What Was Your First Computer? What Do You Use Now?
- Thread starter sonicbuffalo_RIP
- Start date
Very true, the technological advancements would be mind blowing. On the flip side though, imagine telling someone in 1976 that it'd take over twice as long for your airline to cross the Atlantic, or imagine telling someone in 1969, that there'd only be 12 people that have set foot on the moon. Space 1999 got it all wrong, at this rate the Hoverboards we should be using in 2015 will never come out!
I went to Radio Shack to buy a flashlight bulb and came home with a Tandy Laptop. I'm guessing it would have had a 386 processor running a Tandy desktop over some form of MS-DOS with a massive 20mb hard drive and I'm guessing maybe 512k of memory.
Had it for about a week and was showing it off to my brother, "Hey, you gotta see this.", and a message popped up in the middle of a blank screen that said, "HARD DISK INITIALIZATION ERROR HAS BEEN NOTED"
Took it back and swapped it for a desktop, 386sx running Windows 3.(something). It still lives as a track timer on my sons racetrack.
Now all laptops because we are portable people. Lenovo(W7), HP(Vista), Toshiba(XP) and ASUS(W8).
Had it for about a week and was showing it off to my brother, "Hey, you gotta see this.", and a message popped up in the middle of a blank screen that said, "HARD DISK INITIALIZATION ERROR HAS BEEN NOTED"
Took it back and swapped it for a desktop, 386sx running Windows 3.(something). It still lives as a track timer on my sons racetrack.
Now all laptops because we are portable people. Lenovo(W7), HP(Vista), Toshiba(XP) and ASUS(W8).
Englischdude
Senior Member
Commodore VIC 20 here!
Texas Instruments TI99 4A.
And a tape recorder for storage.
This was in the early 80s and it cost me $495.
Technology was so fast that before I paid off the TI, it's price was down to $99.
I owed more than what a new one would cost!
But, it did come with 4k RAM! And now, 12GB isn't enough.
And a tape recorder for storage.
This was in the early 80s and it cost me $495.
Technology was so fast that before I paid off the TI, it's price was down to $99.
I owed more than what a new one would cost!
But, it did come with 4k RAM! And now, 12GB isn't enough.
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Mac 512K.
I added memory and an external flappy drive so that I didn't have to continuely eject and insert floppies all the time. Eventually I got a hard drive. I think it was 30 mB or something like that, and it took up a LOT of desk space.
I have a MacBook Pro and iMac at home now. Some junky Dell laptop at work.
I added memory and an external flappy drive so that I didn't have to continuely eject and insert floppies all the time. Eventually I got a hard drive. I think it was 30 mB or something like that, and it took up a LOT of desk space.
I have a MacBook Pro and iMac at home now. Some junky Dell laptop at work.
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SkvLTD
Senior Member
First I've ever used was family 486 laptop, that eventually got 3.1 floppied into it.
Then P2 333 like @gqtuazon, and a slew of random HP/custom ones since.
Now its a Samsung Ultrabook w/ i5, removable 500gb HD and 8gb ram. Integrated graphics, but that hasn't been getting in the way of anything and I hardly ever game anymore.
Then P2 333 like @gqtuazon, and a slew of random HP/custom ones since.
Now its a Samsung Ultrabook w/ i5, removable 500gb HD and 8gb ram. Integrated graphics, but that hasn't been getting in the way of anything and I hardly ever game anymore.
JohnFrench
Senior Member
Mac Plus was the first. Now i use a Toshiba laptop, and a couple of Acer ChromeBooks.
RocketCowboy
Senior Member
My first computer was a 1990 286-12MHz with a whole 1MB of RAM and a 40MB hard drive, running MS-DOS 4.1. It cost as much as my Retina MacBook Pro, but wasn't near as portable.
I later upgraded it to 2MB of RAM to run Windows 3.0, but after that I ended up upgrading to a 386-16 so that Windows would be able to multi-task.
I later upgraded it to 2MB of RAM to run Windows 3.0, but after that I ended up upgrading to a 386-16 so that Windows would be able to multi-task.
donaldjledet
Senior Member
I guess I'm getting old. All I remember it was a apple with 13 inch moniter,back in the 1980.
It could play "Pong" that's all I remember before the state of the art Amiga. From there it was finally a very powerful AMD which could load AOL in under 60 minutes on a good day
In a way it is sad. Amiga could easily have been what Apple is today if they hadn't messed things up that perfectly. I could already multitask when PC still was a typewriter.
Vixen
Senior Member
I came into computers late. I bought my first one in about 1990 after cashing in a life insurance policy that was not worth what I had paid into it. A computer seemed so much better. It was an IBM clone with a 386 operating system and 124mb hard drive which I had double spaced and was eventually running win95 on. I had it for years and years. It was built by amateurs and gave me heaps of trouble. It went back and forth to a number of techs coz it would just randomly die on me. I spent heaps on bits that it supposedly needed replacing as the cause of it's problems and then one day my neighbour (who was a computer tech I discovered) told me to bring it round and he'd look at it. He found that non of the cards in the back were fitted correctly and so kept losing connection with the motherboard. Worked perfectly ever after from that day until I decided enough was enough and bought a new one.
I cut my teeth on that tho. Went up thru windows, all sorts of software, installed new hardware etc.
I cut my teeth on that tho. Went up thru windows, all sorts of software, installed new hardware etc.
sonicbuffalo_RIP
Senior Member
What a history lesson! Brings back memories. I remember working for GE in my high school days, and the computer room was one of the rooms we would have to clean. Their computer took up the equivalent of about 3 normal sized rooms, and the room had to be climate controlled. It ran on reel to reel tapes. I still remember thinking that these guys must be geniuses to be working on something that large. I guess it was the main computer for the entire factory in Salem, Va. I would love to go back and see what happened to that room.
I thought you were younger then that.
For me Commodore 64, Amiga before ending up on PC a 286 I believe.
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
I remember going to Data Processing A-School back in my Navy days (back when "computing" was called data processing) and learning how to use 80-column punch cards and Hollerith code. The infernal Card Reader Punch Interpreter (affectionately known as the "crippy" as much for the letters comprising its name as for the fact it tended to jam if you so much as thought badly of it, which you pretty much always were. Always. Even while making love to your girlfriend. Yeah... Awkward is right) is a device I remain convinced to this day was conceived of, built and distributed by Satan himself or one of his immediate Lieutenants. No other explanation is sufficient to explain this nefarious bit of evil incarnate crafted in steel and thrust upon innocent young men in service to their country or why I have one installed in the spare bedroom of my home...
You see, I like converting modern documents to Hollerith punch cards for fun and leisure. For a few years I converted both my Federal and State Tax Returns to punch cards and submit them in that format, just to mess with the Feds. For a long time my driver's license was comprised of just over 65,000 individual punched cards I kept in the trunk. Back then I'd speed through school zones, not just for the usual thrill of mowing down innocent children with my car like I do now, but also for the added fun of watching a police officer scratch his head as they tried to figure out what exactly to do with all those cards so he could run my license! Hahahahaha!!
Good times, good times indeed...
....
sonicbuffalo_RIP
Senior Member
lol....you're definitely a card carrying member of the Illuminaughty!
I can remember using an IBM computer running DOS. Also had floppy disks. Seems like everything you did you had to change disks all the time. I can also remember getting a computer and learning about what the internet was all about. Can't imagine what things will be like in another 15-20 yrs. Scary.