what was your first computer ?

[hd0642]

i just turned 39 last month and i grew up when the pc was really in its infancy stage. the only true pc was the IBM and there were no windows, DOS was the operating system. it was around '82 when i got my first computer, a comodore 64 and the graphics really blew away the IBM. i can still remember being into the system that included the keyboard, disk drive, modem and tape drive for around $1000, it just plugged into any tv set. it was the dawn of the early ststems that included the apple IIe(the very first windows type OS), atari 2600 gaming console, 5200, 800, colecovision and the commodeore family of the 64 and VIC. i then upgraded to an atari 520ST in the later 80's right when IBM clones began to emerge. i remember compaq was one of the really early players in the IBM clone market

nowadays you really cant find a true IBM and the word clone is really nonexistant. Atari and commodore is extinct and apple is playing second fiddle to the "clones" there are $250 laptops that are more powerfull than the fully blown systems of the 80's.

just thinking of the yesteryears and how the PC has really emerged.

[ThisIsNot]

Warning, this could get pretty long. I am waiting for our RO system to concentrate water so I have a few hours of downtime that I need to fill. So I will give you a brief history of all the computers that I have owned throughout my history.

I am not as old as you (I will be 25 here by the end of August) but I have some fond memories of older computers. I first system was an Apple IIe. It was quite impressive and expensive as it came with a joystick, two button mouse, two 5.25" floppy drives, a "print shop" program, and a printer. I think that set my parents back by $3000 back in the day. It was revision B of the computer that was released in 1983. I didn't start using it until 1989 when I was older. Still, after all of those years, it was cutting edge. All of my friends had systems made by other manufacturers (HP, IBM, etc.) and they couldn't really do anything with them. I could play games, copy games, and so on.

I also had a launch NES system. I was two whenever my parents purchased it for me but I started playing it at the ages of 3 and 4. I still remember one of my friends breaking a controller. We were playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III - The Manhattan Project. The game had 6 continues for each player. I had two other friends (they were brother and sister) who would come over in the morning and we would walk to school together (elementary school was right across the street). Anyway, we would always play about 20 minutes of "Nintendo" before school. We were playing that Turtles game when one of my friends lost his life. The rule was that he and his sister had to switch between each other. It was my console so I didn't have to share my controller. He didn't want his sister to play as we were right at a boss point. He threw down the controller in anger and it broke open. His Mother was ticked as she had to buy a $50 controller for me. He never got to play my console.

Anyway, I upgraded to a Sega Genesis in 1991 so I stopped focusing on computers. I would really only use computers for gaming so there was no point in me continuing to use them especially with the graphics that the NES offered. I became a Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II junky (never got into the third one, I thought it was too much like a cartoon). I upgraded over the years to the Sega CD and Sega 32X (I actually purchased a 32X when it launched from KB Toys for $30, it came with 4 games as well). I ended up purchasing a large portion of the 32X library simply because the games were cheaper than the Genesis or CD versions and they looked better.

It wasn't until 1994 whenever I started using computers again. That was when I got my first taste of Windows 3.11. It was on an old IBM PC running a 486 processor. It came with 16MB of RAM, a VESA video card, and I thought it had a 5GB hard drive. My Mom purchased it from someone who was selling them out of the trunk of their car at her school. The guy actually worked for IBM, he just wanted to unload them since the release of Windows 95 (and hence, the beginning of the end of DOS era computing) was just around the corner.

My grandparents ended up buying the computer from us after we installed Windows 95, that was in 1997. My parents took that money and put it towards a new Gateway desktop. It came with a 17" CRT Monitor (that thing was huge at the time), a 266MHz Pentium II processor with MMX technology, 128MB of RAM, an AGP (2X) dedicated graphics card with 8MB of dedicated RAM, a 10GB hard drive, and a 16X optical drive. All of that was about $3000. The computer came with Windows 95 installed on it but Gateway later sent us the full copy of Windows 98 (that was part of the agreement whenever we purchased the computer).

Just like with the other computer, we sold it to my grandparents a couple years later and upgraded to a desktop running Windows 98. It had a Pentium II 533MHz (or maybe it was 666MHz or 800MHz, I can't really remember as that was oh so long ago) processor with 128MB of RAM, a 12GB hard drive, a dedicated graphics card with 16GB of RAM, a DVD-ROM, and a 19" CRT monitor. I believe that was in 1998.

That computer was able to last us for a while and we didn't upgrade until years later. I had a Sega Genesis for gaming so I kind of stopped gaming on the PC. Also, due to the fall of the Genesis, I was able to pick up the entire Sega CD library and a good chunk of the Genesis library for extremely low prices. I remember when KB Toys was still around. I purchased all of the Sega 32X games except for 4 of them on one day, I spent $75 doing that. I then went back and picked up the remaining Sega CD titles (I only had Sonic CD so I think I had to purchase 20 more games) for $50. Lastly, I went back when they were closing down and purchased almost all of their Sega Genesis titles. I spent $120 that day but walked away with over 80 games (I didn't purchase the kiddy games). So I had a bunch of games that I still didn't play. I didn't mind being stuck in an older generation as those were some great games. I didn't get into the PlayStation, N64, or Sega Saturn/Dreamcast.

My computing needs were basic. I only ever used a computer for surfing the internet (on its amazing 38k modem!), typing up Word documents, and printing pictures (that came at a later date). Even back then, that didn't require much computing power. It also didn't help that my Mom was getting new technology in her classroom. If I ever needed a more powerful computer (which rarely ever happened), I would just hop on over to her classroom.

It wasn't until 2002 whenever I upgraded. That is when I purchased a desktop computer running a 2GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of RAM, a 15" LCD monitor (that thing was nice as LCD monitors by themselves used to go for $500) and it came with an ATI 9600 (or something like that) AGP GPU with 64MB of dedicated memory. The hard drive was also 80GB in size and it came with a 24X CD-RW drive and a 2X DVD+-R/RW drive (no dual-layer support). This was the first time that I purchased the computer by myself. It set me back by $1500, it also came with Windows XP (my first taste of a new OS since Windows 98). I still use that desktop today. I have since upgraded the GPU to an Nvidia option, it is their last card that was released using the AGP connection so I think that it was a 5000 series. I also put 2GB of RAM in it (I had to upgrade the BIOS to do this), upgraded the processor to a Pentium 4 2GHz model with HT technology, and slapped a 250GB hard drive in there (that is all that the BIOS and the IDE connection type supports). I recently installed Windows 7 RC on there, it has been my Mom's computer for 4 years now. The thing still runs like it does the same day I purchased it despite the interior being covered in a thick layer of dust.

I moved onto a notebook in 2005 after handing off the upgraded desktop to my Mom. It was a Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2 notebook with a 17" 1080p LCD monitor, Pentium M 2GHz processor, Intel Centrino technology, a 120GB hard drive (which I later upgraded to 250GB), 512MB of RAM (which I later upgraded to 2GB), a Nvidia 6800 Ultra GPU with 256MB of GDDR2 dedicated memory and a PCI-Express (x16) connection, and even bluetooth 2.0. That notebook came with Windows XP but I put Windows Vista Professional (it was free) on it by performing a clean install. The notebook died in 2008 shortly after the three year warranty expired. I don't know what triggered the notebook, it just turned off one day and hasn't come back on.

Luckily, I had a job by then and they gave me an older tablet PC to use. It runs an Intel Core Duo processor (which means that it is 32-bit only) that operates at 1.6GHz, has 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, is currently running Windows 7 (it came with XP Tablet edition), and some cheap Intel integrated graphics solution. The nice thing is that it uses a high capacity 6-cell battery so that I can get about 3 hours of real world use out of the battery. That was actually a long time back in the day. My Dell notebook came with a 12 cell battery that stuck out of the back, it would get 2 hours of operation using that.

I have since saved up my money and had a friend help me build a new computer. It is running an Asus server line motherboard with two Phenom X4 processors that clock in at 2.6GHz each. It also had 8 RAM slots with each one packed with 1GB. I have it packed with two ATI HD 4850 GPUs using ATI crossfire with each one hooked up to a PCI Express x16 slot. They also come with 1GB of GDDR3 RAM. Lastly, there is a 2TB hard drive in there and I have paired it up with a 25" LCD widescreen monitor. The whole thing set me back my $1000. The most expensive aspects were the motherboard and monitor, the rest was relatively inexpensive. I really only use that computer for video editing. It was out of commission for the past month due to an error but I was able to fix it up. It is mainly hooked up to my LCD HDTV and I use it for the playback of my media. The hard drive is nearly filled with Blu-ray rips, DVD rips, and all sorts of other video content. My wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse allow me to use it while sitting down in the couch. The only bad thing is that I still haven't put a wi-fi card in it. I have to run an ethernet cable every time I want to connect to the internet.

I mainly use my work issued tablet PC for browsing the internet due to it being portable enough that I can lay back in bed and use it.

Anyway, that is where I am at now. I hope that wasn't too long. I have an HP Mini 110XP on order with an estimated build date of August 4th (it has been pushed back a few times).

My first computer was a windows 95 equipped IBM desktop. It crashed ten times a day because I would play with system files and do anything to it. Playing and crashing do go together! It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about recovering from problems. I would create the same problem over and over to find a variety of ways to recover.

I then bought a Toshiba notebook. It was just right for my new travel lifestyle. Thin and light. External DVD. Almost like the netbook I have now but a lot slower, smaller hard drive, and less RAM.

Five years ago I bought a used IBM desktop and started running Linux. That was a rock solid setup and lots of fun. It was a high maintenance hobby.

Four years ago I kept reading about Macs being such great graphics computers. I studied them for a year and could not see how they could possibly be that good. One day three years ago I decided I had to try it with hands on and bought a Mac. Sure enough, the hardware was not that good. However, I went to Mac notebooks for the software and still run them.

This year I bought an ASUS 1000HE netbook because my family and friends were running Windows and I was increasingly unable to help them with restore and tips even though I was active in computing. I'm just trying to learn XP and now Windows 7. The netbook was cheap but I just could not figure out what to do with it for the longest time. I'm just now getting into it.

[netkid]

My gosh that is long @This is Not
Nice post!

I am young lol so I still have my first pc, a dell dimension 2400. Still works good though getting Ubuntu to run on it was tricky and I got bored with it since I got my eeepc.

[ericinboston]

first computer I owned was an Apple //e in 1983 when I was 13. First computer I used was a TI 994A before the Apple //e.

I hated the Mac until 2007.

The oldest computer I used was likely the VAX/VMS system.

[hd0642]

your the exact same age as me, we came up through the earliest days of the PC

[ericinboston]

Originally Posted by hd0642

your the exact same age as me, we came up through the earliest days of the PC

Yes. And not to sound snobbish to others here...but if you were like me who continued to love computers and electronics, you probably have a superior level of understanding how electronics (especially hardware working with software) work...and can deduce problems blindfolded without even knowing what operating system is installed...and you probably are wondering how "everyone else" in this world has, in reality, no clue how computers work and thus how to leverage them.

Am I right?

[hd0642]

.......actually not really in my case, my little nieces can run circles around me. it seems to me that these little kids that grew up before the dawn of the pc catch on much quicker than us(at least me) old timers.

[kimmyb67]

My first computer was an IBM. Just DOS also but I knew all the commands by heart!

Then Windows 3.1 (was it 3.1?) came along and that changed how we interacted with computers.

[johnpaulmathew]

Intel PIII