Your first computer?

My first computer was a timex-sinclair in the early 80s. It used a tape recorder for input. I forget how many K, 2K?

Describe your first computer and when?

I was a deprived child and had to wait for the Commordore 64. I miss Jumpman, my favourite game.

Manhattan, is this thread is going to be:

  1. closed?
  2. moved to MPSIMS?
  3. hi Opal?

:wink:

I have a feeling this thread is headed for the “my opinion” forum, but while its here.
My first was a Commodore Vic 20, soon followed by a C-64 with tape drive. I remember spending 20 minutes loading a dungeon maze game and then several more loading one of the four levels of play.

I still have the C-64 and a bunch of tapes…

See, I had 5-1/4 (5-1/2?) floppy. I also liked Argon, a pseudo chess game that before you could take a piece, you had to fight it out.

D18

OK to move this to MPSIMS board

My first computer was a Timex-Sinclair ZX-81 (IIRC). I think the UK version had 1K of RAM, and the US version had 2K (I had the smaller one). Did anyeone else have the 32K expansion RAM that plugged onto the back? It sucked! The connector supported the weight of the module, and after a while it was very touchy- just barely jostle the computer, and it would lock up! I had to use duct tape to firmly attach it!

Don’t even get me started on having to save programs to cassette tape three times, just to be sure that at least one copy would load back up …

Still, it was as fast or faster than my Apple IIe I’d get later.

D18, I think you mean Archon, not Argon. I had that game for the Apple IIe.

Arjuna34

Ah yes, Archon. Bitchin’ game, eh? Was Jumpman available for the IIe?

D18

Archon was great. In fact, I’ve played it recently on my PC running an Apple IIe simulator :slight_smile:

I’ve never heard of Jumpman, though.

Lets see… first one I used/programed on would be a Commodore Pet, with cassette storage.

First one at home, Heathkit H-89, had to love the TLA for Heathkit Users Group.

First one I purchased for myself, HP Vectra 386 Tower. I leased it, really bad, expensive move.
-Doug

When I graduated from the C-64, I bought an Amiga (complete with the memory upgrade to 256K). I also got WP for Amiga to write my Master’s thesis with.

Now then, when WP did footnotes, it would superscript the note number, but it wouldn’t change the font size - so you basically got a 12-point number, raised about 6 points. I - with no programming experience - was able to go into the code and change things around so that I got my superscript, and smaller font size.

The question - why was I able to mess with the code back then, whereas I can’t now?

D18

. . . was that the monitor had RCA video inputs so you could plug a VCR into it and have AMAZING (for the time) picture quality for your movies.

Radio Shack Color Computer … first one with 4K (?) and cassette data storage, of course it plugged into the TV. Later upgraded to 16K (or was it 32?) with 5 1/4 inch floppy. Also, had ROM cartridges that plugged into the side. Even got a printer. Can’t think of any game titles, altho’ one favorite was a text adventure game “Look Rock” “Go East” and so on.

I wrote a BASIC program to help Mrs. Planman calculate grades of her little student monsters. None of the stuff avaiable could deal with the fact that each kid didn’t have the same number of test/homework grades. So I did it myself. Still use a version of that on my Pentium3 box.

First PC was a 286, bought literally a couple weeks before the prices of 386’s dropped. Oh well, all you 386 buyers can thank me for making the price go down.

My first was an Atari 800 (My sister who was going away to college got a Commadore 64 (Lucky dog). The Atari used audio cassettes to load games & had BASIC as it’s language.

Since I’m a young’un here, my first computer must seem quite advanced to all yours.

My oldest brother had his computer long before I would get one. His was a 286, but I don’t know any other specs.

My first computer that was all my own was a 486 DX4-100, with 2 scsi hdd’s, tape drive, 4x cd-rom, and a 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" floppy. Nothing near as old as some of the ones mentioned.

When I first saw the thread title, I remembered my 8088, with ~2 MHz and a ~30 MB HD.

Then I remembered my ADAM! Remember the ADAM. The power had to be turned on through the printer and it used a tape deck for input as well. If you started it up without a tape, it went into a typewriter mode that worked just like a regular typewriter except louder. There was also the default cassette that came with it that let you program in BASIC. It also had a cartridge deck that played Colecovision games. Oh, the good ol’ days.

Okay … showing how old I really am …

An IBM 1040 which we used in an old Explorer Scouts group. You programmed it with punch cards and switches on the front. I’ve lived in apartments that were smaller.

Count me as another Commodore user. My first computer was the Commodore Plus/4. I think about 200 of those things were made and that was about 200 too many. It was supposed to be some sort of ‘serious’ home computer, I guess because the “Plus/4” stood for “Commodore that’s not compatible with the C=64 but comes with four worthless programs”. You got a crappy grpahics program, a crappy word processor, a crappy spreadsheet and a crappy database. All very exciting to an eleven year old boy. It also had a Datasette upon which I had my sole game, the text adventure “Pirate Island” (GO EAST. GO EAST. LIGHT MATCH. EXAMINE PIRATE. GIVE RUM).

Luckily for me, the Commodore Plus/4 was made with the same quality that they put into its office software. It broke after perhaps a month or two and when my mom returned it, she was told that the store was getting so many of them returned, they were just giving you credit on them for a new Commodore 128. The Commodore 128 was, in reality, a Commodore 64 in a sleek white case and you had to hold down the C= key when you turned it on to make it work. Ok, so if you didn’t hold down the C= key, it still worked, but then it was in C=128 mode and who actually used that? I think I had about programs for the actual 128 (Beyond Zork, Trinity, and two serious programs) and 16.75 billion for the 64. Oh, and the 128 had that glorious CP/M mode in case you wanted to trade programs with your friend’s Osbourne or something. I had ‘Adventure’ and an Eliza program for the CP/M mode.

My C=128 finally died in about 1993 after some long, glorious years of use. To this day, I still use a Commodore 64 emulator on my PC to play some old favorites. For those of you who want to bask in the glory of the Plus/4, you can check it out here: http://www.computingmuseum.com/museum/plus4.htm (Dear sweet God, there’s actually a Plus/4 emulator!)

I was a late bloomer. My first was an Amstrad 412, then years later, upgraded to a Mac IIci. Years later I have what I have now. A lowly Pentium 200. I’m just too cheap to buy a new one, even though I really really need one.

The first computer I remember using was an Apple IIc (I think) - I was in 6th grade math class, and I don’t remember too much else about it. My dad worked in computing so we had a full home computer pretty early on - an Osborne. For those of you who don’t remember, Osborne was the first portable (read: luggable) computer, about the same size, shape and weight as a largish Singer sewing machine. You’d set it down on one of its large sides, then the bottom three inches or so would pop down, giving you the keyboard and exposing the 4" diameter (yes, that’s right, four inches) screen. And although IIRC it did run on DOS, it wasn’t fully compatible with IBM.

I learned to type using WordStar!

Oh, I forgot. I also very briefly had one of those neat little Outbounds, or Outbacks, something like that. An almost Mac laptop that didn’t work with half the Mac software.