Just rediscovered some old technology...

Forums › Off topic › Just rediscovered some old technology...

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

3743 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1422128 6-Nov-2015 08:13

my first computer was a XT with about 10MB hdd (no clue the RAM, I was only 4 at the time).

this looks like it. I remember the huge power switch on the side and the annoying reset button on the front that someone would always accidentally hit. had that for about 3 years I think then moved up to a 386, then 486 etc.

I use to play with it so much and break it so many times, but thats how I learnt to fix it :)

dukester

475 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1422163 6-Nov-2015 09:10

Commodore 64, quickly followed by the Amiga 500 then Amiga 1200. I remebered paying about $800 for the A590 20 MB hard drive for the A500 at the time.

Lizard1977

2061 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#1422177 6-Nov-2015 09:20

My first "usable" computer was a second hand Dick Smith VZ200, purchased through Trade & Exchange. It came with a tape deck for storage but it never worked, so I had to type in programs in BASIC, the rubber keys making that very hard work every time I wanted to play a simple game. When I upgraded to an Amiga 500 (and later A600 with a 120MB HDD), it was like trading in a bicycle for a Ferrari!

huckster

843 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1422184 6-Nov-2015 09:30

BBC Micro Model B.

ubergeeknz

3344 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Vocus

#1422188 6-Nov-2015 09:39

We had an Amstrad 6128, 128k RAM, colour screen and 3" disk drive for many years, from which I eventually upgraded to a Compaq Deskpro 386s/20 2nd hand (and still cost $2,500 - it had been $8k new).

It had a 14" SVGA monitor (800x600), MS-DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11, 2Mb RAM and 2 x 40Mb HDDs. I upgraded it to 6Mb RAM which cost a small fortune and was very hard to track down as it could only use branded RAM modules. I also installed a 1Gb HDD but could only use 300Mb due to bios limitations.

My next upgrade was to a Pentium 100 with 32Mb of RAM, which had a Pentium 233 MMX, Matrox Millennium II, 3DFX, and 72Mb of RAM (which was the maximum for the m/b) by the time I was done. I was using a 19" fixed-resolution (1280x1024 @ 70-ish hz IIRC) monitor from a Sun workstation with a 15" secondary for games which didn't support that resolution.

Sometime in the late 90's I got a Casio 32kb personal organiser, which I still have someplace, and an HP 48G graphing calculator.

Ah the "good old" days...

semigeek

1606 posts

Uber Geek

#1422192 6-Nov-2015 09:45

My first piece of technology was an Atari 400, back in 1983, then the 800XL, Commodore 64, Amiga 600HD, and then the IBM Aptiva which I still have in the garage.

Behodar

10504 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1422196 6-Nov-2015 09:48

When I was growing up, we had a Commodore 64, followed by an Amstrad PC20 (8086, 512 kB, DOS 3.3). I had a Casio "digital diary" of some sort, but dad's Psion was much better; it had some form of BASIC if I recall correctly!

We later had better and faster desktops; a 486SX, Pentium II, etc. I used Windows 95, 98, 2000, and even OS/2 Warp 3 at one point.

While that covers desktops, I didn't have another "personal" device until iPhone OS 1.1 came along.

Lenovo

Shop now for Lenovo laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

alasta

6704 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#1422279 6-Nov-2015 11:33

My first real computer was an Atari 800XL. I actually miss it because it didn't suffer from a lot of the time consuming problems that seem to be part of life with overly complex modern computers, and it was ahead of its time in terms of its multimedia capabilities.

I always preferred the microcomputers from Atari, Apple, Commodore, etc. to the clunky IBM compatibles. To this day in a lot of respects I consider Windows to be little more than a 1980s green screen with GUI clumsily slapped on top of it. I can't help wondering how much better off we'd be today if Atari, Commodore and Acorn were still active in the home computer market.

Behodar

10504 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1422283 6-Nov-2015 11:40

alasta: I can't help wondering how much better off we'd be today if Atari, Commodore and Acorn were still active in the home computer market.

It may interest you to hear that Acorn's RISC OS is still being actively developed. There are new systems coming out later this month, although the cheapest way to get it up and running today is on a Raspberry Pi.

Of course, being a niche platform it hardly influences current computing trends!

Stress

48 posts

Geek

#1422344 6-Nov-2015 12:38

Sinclair Spectrum 48k bought as a pack from David Reid electronics. 10 minutes to load a game! But I was flash and had a Joystick.

D1023319

524 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#1423438 9-Nov-2015 08:22

Was in post office in early 80's when my team bought a ibm system 23 to manage the teams accounts.

Had two 8inch floppy drives where one was for loading the operating system and 256kb memory.
Was rip off really as the ibm xt was already on market.
although i do remember thinking when we did upgrade what was point of 10mb hdd as it would never get filled up. (We were only using it for text database)

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1423571 9-Nov-2015 11:31

My first PC was a Gateway that had a 1Gb HDD that had to be split into two partitions because the system could not address 1Gb at once! The company I worked for had a scheme where you could get corporate pricing and they deducted the cost from your salary each month over a year at no cost.

Before that, a Nokia 2110 on Orange was my first real portable phone - I had a huge Panasonic thing with a battery that was sized to look like it ought to last about a week but barely lasted the day IIRC.

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#1423594 9-Nov-2015 12:02

Not my first computer, but in 1995 I had a DEC "Hinote Ultra" notebook.

Obviously a thicker bezel/smaller screen than something today, the trackball wasn't lunch friendly. Mine shipped with Win 3.11 - upgraded to Win95 when it was released.
20 years on, it doesn't look seriously out of date.

Technofreak

6530 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1424013 9-Nov-2015 21:41

We had one of these Wangs, (complete with thermal printer) or very similar in 1991 when I worked at Telecom. You could unplug the LCD screen and plug in a colour monitor.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1424027 9-Nov-2015 22:15

Technofreak: We had one of these Wangs, (complete with thermal printer) or very similar in 1991 when I worked at Telecom. You could unplug the LCD screen and plug in a colour monitor.

Wang!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4