Research Machines 480Z…I still remember the joy of discovering the dual graphic/text mode (gave you four lines of text underneath and independent of the graphics )
Oh my… my then-boyfriend’s Apple IIe, with the gigantic 3 x 4 inch screen! At least, that was probably the first use of a computer as a computer. I had Atari when I was a kid.
That would be an HP printer terminal in a wiring closet of Madeira Beach Middle School in Madeira Beach Florida, connected via a 300 baud modem to a mainframe at the city hall or school headquarters or some such…
My principal usage of that machine was learning BASIC so I could modify the source code of “Super Star Trek” to make the game even more super… all at the age of 12. Of course, I played the game frequently, too.
It sounds nonproductive, but it taught me the basics of computer file and I/O systems, I learned the BASIC language by its example, and it even taught me some basic trigonometry (the aiming system).
Ahh… the early mystery of one’s first computer, and the thrill of exploring the code. Boy has that been ruined by OOP and Windows… so many youngsters these days become “1337 haxors” without ever cracking open a source module!
First I really saw in use was an Atari … 800? It was a slightly beefed-up video game machine. It used CASETTE TAPES to save and read programs. Wild stuff. Took like 20 minutes to load a program.
Then our neighbors got an Apple II+, my parents grew envious and worried, and we got a rockin’ Apple IIe, with the expanded 80 column card. Awesome. If only we had owned a second disk drive … or a color screen. I still remember that green.
First computer used: TRS-80 Model II, playing Star Trek in the Electrical Shop teacher’s class. Eventually taught myself TRS-80 BASIC overnight when the school first unveiled an “Intro to Computers” class, and slept for the entire semester.
First computer owned: Atari 800, with 48K of RAM. That baby had color! And sound! Woo-hoo!
I really wanted one of those miniature Texas instruments home computers that were only $99. Glad I got the Vic instead. School had a few Radio Shack TRS somputer consoles in our brand new computer lab…groovy!
I’m with Devilsknew – Vic 20 for me. My fond memories of it:
Programming it to flash random border and screen colors, programming it to make noises like a hideous piano, and programming it (never successfully) to run a little goblin-based game.
Recording my programs on regular cassette tapes, on the cassette-tape drive that came with it.
My exhiliration the first time I used an Apple IIe and discovered that computers could have lower-case letters.
Born in 1974; I think I was eight or nine when we got the Vic 20.
This was in 1968, when I was in high school. The LGP-21 was old then, coming out in 1962 or so. It had a 4 K rotating memory of 32 bit words, about 16 instructions, no interupts and no ASCII. (Its predecessor, the LGP-30, came out around 1956.) No assembler either - the first assembler I used I wrote myself. No punch cards - paper tape and a Friden Flexiwriter as the input terminal.
I was born in '54. First computer class I took was in 1973. It was a FORTRAN IV programming class. We punched cards. I can’t remember what kind of computer it was, but I was so pleased when my programs worked!
First one we bought for home use was a Commodore 64. That was in the mid 80s, I think.
Stored the “program”, which was in Basic, on a cassette tape. Not very powerful, but us junior high kids really liked to finger and play with our WANGs.
Frostee Rucker? Sounds like a nice ice-cream treat. You might very well ask, “I’ll have a Frostee Rucker, please.” Of course, you’ll want to hold the nuts.