Your first computer

Anyone have vivid memories of the first computer they owned (or were provided by work)?

I recall my first one was the EDUC8 a kit project by Electroics Australia back in 1974 and then my first work computer was an S100 based 8080 system, again built from a kit.

What about other people with some computer history?

Thats a lot older than me lol


First computer I used would have been my uncles top of the line IBM PS/1
The system is really funny because PC world listed it as one of the worst computers ever made. The one he has is actually the one I linked a pic to sans the monitor because that thing died.(the list)

Spec wise it has the following
Intel 486SX 33mhz
8mb ram
310mb hard drive
3 1/2 and 5 1/2 inch floppies
Windows 3.11/3.11 beta/Dos 6 (3.11 beta install on it is actually a beta as my uncle back then was a computer junkie and got MS to send him a beta version of 3.11)

It has the original mechanical keyboard which I love typing on and as of 3 weeks ago the machine still boots up. I still love playing Sim Ant, Sim City and the rest of those old games


Now personally the first computer my parents ever had was a pos pieced together off a parts rack 486 machine that barely functioned and the mainboard shit the bed on it about 6 months after we got it in 99. I loved playing We're Back A Dinosaur Story on it. That machine though didnt have windows 3.11 but a earlier version of windows on it.

After that we bought a HP 6535 with a 400mhz celeron, 32mb ram (pc66), 6gb hard drive, 32x cdrom, and a nice 15inch M50 monitor (this is now at grandmas on that ps/1). This machine was a blast. 8mb rage pro integrated graphics on it. I loved playing Tie Fighter on it and did so until I had to toss her. My mom used this machine religously from 99 to 2005 when I destroyed her in one night...... Turned her on and was looking at shit I shouldnt have been and I corrupted the windows 98se install on her. Well then I thought I would fix it so I promptly started up the boot disk for 98se and tried but somehow I corrupted the damn bios on that board and no matter what hard drive you would use on it after that, any os install would end up getting corrupted. I loved that machine and spent probably a good 4 years of my child hood using it.


Sadly I know pretty much all the specs of the computers that got me into pc's and electronics, i remember their startup sounds and all, but I can't remember shit all about school haha

Fond memories I'm sure.

I will try and dig up a pic of my EDUC8 if I can and also try and remember what made up my first S100 system (I built a few for my work in my early years). As far as storage goes have had worked on most things including paper tape, punch cards, mark sense cards, cassette tapes and 8" Floppy as the early ones.

Home computer (purchased in 1980):

Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I
CPU: Zilog Z-80A, 1.77 MHz
RAM: 4KB
Display: 12-in monochrome
Storage: Tape cassette
OS: BASIC in ROM

RAM Upgrades:
RAM: 16KB for keyboard case
Expansion Interface with 32KB additional RAM
Note: total RAM now 48KB

Storage Upgrades:
Two 5-1/4 in floppy drives. Two 8 in floppy drives
Note: formatted capacities was 85KB for 5-1/4 in drives and 237KB for 8 in drives.

OS Upgrades:
NewDos/80 disk operating system
Omikron Mapper board with Omikron CP/M v2.21
Note: The Omikron board allowed the computer to boot to either NewDos/80 or Omikron CP/M.

Computer used at work (1980 to 1982. We had two):

IMSAI 8080 microcomputer
CPU: Zilog Z-80A, 4MHz
RAM: 64KB
Display: Lear Siegler ADM-3A with 12-in display and integrated keyboard
Storage: Floppy disc unit with dual 8 in floppy drives. CDC Hawk Hard Drive.
OS: IMDOS
Note 1: The IMSAI 8080 was an S-100 computer based on the MITS Altair 8800.
Note 2: IMDOS was derived from CP/M
Note 3: The formatted capacities was 237KB for each 8 in floppy drive.
Note 4: Hard drive used removable 14 inch single platter cartrige with a capacity of 5MB.
Note 5: The IMSAI 8080 and its dual floppy disc unit was featured in the movie WarGames (1983). It was the computer used by David (Matthew Broderick) in his bedroom.

The first computer I can really remember using was a Dell desktop. One of those beige horizontal boxes that sat under the monitor. I think it had a Pentium 3, 128MB RAM, and a 40GB HDD (which I still have).

After that I got a Dell Dimension 4550, which I tinkered with and broke, leading me to DevH!

Does that make you of the 3.5" floppy era?

Good reason to join up - did you ever fix it?

yup, too young to really remember the big 5" floppies.

I actually melted some pins on my processor trying to install it wrong (I still have the processor in a drawer) so I ended up building a whole new PC which I had until 2007 when I switched to a laptop until 2009 when I built my current rig.

1st computer was in 1992
A ZX-Spectrum clone called I.C.E. Felix HC (Home Computer) 91 - HC91
It used tapes, loaded from a Russian Elektronika EL302
I remember asking for more TV time, because that was the display.
Fond memories waiting 10-15 minutes for a game to load up, even fonder memories of my dad teaching me BASIC.



Just got my new Horize P150HM Notebook!
_________________________
Intel Core i7-2860QM
Geforce GTX485M @ 2GB
12GB RAM @ 1600Mhz
250GB SSD

I had a TRS-80 and



(clipped because my scanner was too small)

I had a 486 running Windows 3.11/DOS 6.22. I still have it and it runs like a champ. Gotta love Packard Bell. One thing I did notice is they made computers way more solid back then. I swear I could throw that computer through a wall and the wall would receive more damage.

Totally agree they made great machines back in the day.

Then as more players came into the market pricing competition got fierce. Buyer beware started to care less about quality than quantity and things changed (generally) for all manufacturing players.

Those were also the days when OS issues were much easier to troubleshoot due to their simplicity in features and security.

Things were a lot less standard then they are now. My PC with a 486DX2/66 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and DOS 6.22 certainly was not. I had to have a separate card for my I/O (serial, parallel, floppy, hard drive, etc.) Even the ISA sound card had a proprietary cable to drive the CD-ROM that came bundled with it. My video card used a VESA local bus slot.

I mean more as in solid as in the physical properties of the case. There wasn't much plastic on them. It was almost all tin\steel. This made these very heavy. I guess personally I prefer throw over your shoulder type hardware now where you can buy it for first cheap. If it fails, buy a new piece of hardware. I find it amazing how much stuff has come down in price. I just bought a Gateway laptop at Walmart for $328. That's insanely low!

Sure things were built rugged but what good did that do when things became obsolete so fast. Also, computer hardware was quite expensive then. For example, I paid $1200 for dual 8-inch floppy drives. In today's dollars that is probably close to $3000. Ouch! And that only gave me an additional 474KB of storage.

That's my ultimate point. They were just solid back then but ultimately I like something that's cheap that you can throw over your shoulder. With technology advancing so fast and things becoming obsolete so fast, there's no point in building a case to last a super long time unless you plan on building your own and swapping hardware yourself. Those Raspberry Pi's look very interesting because they are dirt cheap. You can do a lot of messing around with those and if you fry something, it's not a super big hit to the wallet.