What was your first computer?

[Art Vandelay]

My Dad was a little bit of a techie back in the day. We had an Atari and a Coleco game system in the early 80s he was an early adapter for the Beta videotape format (oops), but our first true computer was a Sanyo MBC-55x. We got it in 1983. I seem to remember it costing close to $4000 (probably including the printer).



Ours did not have a color monitor, it was monochrome green. I still remember the demo software that drew the Sanyo Logo on screen. I thought it was the neatest thing at the time. It had a Word Processor called Wordstar that was difficult to use, but worked okay. There were spreadsheet and database programs as well, but I could not figure those ones out. Two 5.25" floppy drives, and no hard drive and ran at a blistering 4.77mHz. I inherited it in about '86 when we got a 286 and by then it was pretty much obsolete.

It's amazing how far things have come since then.

Anyone else remember their first computer?

[Komskies]

I don't remember too many specifics about our first computer, but it had a really old school Russian-themed Tetris, and a program that created word searches. And a massive dot-matrix printer where you had to rip the holes off the sides. The screen was black with green font.

[BlackEleven]

Yup, I remember. Looked just like this one:

[Bobblehead]

Commodore 64 I bought with the money from my after school job. Loading programs from cassette tapes sucked.

[ken0042]

Commodore 64. I was originally "mad" at my grandparents. They were supposed to bring me a ColecoVision from their trip to the States, but the guy at K-Mart suggested the C-64 would be better for me in the long run.

Turns out he was probably right; seeing as I now work in IT.

[FanIn80]

I came to the computer world fairly late. My first computer was an IBM 386 running Windows 3.1.

(Actually, I had an old one sitting at home when I was a kid. Nobody knew how to do anything with it, though. I just remember having to write like seven pages of BASIC just to play Hangman, or whatever it was. I don't think it counts, though, since the most we ever used if for was to pile folded clothes on in the Laundry Room.)

Edit: I remember getting a computer lab at our school when I was in Grade 7. It had one Apple IIe and the rest were PCs. We didn't really have any classes set up to use the lab, and then they started just adding optional classes... I remember me and a buddy stole some of the mouses from the lab and sold them at a pawn shop downtown, then bought some Portuguese wine from someone else at the school whose parents made it in their garage.

[burn_this_city]

My folks bought a Commodore 64 for my brother and I. I think I was 5 when we got it. It definitely gave me an advantage having to learn dos commands at a young age.

[mykalberta]

IBM PC that my grandfather bought for both his sons families for $5800 each - got a company discount from the Alberta Govt.

circa prob 1990ish

[QuadCityImages]

For me it was the TI-99. It was acquired sometime in the very early 1980s, as I was born in 82 and think it predated me.



My dad had all the gear shown, except for possibly the modem. The little thing between "keyboard" and the modem is actually a speech synthesizer. The whole computer was actually contained in the keyboard, and the big box was some sort of memory expansion. I'm not sure but I think it was RAM-type system memory rather than storage. The system used cartridges, but the expansion box had a floppy drive I think.

[socktape]

Some old Epson computer that can't be found on the internet. (at least by me) worked well for it's time. Dial up was never be the same after that.

[Kipper is King]

My dad purchased one of Dell's best models back in 1996. It had two USB ports (futuristic!) , a 1GB hard drive, and I think an Intel processor (with MMX technology! ) that ran at something like 600 Mhz I think.

I played NHL 97 on that thing for ages!

Edit: I started Googling things. It must have been 1997 and the clock speed was maybe 200Mhz according to this article: http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Busine...-PC-sales.html

[sclitheroe]

ADM-2 dumb tube (ADM-3 pictured here, but it looked the same) connected to a 1200 baud modem - was great for dialing up BBS’s, before they all went apepoo with ANSI graphics.

[Prototype]

I think it was either our IBM PS1 or the Apple II GS.

Little known fact... That is our old IBM PS1 in the display at SAIT's Burns Building. I could tell it was ours, because my Dad's high score for the game 'Colours' is still writen on the top right hand side in pencil. He works at SAIT, and must have donated it.

[Arsenal14]

For me it was the classic Amiga 500 (with Wayne Gretzky Hockey). Would have been around 1990 or 1991. Good times. I still remember when we upgraded the RAM to 1MB and all of a sudden there were videos for the fights!

Back then Amiga was top of the line for graphics & sound but between mismanagement by Commodore and too much piracy it quickly lost out to the IBM compatible PCs.

[OBCT]

I remember my dad's work computer way back in the day, an IBM 286... he probably got it in the late 80s. I didn't start fiddling around with it until I realized what kinds of games were available... the rest, well, is history.

I especially recall struggling to master Kingdom of Kroz, a classic Apogee game made more difficult without a colour monitor.

[DuffMan]

Gateway 2000 386 SX 20.
It had a 40 mb hdd, and 4 mb of ram.

I bought another 80 mb hdd ,and 4 mb of ram for $800.

[TimSJ]

our first was a Vic20 we also had an apple 2e and I think my brother still has the first macintosh that we got.

[chalms04]

+1 for a C-64

[Barnes]

first family computer.



First Computer I bought.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Prototype

I think it was either our IBM PS1 or the Apple II GS.

Little known fact... That is our old IBM PS1 in the display at SAIT's Burns Building. I could tell it was ours, because my Dad's high score for the game 'Colours' is still writen on the top right hand side in pencil. He works at SAIT, and must have donated it.

We also had an IBM PS1. My folks forced us to use that thing long after it was obsolete. I remember my dad adding a cdrom, sound card, 83mhz processor, and 4mb of ram just to get us by. I think he spent over $200 on 4mb of ram. It came with a 2400 baud modem we upgraded to a blazing 14.4