What was your first computer?
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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 each…
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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. -
While Apple II supposedly was the micromachine to have, financially it was way out of my league. So it was an Exidy Sorcerer instead, allegedly "a coveted collector's item". Now they tell me…
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My first computer was a Kaypro II with 2 floppy disk drives, Zilog Z-80 processor running CP/M. I still have it down in the basement somewhere.
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My first computer was an Ohio Scientific Superboard which I bought in 1979. It came with a whopping 4k of ram. I upgraded to 8k for $80 in 1979.
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Mention of the TI-57 reminds me… Hands up all those with programmable calculators who wrote moon landing programs!
I had moonlander going on an HP-25. It worked only in one dimension, up and down. I found that if I fired a negative burst of fuel followed by a positive burst I could land in two steps.
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My first computer was the Texas Instrument TI-99/4A Then i moved on to Commodore 64, Amiga and then PC .
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Ohh my first Computer …. Siemens Nixdorf 80286 MS-Dos :whistle:
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My first computer was a Commodore 64
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Timex Sinclaire purchased first year they came out and still have
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An orginal Apple ][, when they were new. Grandma bought it for me. Boy, were the boys in class jealous.