which would burn 7 seconds of fuel. The display would then show, say, -1.100005 E10 which would let you know that you were now 1100 metres above the surface and doing 5 m/s upwards with 10 seconds of fuel left!
Graphics? Who needs 'em?!
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IBM PS/2 was the my first computer. I remember waking up as a kid before my older brother just to turn it on. It took a while to load.
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My first computer was a Fujitsu-Siemens 400 Mhz speed With Windows 98 on board. It was all right but I found Ubuntu 7.04 and I started a new adventure.Quite interesting indeed. I wish you all all the best in the P.C. world.
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my first pc is lenovo x200 i got it when first i work :dry:
amazing other user old pc is amazing i hope some time i can try older pc :unsure: -
Wow!!!! Hmmm - at work was a Tandy TRS-80 all-in-one. First personal was an Apple IIc Plus, which I still have in original box along with some Beagle Brothers software
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Mention of the TI-57 reminds me⦠Hands up all those with programmable calculators who wrote moon landing programs!
For all those who have never seen one of these, you were in charge of a lander which was plummeting moonwards.
I'll never understand anyway, how they have made it in 1969 with this technology to the moon! :S :lol:
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Fascinating topic! Some of you have mentioned machines that existed before I was born (1968)! I was in my early twenties before buying/owning my first machine. If I remember correctly, it was built around 486/66 SLC2, an IBM chip and coupled with a Cirix math coprocessor, I believe. Wanna say it had 16kb of ram and a 210mb HDD. At the time, it did everything I needed, so I was happy!
That one and my next, a system sporting a 300mhz Cirix CPU, were the first two and only two prebuilt boxes I've ever owned. Cracking open the latter one several mouths after buying it to install a new sound card and seeing first hand what my money had actually purchased, made me vow to never again be victimized like that again! I've enjoyed building each machine since, saving a considerable amount of money over the years, and getting at least six years (personally or someone else) of relatively trouble free computing from eachβ¦
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My first computer was built in September 2000 and featured old mainboard with CPU i486 at 33 MHz, as far as I remember, HDD WDC 2340 with capacity 324 MB, 3.5" floppy disk drive, maybe 8 MB RAM, low-VRAM VGA, 13" monitor. It was running Windows 95 OSR2. Not in much time its CPU was upgraded to DX2 66 MHz and maybe 16 MB RAM ^^
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a Spectravideo SV 318
http://www.samdal.com/sv318.htm -
The first computer I owned was a Rockwell AIM65.
I used it to develop assembler programs to burn into EPROMS to make dedicated devices based on the SYM1.
These single-board computers were based on the 6502 chip.
This all pre-dated the PC.
Before that I wrote FORTRAN for the IBM 1620 and machine code for the Ferranti Sirius.
Heady times.