21 replies to this topic

[George Costanza]

What was your first computer?

Mine was a Packard Bell I think 233 Mgz and 1.2 hard drive. The thing was a monster
I do miss it and it was a 56.6 k modem

[Klort]

Mine was a Leading Edge 386SL-25 laptop with 640 x 480 colour screen. It had a very unusual J mouse - just twist it around, like you'd do to a eraser mouse sticking in the middle of a laptop. I forgot what to call that kind of mouse... It did not come with a modem. I had a separate 28.8k modem. However, it did have a high-capacity 80MB hard drive with 640K RAM. Boy, I was the talk of the town!

[Chiquito]

VIC-20, 1 MHz 8 Bit processor, 4 k of RAM and a cassette drive, hooked to a TV.
CPM thing that weight about 80 lbs and had an 8" floppy. 32 k RAM card.
Apple IIc, whopping 128k RAM, still a 1 MHz 8 bit processor, first mouse I had.
PC clone, 640k is enough for anyone. Got a 32 MB hard drive after a year or so. First modem I had too, 300 bps.
.
.
.
64 Bit, 2.3 GHz processor, 2 GB Ram, ~2 Terabyte Disk Space, 24 inch LCD true color. Linux (Debian at the moment). Cost half what my PC clone did, one fourth of the Apple.
.
.
.
What's next?

[George Costanza]

When I was a young lad my cousins lived on Cape Cod it was a long trek but I longed for his Apple computer to play Choplifter and loderunner. He also had Odessey2 game system and we would play pick axe pete and KC munchin all day
I also remember when the Amiga came out and I was like wow nothing can beat these graphics!!

[Chiquito]

I went to a party when young, everyone gathered around the TV, waiting a turn to play

pong.

I feel old.

[galvezis]

My first PC was a home made tower that my dad bought me when I turned 18. He bought it from my uncle who was a "computer guru". It had an AMD something or other (less than 1 gig speed for sure!) with a CD-RW (a slow one), 128 RAM, 10 gig HDD and a 56k modem with free internet (at the time). My dad bought it for 500 bucks. This was in 1999...what a deal---NOT!

It surved it's purpose because from there on I learned my way up the computer field and designed my own monster...haven't looked back yet...still trying to create the best Frankestein I can!

[George Costanza]

my second computer was still working up till last year, it was a compaq i think 1.2 mhz and 12 gig hard drive it was the second model to feature a firewire port 1394.
I was using it as a second option just for surfing the net and digging up old files.
Out of the blue it just stopped working. I took the hard drive out and could use some of the old files any idea on how to get that bugger to work ?

[galvezis]

Have u tried installing the hard drive in another PC just to get the old files?

If the original PC stopped working what exactly did it do? Did it now want to power on? Does it power on but u get an error message?

[GreyGhost]

My first machine was a mac Performa 575 with a blazing 33 MHz processor & whopping 250 MB hard drive. It retailed for $2200 in 1994.

[richsinc]

Does a Radio Shack pong game count?

And then a Atari game thing; then a Sinclair2000; then a Commodore 64, which was GREAT! Even did accounting and spread-sheets for the HOA and my Mom's stocks on that thing; probably the greatest machine per k ever!

And then a door stop, like George said, Packard Bell; still have that in a box as reserve as my old faithful 10 year+old e-Machine makes noises from a cold boot. I leave it on stand-by and so far so good.

[tjblogvistor]

An Olivetti Programma 101 that we had at the computer lab in HS in 1975.

[Aztec Eagle]

What was your first computer?

Mine was a Packard Bell I think 233 Mgz and 1.2 hard drive. The thing was a monster
I do miss it and it was a 56.6 k modem

You really got me thinking there i could not remember the name of it but after a little research i remember it was arround 1982 my Dad got it for me i was not sure what it was but i knew i could play games on it, it was second hand and had lots of cartridges and you use to hook it up to the TV i think i was probably the first kid in my Colonia to have a PC, it was the ATARI 400 Released: November 1979
Price: US $549.95
CPU: MOS 6502,1.8MHz
RAM: 8K base, 48K max
Display: 24 X 40 text
320 x 192 monochrome
160 x 96 with 128 colors
Expansion: 2 internal expansion slots
1 cartridge slot under front cover
Ports: 4 controller ports
TV video output
Storage: external floppy drive
cassette recorder
OS: Atari OS


http://oldcomputers.net/atari400.html

I also remember my dad got me a PONG console wich i use to play against him and remember wining 1 dollar from him the very first day,dude im old... well i still play my PS2.

[fatboy]

my second computer was still working up till last year, it was a compaq i think 1.2 mhz and 12 gig hard drive it was the second model to feature a firewire port 1394.
I was using it as a second option just for surfing the net and digging up old files.
Out of the blue it just stopped working. I took the hard drive out and could use some of the old files any idea on how to get that bugger to work ?

I just had a laptop stop working and an external hard drive stop working (connected to a separate computer) within the same week.

I just downloaded some free antivirus from the internet and ran it on both computers. Now, they both work fine. Whew. I thought it was going to be more complicated and expensive to fix.

[Nighty]

The first computer I ever used I was like 8 or 9 years old... In the school I was going it was like OMG computer class wow!! It was one of those with monocromatic bright orange or green fonts with a black background, and I had no idea how it was supposed to work!! And apparently teacher didn't either hehehe...

Needless to say back then I didnt know anything about RAM, or HD or anything! So I have no idea what kind of computer it was I just remember it was HUGE lol

[Scribbles]

TRS-80 with all the fixings! This was put out by Tandy aka Radio Shack and this was in the before the Pentiums took over the market! I spent thousands on that powerhorse.

[tijuanamike]

Wow, mine was a Packard Bell back in 1994. I can't remember the specifics anymore but I remember it cost $2000 back then. It had a 28k modem though. How things change in 14 years.

[Scooby]

Commodore 64

[Baja_Scott]

mine was a Commador 64...ancient....but cool

[LinuxRay]

Mine was a commodore 64 used one I got from a swap meet, I had to pick between a computer or colecovision (video game system) http://en.wikipedia....ki/ColecoVision I chose the video game. The one I really wanted when I was a child though was the coleco Adam http://en.wikipedia....iki/Coleco_Adam , man that was so cool back than, It used to hook up to the colecovision and had cassete decks, I tried my best to convince my parents and drop hints kinda like Ralphie from Christmas Story. My Mom said when I got older and got a job I could buy whatever computer I wanted. So my first one as an adult was a Tandy 1000 RL/Hd http://en.wikipedia....D.2C_RLX.2C_RSX it came with Deskmate as the OS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeskMate I even bought a dot matrix printer, man I was in heaven. Of course by than the ADAM was obsolete as was my Tandy not too long after, I think I bought it around 1990, right before evil Micro$oft monopolized the OS world. Oh I do have to add I had that PC til 1996. I think I may still have it packed away somewhere in my Mom's house.

[Cyanide41]

+1 on The commodore 64. That was the family's. My dad got me a Macintosh Classic II.

Full Specifications

* CPU: 16 MHz (15.6672 MHz) Motorola 68030 (32-bit wide)
* FPU: Motorola 68882 (optional)
* ROM: 512 KB
* RAM: 2 MB, expandable to 10 MB using two 100 ns 30-pin SIMMs
* Display: 9" b&w screen, 512 x 342 pixels
* Audio: 8-bit mono 22Khz
* Hard drive: 40 or 80 MB
* Floppy: 1.4 MB double sided
* Size (HxWxD): 13.2" x 9.7" x 11.2"
* Weight: 16 lb.
* Gestalt ID: 23
* Addressing: 24-bit or 32-bit
* Battery: 3.6 V lithium
* Expansion slots: none†
* Upgrade path: none

Then one day he brought home a 300Baud modem and I discovered Bulletin Board Systems. It's been all down hill from there.