What was your first computer?

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Jama

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#6669 14-Feb-2006 12:08

I don't think we have had one of these discussions before and I might be showing my age.

I built my first computer in 1980 from an Electronics Australia magazine. It was called a DREAM 6800 (Domestic Recreational Educational Adaptive Micro-computer). It ran a Motorola 6800 and had 512 bytes of memory. The programming language was CHIP-8 and code was entered in Hex via a small Hex keyboard. I remember spending hours manually debugging code becuase there was no debugger and one simple mistake on the keyboard could stuff the program.

In those days I couldn't buy all the parts in NZ so had to import some chips from the US. I remember working a paper round for a year and I purchased parts as funds allowed. All up it cost me $277 which in 1980 was a lot of money.

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#28401 14-Feb-2006 12:12

First one I used (dad owned it) was an XT 8088 with CGA Emulator card, and not one, but TWO!! 20mb (yes MB, not GB) harddisks. Both drives were MFM (before IDE was around), and one was actually a Drivecard which was pretty cool. It was an ISA card with the 20mb harddrive mounted on the card. So you could just drop it into another machine without all the usual issues with MFM controllers. Machine had 512kb memory running Dos 3 something

Also had a couple of 8086's, but they were pretty so so.

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johnr

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#28403 14-Feb-2006 12:23

ZX81 and then a VZ300 from DSE

Jama

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#28404 14-Feb-2006 12:29

Yeah I had a ZX81 then Sega SC3000 followed by a 386SX PC running Windows 3.11. In about 1991 I took the big plunge and paid $7500.00 for a genuine IBM 486DX with OS2. Great PC in fact I still have and use the keyboard! It took me years to pay it off.

nairda

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#28405 14-Feb-2006 12:31

My dad bought an Amstrad machine (PCW series) with 256KB of RAM in the mid 80s. It had no hard drive but from memory it had a 3 inch floppy drive. It booted from 180KB floppy disks and it had a green monochrome monitor. I mainly used it for word processing at school, as it obviously wasn't designed for anything much more than that (although there were a couple of games for it, I just can't remember what they were). But at least it introduced me to computer programming.....

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#28406 14-Feb-2006 12:38

First I used was a ZX81 but first that I owned was a Commodore Amiga - the playstation of its day.

Then had a big break from computers until the net took off and I got a second hand 486 with a turbo switch! hard core man.

jpwise

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#28407 14-Feb-2006 12:50

Yeah, it was an interesting run moving through 8088 to 286, 386SX, 386DX, 486DX, 486DX2-66, 486DX4-100, Pentium 75, Pentium 90, Pentium 133. Then I think I went to Cyrix 333, from there onto an AMD ~900ish, 1.2ish, then jumped to a 3.2Ghz.

The list going up to the P133 were owned by family. I inherited the DX2-66 (with Vesa Video!!), and then yeah, the Cyrix 333 was my first actual buy, moving on from there.

My current machine at home is still the AMD 3.2Ghz, with 1gb Dual Channel DDR-400, a 30gb 10,000RPM SATA boot drive, and a 200Gb 5400RPM SATA storage drive. Video card's been upgraded since I built it to an nVidia GeForce 6600 (ish? Can't recall exactly). Still running quite happy and running the games etc I want for the moment. : )

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jpwise

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#28408 14-Feb-2006 13:05

PS: I did once see an old IBM 'Portable Computer' at auction.. I had a lil 6 or 8" CRT in the front left side of the box itself. Looked quite nifty, but didn't buy it so no chance to rip it apart.

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alasta

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#28413 14-Feb-2006 13:19

1984 : Atari 800XL (my father bought this)
1994 : Apple LC575
1999 : Apple iMac G3
2002 : Apple iBook G3
2005 : Apple iBook G4

I can't believe that my first computer lasted me ten years!

tonyhughes

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#28420 14-Feb-2006 15:11

Did a paper run and saved for a Commodore 64, it came in a box with the 1541-II disk drive, and a demo disk. Learned to program basic to a fairly high degree, later moving on later to an Atari 520ST then a 1040 (FM?). Amiga 500, no hard drive.

Had various 486's all out of bits, then 2nd computer i ever got new was a Pentium 200MMX 64MB ram 3.2GB hard drive 1MB onboard graphics with 15" monitor, ball mouse, Epson 300 printer for $2,995 (worth about $40 now)....

Currently run an Athlon 2800+ overclocked by 500MHZ (added some SilenX fans, and changed a bios setting), 1GB Ram 160GB+120GB Internal Drives, 19" LCD, MS Mouse/Keyboard, XP Home + Fedora Core Dual Boot

cokemaster

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#28428 14-Feb-2006 16:35

First used: Apple IIe. Really neat games. My father used to bring a machine from his school in the weekends.
Also used Acorns - really nice machines. Died out if I recalled. My father also had those at his school.

Commodore PC20 - a 8088 machine. Came with 2 5' 360k floppy drives, 640kb RAM. Upgraded to a 20mb harddrive. Had a friends computer - really good fun using INTERLNK and a serial cable to remotely access the drives. Really good fun with GWbasic and Qbasic.

Custom built 386SX (didn't get the maths coprocessor). Initially had 4mb RAM, 80mb harddrive, DOS 6 and Windows 3.11 for workgroups. Lots of pirated software back then - ARRR Ship ahoy! After I was finished with it... I managed to upgrade it to 8mb RAM, ran drivespace on the drive to give around 160mb.... and installed Windows 95! It was slow but it worked.

Custom self-built 466mhz AMD K6II box. 64mb ram, 8gb harddrive, 4mb AGP video card. Ran Windows 98 initally, then up to 2k, a spot on Redhat, then XP for the old folks. Afterwards around 320mb RAM.

Custom self-built AMD Athalon 2100+ box, 512mb ram, 40gb harddrive, 32mb Nivida TNT2 PCI video card. Was a nice box, ran Windows and Linux till a upgrade to Windows killed the GRUB bootloader (replaced it with the Windows one). Upgraded video card to a Geforce FX5600 with 256mb videoram and a 160gb harddrive.

Custom self-built AMD Athalon 2000+ box, 512mb, 40gb harddrive, built in graphics (32mb shared). Didn't really build this one for keeps but rather for the folks.

In terms of laptops I had a Acer Travelmate 507DX which I upgraded a bit but when it started failing bad... I brought my first mac - a 12' Powerbook after I played with a friends Ibook and did a stress test on it and was impressed.

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freitasm

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#28430 14-Feb-2006 16:59

8088? Nah... My first one was a Z80 based TRS-80, with a B/W TV and K7 tape for storage. Then a TRS-80 with two 5 1/4" floppy drives. At University we had a MP/M machine with three terminals and two 8" floppy drives.

My next computer after the TRS-80 was a 286 with 4MB RAM and 20MB HDD. Then a 386SX 25, a Pentium 100, then a Pentium 166 MMX, then an AMD 2100XP+ with 1.5GB RAM (still in use as a Windows Server for my test Exchange Server) and now an Intel Pentium 4 HT with 2GB RAM.

bradstewart

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#28438 14-Feb-2006 18:48

286 16mhz 1024kb RAM 20Mb hard drive
486 33 or 66mhz cant remember 8Mb Ram 400Mb
AMD K6-II 350mhz 32 mb RAM(upgraded to 128) 4.3Gb and 8Mb shareded graphics card
Dell inspirion laptop. 3.2Ghz P4 HT. 100gb 128Mb ATi Radeon 9700 mobility
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 1Gb RAM, 120Gb HDD 128Mb GeForce 6600GT

JermCool

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#28476 15-Feb-2006 08:30

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who started out on an 8088.

It was a beautiful beast. Whopping 512 bytes of RAM. 2x 5.25" low-density disk drives (no HD), and the best part: A Hercules Mono-Graphics adapter. That's right, folks! Green and black - the way it was meant to be. And running DOS 2.0 (to start). It was great for running GWBASIC...and not much else. Most word processors caused it to crash.

Good heavens, I'm old...

freitasm

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#28477 15-Feb-2006 08:35

JermCool: Most word processors caused it to crash.

I wrote a word processor for the TRS-80... I used it for a few years to write papers during the university days.

JermCool

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#28480 15-Feb-2006 08:41

freitasm: I wrote a word processor for the TRS-80... I used it for a few years to write papers during the university days.

That makes me feel better. That means you're significantly older than me. :D

What language did you use? FORTRAN? (Shaddup, Jeremy...You're gonna get yourself banned!)

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