Share your first encounter with PC

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nakedmolerat

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Topic # 14796 20-Jul-2007 12:33

1. what year did you first introduced to use PC/mac? specification?
2. what brand?
3. how old were you at that time?
4. when did you start accessing internet? bbs?

[Moderator edit (MF): removed all UPPERCASE subject]

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BDFL - Memuneh
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Reply # 78973 20-Jul-2007 12:47

First off, PC = Mac. I gather you mean Windows-based PC or Mac OS-based PC? After all PC = Personal Computer.

Back to topic...

I first saw (touched, played with) a computer in 1981, a TRS 80. I was young. Much younger than I am today. My first real computer work with as CP/M and MP/M then mainframes. The first PCXT was running PC DOS 1.0 at 2MHz and the 5MB HDD cost about US$4000.

Then things moved fast: 286 with 4MB RAM, 386 SX 16 MHz, 386 DX 40 MHz, Pentium 90 MHz, Pentium MMX 160 MHz, Pentium III 700 MHz, and so on...

I started accesing Compuserve, back in 1994. And I ran a BSS out of home, with four lines, from my Pentium 90 MHz with PowerBBS (completely GUI on Windows 3.1 and up!)

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tonyhughes

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Reply # 78974 20-Jul-2007 12:57

1. what year did you first introduced to use PC/mac? specification?
About 1981 I got to play with a new Vic 20. It was 8bit, 5kb RAM and 1MHz CPU.

2. what brand?
Commodore

3. how old were you at that time?
Young.

4. when did you start accessing internet? bbs?
1996 or so. I ran a BBS for about 2 or 3 years in Gisborne. Flat rate dialup killed BBSing in New Zealand. Geekzone is much like a BBS of old I guess (in some ways).

RedJungle

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Reply # 78980 20-Jul-2007 13:28

1. what year did you first introduced to use PC/mac? specification?

Early late 80's/early 90's. Got to play with the brand spanking new Atex publishing systems at the local paper where my father worked. Eventually purchased my first computer, an AMIGA A500+ and I loved it.

2. what brand?

Commodore Amiga

3. how old were you at that time?

Young.

4. when did you start accessing internet? bbs?

Ran a local BBS called Phoenix based out of Hastings for several years, originally running Spitfire, then moving to RemoteAccess, before graduating to Excalibur BBS - which was quite an exciting system at the time, unfortunately it came several years too late in the game when real internet access was just taking off.

photoman

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Reply # 78993 20-Jul-2007 14:36

1. what year did you first introduced to use PC/mac? specification?

a. 1980 - Although that was a ZX80.
b. First real PC was in 1994 when I bought a P90 with 16MB RAM and a 540MB HDD. Cost me 3,000 pounds at the time, and it was better specced than the severs my work used.

2. what brand?

a. Sinclair
b. Gateway 2000

3. how old were you at that time?

A lot longer than I am now (and with more hair!)

4. when did you start accessing internet? bbs?

About 1994 - This would have been from work on a US Robotics 14.4k modem.

nakedmolerat

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Reply # 78997 20-Jul-2007 14:57

freitasm: First off, PC = Mac. I gather you mean Windows-based PC or Mac OS-based PC? After all PC = Personal Computer.

spot on freitasm.

nakedmolerat: 1. what year did you first introduced to use PC/mac? specification?
2. what brand?
3. how old were you at that time?
4. when did you start accessing internet? bbs?

[Moderator edit (MF): removed all UPPERCASE subject]

1. 1989 - dos based
2. my first computer, cpu - IBM, monitor - philips, from US
3. 5 year old
4. 1997, dialup, 33.6kbps aopen modem

extra: my favorite games are DIGGER and CAT and sierra POLICE QUEST! anyone knows where can i download these?????

Bung

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Reply # 79001 20-Jul-2007 15:26

nakedmolerat:
freitasm: First off, PC = Mac. I gather you mean Windows-based PC or Mac OS-based PC? After all PC = Personal Computer.

spot on freitasm.

Might be true but in the mid 80's AFAIK IBM had trademarked the term PC and Apple were spending their ad $ stressing that the Macintosh was no ordinary "personal computer".

barf

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Reply # 79017 20-Jul-2007 19:24

1. 1990 - At primary School there was an Apple IIe

2) a year later we had an Amstrad PC 386SX20 640k, 40MB HDD, VGA graphics! DOS 4.01 & Windows 2.1

3) 7 years old

4) '94 we got a Pentium P54C 100MHz with PCI, dialed up local BBSes, joined the local 'Modem gamers list' for dialup gaming. joined CompuServe but not for long, then we got Voyager Internet. Gave up using Windows in 2000 and went to Linux.

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Shankly

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Reply # 79045 20-Jul-2007 23:31

1. About 1983

2. Amstrad CPC464. My parents bought it for educational purposes ? Manic Minor and Jet Set Willy were my life for a couple of years !

3. 13

4. Mid 90's, my borother in London was the first person I knew who had access at home, remember doing a search via Alta Vista for Oasis and found an amazing 20 web-sites relating to the band, only took a few minutes to load each page !

I've got a different computer now, it's better than the Amstrad.

paradoxsm

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Reply # 79048 21-Jul-2007 01:44

about 1986. Radio shack trash 80

My first computer i owned was a vic 20 when i was 8

My first internet access was at school, i scored a dynalink modem that ran off a 9volt and connected through pla.net free nz as it was known, using a copy of mosaic that i still have to this day. I still use that same exact modem to this day connected to a special dialer, i have had it working in the past on my qtek 1010

Parents then bought me that computer from the school. And it still works.

rwales

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Reply # 79049 21-Jul-2007 03:58

tonyhughes: I got to play with a new Vic 20

The VIC-20 was my first machine too. Yeah baby, that was a hardcore gaming box right there. Of course, mine had the memory upgrade cartridge! I'd have been about 10 back then. I still have my VIC-20 actually - will have to set it up & take some piccies.

when did you start accessing internet? bbs?

What is this interweb thing you speak of?

PromNZ

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Reply # 79078 21-Jul-2007 10:35

1st encounter was playing at the DSIR VAX computer systems where my father worked, in the late 70's ? Or 1980 ? Mate and myself would waste hours playing Star Trek, moving our characters around the universe to quadrants and co-ordinates.

School - Palmerston North Boys High - had Commodore Pets in 1980/1981 which were, in short, useless ! And of course there's the ZX81 and VIC20 that friends had.

1st pc that I eventually purchased (having used my flatmates for so long he was getting a bit annoyed) was a nice 286 with a 10mb hdd. I thought I'd never need to delete anything ever again. But wasting more hours on bbs's ensured I was always downloading something.

nakedmolerat

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Reply # 79105 21-Jul-2007 13:36

Bung:
nakedmolerat:
freitasm: First off, PC = Mac. I gather you mean Windows-based PC or Mac OS-based PC? After all PC = Personal Computer.

spot on freitasm.

Might be true but in the mid 80's AFAIK IBM had trademarked the term PC and Apple were spending their ad $ stressing that the Macintosh was no ordinary "personal computer".

that is what i think of first in my mind. but not too sure

rwales:
when did you start accessing internet? bbs?

What is this interweb thing you speak of?

i have a funny link for ya: before bbs

psychrn

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Reply # 79112 21-Jul-2007 14:51

I too started on an Amstrad 464 and was a keen member of the Hamilton Amstrad club which believe it or not runs under the guises of the Hamilton Computer club into this day.
Cant remember what we got next-think it was a HP ?? 286 remember it having a 270 mb hdd!!

Got internet access around 1995 if I recall with Wave Internet.
Asl played around accessing bbs at around this time

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Mattnzl

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Reply # 79114 21-Jul-2007 15:07

Vic 20 (followed by c64, Amiga 500 and then switched to intel (pc direct 386 sx20, 4mb, 52mb hdd)

First bbs I remember was AmigaInfo! We had a modem where you had to put your ordinary phone into the "cups" of the modem ( I think it was 300 baud - you could almost read the text as fast as it downloaded).

Was right into mod sound files at the time. modplay dos, then mod4win (wow, nice pretty bits with win3.1).

ZollyMonsta

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Reply # 79128 21-Jul-2007 18:01

nakedmolerat: 1. what year did you first introduced to use PC/mac? specification?
2. what brand?
3. how old were you at that time?
4. when did you start accessing internet? bbs?

[Moderator edit (MF): removed all UPPERCASE subject]

I've had lots of PC's!

I think it was around the mid 80s.. I was in Form 1 and got my hands on a System 80 (Trash 80). Even did some basic programming on it. Moved on from that in the later 80s to a Commodore 64... In the early 90s a Commodore Amiga (with stunning 20mb hard drive!) and then onto my first PC around 1995/1996.. it was a Hewlett Packard Pavillion 7310.. 166mhz cpu..

I actually started on the internet on my Amiga 500, firstly with a 300bps modem, then moving to 2400, then 14.4k.
Back then it was newsgroups and email only and I was being charged on bandwidth used, rather than a fixed price.

Cheers,
Zollymonsta

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