What was your first computer? (Page 2 of 3)

A C64 and then a Pentium (I) 75MHz.

I brought the Pentium to the recycling centre last year but he was still alive.

I had a Radio Shack Color Computer for about a week before I returned it and got a Commodore 64 instead. In my middle school we had some massive Wang system that I can't even find anything about on the web right now. It was a big CPU behind a chain-link fence with typewriter-like stations (no monitors; you just watched the paper roll as you typed on it) and paper tape to store your data on (we were writing programs in BASIC, and we felt lucky to have punch tape instead of punch cards, since if the cards got out of order you were screwed).

That's what I started with -second hand end of the 80's. Too complicated for me, so next try on computers 1996 - second hand 386SX20. Worked like a charm with Win 3.0. Afterwards: 486DX80, PIII 350 pimped later to PIII 875 (Overclcked). Since 2003 AthlonXP2600@3200. And at last EEE 901. 901 becoming the first Linux-Only 2 months ago. Thanks #! .

My first computer (well, the first computer my family had when I was growing up) was an Apple IIGS.  I probably used the computer more then anyone else in my family though, and eventually I ran a few BBSs on it.  The BBS I was running when it died was ran using ProLine software.

For those who don't know what ProLine was, it was a BBS program written for Apple II computers that simulated a public access Unix system.  It was quite an impressive piece of software for its time and platform.

My first computer, or to be honest, my dad's first computer was an Oric 1. The funny thing about that computer was the keyboard. Small rectangular rubber keys.
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil:Oric1.jpg

He then got the Atmos model. It had a more or less normal keyboard and had the same 8 bit cpu at 1 mhz.

My brother and I later saved every penny we could and got a C64. Played loads of games on that thing.

My first "PC" was a brown box and was labeled Ericsson. Imagine Ericsson making computers. Dad actually built the monitor for it. Some sort of kit. The ghosting was soooo bad that running a flight simulator was mostly a blurry green mess.(I actually think it was one of the first incarnations of MS flight simulator)

Ahh that pesky smoke.  The trick to electronics and computers is to keep the smoke INSIDE.  Once  you let it out, it never functions the same again.   

Don't forget the mirrors

Does the Sinclair ZX81 count? That was my first one.

My first computer was a sinclair zx81 borrowed for a couple of months when I was a kid.  Learned some basic, but there was no assembler (or I didn't have it, anyway), so you literally had to program machine code, by running a little basic routine that "poke"d values that you input, into memory.  You had to calculate the code by hand - a sort of manual assembler.  Plus, I found z80 assembler quite convoluted - lots asymetric instructions sets with arbitrary addressing modes - and the z80 book I had was more a reference than a beginners tutorial (it was a huge tome, by someone whose name sounded perfect for a zilog z80 book .... "zaks", perhaps? oooh, "rodney zaks" even?, I think).
Surprisingly, I managed to get a very simple game working with this system - asteroid field.  The asteroids where "*"s which scrolled down the screen, and your spaceship was an "A" or a "V" which could move left/right to avoid the rocks.  In fact I seem to remember there was something funny about the screen memory map, so maybe the scrolling actually went up the screen, not down, but I can't quite remember the details.

Then I got my own computer, an acorn atom, with (nice, simple, balanced, 6502) assembler built into the basic.  Pure joy.  Loved that thing.  Wish I still had it, as they are collectors items now.

Last edited by jackbang (2009-05-28 04:35:45)

ditto:
Mine was a thinkpad R42...512 MB RAM, 40 GB HDD, 14" screen... I miss her sometimes...

C64 circa 1986.

my first computer is still in use. its a fujitsu siemens that came with windows ME and it has 600 mzh intel and 300 mb ram. and a 20 gigabyte harddisk. it runs debian using openbox and lxde as windows manager, i learned to like use that by using crunch bang and i was happy that lenny comes with a small lxde + xfce iso image.