Your First Computer

[AustinTXCat]

About 1988. No clue what it was but I stopped typing papers on a typewriter.

Word processing aka WYSIWYG changed the world as we know it.

 

[WildcatFan1982]

my uncle built it for me. It had a 450mhz Pentium, a 13 GB hard drive, and 128mb of ram. It cost me $1000

 

[Lexie's Dad]

1991. Magnavox PC 286, 40 MB hard drive, 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives.

Color monitor. Good ? Pin printer.

Had a "shell" program that was a close cousin to Windows and ran DOS programs.

 

[UKvisitor]

"

CPU	Z80 @ 3.25 MHz[4]
Memory	1 KB (64 KB max. 56 KB usable)[4]
Storage	External Compact Cassette recorder at a claimed 250 bps[4] or an average 300 bps[5]
Display	Monochrome display on UHF television[4]
Graphics	24 lines × 32 characters or 64 × 48 pixels graphics mode[4]

 

[funKYcat75]

Did anyone actually have NeXT computers or were they just in schools? Used to be a bunch in the old UK library alone with some Macs. I spent most of the first year on the dummy UKCC computers in the Patterson Mezzanine. Then moved on to the Windows machines in B&E. College of Ed. lab was trash.

 

[CrittendenWildcat]

Built 2.1k

Got commissioned by a co-worker in October who moonlights as a Music Minister to build a PC that he could use to put together video/audio submitted by his individual choir members into a choir performance. Parts were ~$700, and I charged him $100 to put it together and get Win10 installed on it. Work close to the MicroCenter in Cincy, so picked up some of the parts at a discount there.

Ryzen 5 3600
GTX 1650 Super
16 Gb DDR4 3200
500GB WD Black NVME SSD
(Basic Case/PSU combo, Took HDD Storage Drive/CD/DVD Drive from his old PC and installed in the new setup, as well as his keyboard/mouse and monitor)

He loves it. I love to find bargains and finding the best parts for the money, and it's always fun to put together a PC.

 

[RunninRichie]

Got commissioned by a co-worker in October who moonlights as a Music Minister to build a PC that he could use to put together video/audio submitted by his individual choir members into a choir performance. Parts were ~$700, and I charged him $100 to put it together and get Win10 installed on it. Work close to the MicroCenter in Cincy, so picked up some of the parts at a discount there.

Ryzen 5 3600
GTX 1650 Super
16 Gb DDR4 3200
500GB WD Black NVME SSD
(Basic Case/PSU combo, Took HDD Storage Drive/CD/DVD Drive from his old PC and installed in the new setup, as well as his keyboard/mouse and monitor)

He loves it. I love to find bargains and finding the best parts for the money, and it's always fun to put together a PC.

Hell yah and to make money to do it?? Man if only people knew how easy it is.

 

[_ukcat]

I remember going and buying 1st hard drive for the Zenith 150, it was an Expansion Slot Hard drive. Probably only 25 meg if that.. I was in Hog Heaven.. 😁

 

[RunninRichie]

I remember going and buying 1st hard drive for the Zenith 150, it was an Expansion Slot Hard drive. Probably only 25 meg if that.. I was in Hog Heaven.. 😁

I remember 5-10 years ago a 258gb SSD was $200 now a 1TB NVME SSD will run you $168

 

[CrittendenWildcat]

It's crazy what you can get today for your money. I bought a mini-PC off of Amazon last week, J4125 Celeron, 6GB DDR4, 120GB emmc. Would definitely not work for photo/video editing, or coin mining, or anything but the most basic gaming, but it will handle with hardware all the codecs you can throw at it, including 4K HEVC. Would also be great for grandma who wants internet for social media/youtube/e-mail/Skype/browsing, and MS Office. Even has dual HDMI ports for a 2-monitor setup.

It was $161.49 plus tax, and is about half the size of a Wii console.

 

[CrittendenWildcat]

I remember 5-10 years ago a 258gb SSD was $200 now a 1TB NVME SSD will run you $168

Dude--I bought a 50GB OCZ Vertex 2 when it dropped to $200.

 

[IdaCat]

That Atari 800 was my first. I think the second was an Apple IIe. Next was a Radio Shack TRS-80.

I got my first full-time programming job writing BASIC on a TRS-80. We switched to the original MS-DOS based IBM PC when it came out. I wrote Turbo Pascal and C on it.

The explosion of microcomputers created opportunities for many programmers. They greatly helped launch my programming career.

 

[kybloo92]

I'm thinking about getting an an old XP just to play some of my favorite old PC games.

A few of my favorite old games.

 

[Kooky Kats]

Quantex.

sounds like a feminine hygiene product now.

 

[420grover]

My older sister had an Apple in the 80's, no clue about anything other than it was an apple. I didn't get my first one until 96 or so. Custom built by a family member, I just remember it had a 533mhz processor.

Not his first one but my son just spent almost $1200 on a graphics card for his pc. I'm glad I got out of gaming.

 

[HagginHall1999]

Back in 1989 my dad would bring his apple home from work occasionally and I would play a game where you were getting off an elevator at the right floor but you had to time it right (my
memory is definitely fuzzy about it and I don’t remember it well). Then we bought our first actual computer in 1995, it was a Hewlett-Packard and all I remember was it was 1.2 something. MHz? GHz? Don’t really remember as I was 14. My buddy had a gateway that I though was really cool because you could put CDs in the monitor. Wonder why gateway, compaq, etc went away as they were incredibly popular.

Our first was a Gateway I think it was around 1995.

 

[chroix]

Commodore 64. Glad I grew up with them.

 

[Punkin Puss]

 

[Deeeefense]

I had a Commodore 64 and used a small portable TV I had as a monitor. Back then Commodore put out a print magazine once a month that included "the program of the month". It was like 3 or 4 pages of code typed in really small print that you had to manually key in. If you got one character out of the zillion wrong it wouldn't run right or at all. -- ah the good ole days.

 

[MegaBlue05]

Folks got a knockoff IBM called Leading Edge in 1987. Used floppy disks. Mom used it for word processing and dad and I played games. Dad had a coworker who hooked us up with a motherload of games on a couple floppies - pinball, pool, a football game that was all text, pacman, a generic frogger game called hopper, etc.

File:LeadingEdgeModelD.jpg - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[RunninRichie]

My older sister had an Apple in the 80's, no clue about anything other than it was an apple. I didn't get my first one until 96 or so. Custom built by a family member, I just remember it had a 533mhz processor.

Not his first one but my son just spent almost $1200 on a graphics card for his pc. I'm glad I got out of gaming.

your son bought a scalped GPU that retails for $700....god bless his soul.

 

[420grover]

your son bought a scalped GPU that retails for $700....god bless his soul.

Supply and demand. Try finding a C8 Corvette for MSRP.

 

[KyCatFan]

I don't remember the model number but it was a Tandy with a 25Mhz 486sx processor. That was the good old days when downloading a picture was like this.

 

[AirJordan]

First computer 1980 Apple ][ plus. 48KB Ram, 2- 5-1/4 Floppy drives, two paddle controllers, (paddle controls were replace by joystick) Apple graphics tablet, Houston Instruments HI-Plot smart plotter DMP-2. Basic (written in BASIC) CAD software. My boss told me that he did not think this would catch on. LOL. Used this in my class for two years then was able to upgrade to a Texas Inst PC with 8086 and math co-processor 3 floppy drives, Summagraphics tablet and a C/D Houston Inst Plotter. First hard drive was a Seagate 10 MB drive. Also had an IOMega Bernoulli Box that was able to store 10 MB in removable cartridges.

 

[SDC888]

Got commissioned by a co-worker in October who moonlights as a Music Minister to build a PC that he could use to put together video/audio submitted by his individual choir members into a choir performance. Parts were ~$700, and I charged him $100 to put it together and get Win10 installed on it. Work close to the MicroCenter in Cincy, so picked up some of the parts at a discount there.

Ryzen 5 3600
GTX 1650 Super
16 Gb DDR4 3200
500GB WD Black NVME SSD
(Basic Case/PSU combo, Took HDD Storage Drive/CD/DVD Drive from his old PC and installed in the new setup, as well as his keyboard/mouse and monitor)

He loves it. I love to find bargains and finding the best parts for the money, and it's always fun to put together a PC.

I did the exact thing myself, for myself ,around then... the price/performance was remarkable.

For about 400 dollors I got cpu/mobo/32gb ram and then reused other parts. Don't have time to game so still holding off on GPU, my gtx 970 has served me remarkably well and if I really want to game I can just play something older, got CyberPunk but it struggles a little too much around 30fps at 1080p medium; I'll just play it later whnever I get around to buying GPU and having extra time.

I've always built my own PC since like late 90s or so when it became easier to do, always go price/performance and overclock, then redo every couple years or so. Usually repurpose old parts and since I never pay much, I never feel damn I paid 3k for this machine that sucks now! Got quite the homelab going now lol.

 

[J_Dee]

Growing up, my family had lots of computers, but the first one that was mine specifically was my 486 in the early 1990s.

 

[HymanKaplan]

IBM PS/2 Model 25

8086
640K of RAM
No fixed disk
dual 3 1/2 inch diskette drives and an external 5 1/4 drive
13 inch monochrome monitor.
circa 1987

 

[8titles]

Commodore 64 in 1982
IBM PC Jr in 1984
Bunches of them since then.

 

[backbeatcat]

First computer I used was a Radio Shack TRS-80. The gifted and talented program at my school taught us Basic programming for a few weeks. I was 6 years old.

First computer I owned was a Commodore Amiga which I had for three days in 1985 I think. My dad read something about learning MS-DOS being important going forward (he was an engineer) so he returned the Amiga and bought a Tandy 1000A. It was an 8086 PC-Jr clone with a 5.25 floppy disk, 128K RAM (no hard drive) .

I wore it out on that machine until 1993. Added a hard drive (8MB) and a modem (900 baud) and learned about programming and computer science from Computerworld magazine and trial and error.

I got a degree in music education... but I have worked in IT for 20+ years. Thanks Dad for trading in that POS Amiga!

 

[CastleRubric]

I purchased my first computer back in 1994. It was a Compaq with a 486SX 25mhz processor, 4MB of RAM, and a 200MB hard drive. I remember purchasing an additional 8MB of RAM for $80 a year or two after, which was a big price drop per MB than it had been previously.

We all have smartphones now that would put the computing power/RAM/storage/efficiency of my first PC to shame 100X over.

What were the specs of your first computer?

Commodore Vic 20

programming in basic (poke/ if-then/goto stmts) - and using CASSETTE TAPE memory devices baby !!!

 

[cricket3]

We didn't get a computer until we got the internet so it was an HP Pavilion in like 2000 or 2001. MSN Messenger and Napster running 24/7.

 

[funKYcat75]

10 Print “Damn we’re getting old.”
20 go to 10
Run
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.
Damn we’re getting old.

 

[CatCall]

This was it (ish) ...

And evidently I suck at posting pics.

 

[Lamar Card]

Texas Instruments TI-99/4A computer

 

[entropy13]

I don't remember the model number but it was a Tandy with a 25Mhz 486sx processor. That was the good old days when downloading a picture was like this.

9600 baud?

 

[IdaCat]

As I said, the first computer I owned was an Atari 800, but the first computer I actually used was the IBM Mainframe at UK where I took my first CS programming course. I think it was an IBM 370. Programming language was PL/C and also some Fortran. Used punch cards for this class, but never after.

I was hooked after this class. Went on to major in it, get a grad degree, and have a long, prosperous career which I will be ending in a couple of months. I plan to teach my grandkids about computers and programming in retirement.

 

[CB3UK]

How long before Salymande is outed as a troll or spam account? First post is to bump this 2 yr old thread.

 

[JLoad22]

I had a Commodore 64 and used a small portable TV I had as a monitor. Back then Commodore put out a print magazine once a month that included "the program of the month". It was like 3 or 4 pages of code typed in really small print that you had to manually key in. If you got one character out of the zillion wrong it wouldn't run right or at all. -- ah the good ole days.

Flight simulator on the Commodore 64! Those were the days.

 

[bbonds]

IBM something. Early to mid 80s. Monochrome monitor.

 

[Pickle_Rick]

Purchased a Timex Sinclair 1000 at the old Hickory Hollow Mall (Nashville) in April, 1983 after returning from a peacekeeping deployment to Sinai. Rough using it at first. Lived in the manual and picked up BASIC and loop routines with a little effort. Transitioned to a C64 in 1985 after deploying to Germany. At one point, our entire missile site were C64/128 users thanks to hacked German software (Berlin Cracking Service). Transitioned to DOS and 8086/8088 in 1989. Strangely, IBM-Lexington once provided live phone support out of Lex around that time. I also first connected to old Q-Link in 1989, my first exposure to the Internet. Phone charges were insane.





My first was the Timex too. Learned Basic on it, had the tape recorder drive, the 4k expansion memory. To get any speed out of it I learned machine language, and hexadecimal. Upgraded to the Commodore 64 also. My e-mail address has always just been my realname followed by the server name. Had ICQ for a few years if that means anything to you.