80's computers into the 90's

[deadmeow]

I am curious whoever here used a 1980's released computers into the 90's as there primary/top computer? I know most people with Atari ST's or Amigas, or Apple IIgs probably used their machines into the 90's, but I am curious how deep into the 90's.

 

My Apple IIgs was my primary computer from 1987 to 1996. I bought a USR Courier HST 9600 baud modem in 1986 for my Apple IIe for like 699, which I used when I bought my IIgs. In 1995 I got online on the internet first through a BBS, and threw a shell account on a unix box they call it?

 

I had to get familar with UNIX having never used it before, but it was fun. I had access to everything I needed, text web browsing, FTP, telnet, email through PINE, and of course IRC! That was the most fun back then.

 

I finally got a windows pc in 1996. I am proud to say I have been in computing for about 24 years, and have never used a MSDOS machine. I could never understand why somebody would want a boxy, no style looking IBM compat, with an even worse OS! blah!

[Crazy Climber]

The guy I bought my C64 from still used it into 2003 as his only computer for his accounting buisness. You should have seen all the floppy's this dude had. His wife bought him a new computer and made him get rid of it. Worked good for me since I got a nice 64 with plenty of extras for 20 bucks

[Lemmi]

humm i bought my atari 800xl in 1996 played it once to see if it worked and put it back in the box

then in december 1999 i bought my first windows machine (Emachines 433i celeron) just to play Everquest online, and since all my friends were on EQ i didnt learn how to use my email untill late in 2000

and in the year 1999 it was the first time i really even touched a modern computer of any kind

 

i also have an IBM computer i got from my step dad but i have no idea if it even works anymore

 

 

but i have been videogaming for about 27 years

Edited January 10, 2007 by Lemmi

[jaybird3rd]

My Atari 8-bit computers were my primary workhorses from the mid-80s until about 1994 (my junior year in high school). I had moved most of my work over to the PC by that time, although I had been using the two platforms side-by-side since I got my first PC (an Atari PC-4) around 1990. I still have all those machines, too.

[TailChao]

I was using my Apple ][gs well into 1995 before any sort of PC entered the house. Even after that, I used it to type essays until around 1999. Although this is probably explainable since I was born in 88'

It's still up and running, and I'll occasionally sit down with it to play Dragon Wars (which is a blast now that I have an HDD) or mess around with AppleBasic.

[Lord Thag]

I used my good ol' beige Atari 800 well into the 90's, even after I had my first PC.

 

Erm, I'm still using it....

 

I also have a IIgs as well. AWESOME system. I particularly like Bard's Tale. I have just about everything on disk. The arcade ports on that system were the bomb shiggity.

Edited January 10, 2007 by Lord Thag

[Rybags]

My Amiga served until the late 90's although I didn't use it much after about '95.

 

I've only owned up-to-date Windows compatible machines for about the last 6 years. Before that was a '386 which mainly gathered dust.

 

That's the home scene, anyway.

 

Being in the IT industry for much of the last 20 years means that the computers at home were almost exclusively for gaming/leisure (until the internet became a big thing).

[Uzumaki]

Commodore 64 was still my primary until I got a Macintosh late 1993. It wouldn't be until early 2001 when PC took the lead as primary (cheaper) but I still toy with C64 and Macintosh once in a while.

[Tempest]

My Apple IIe was my main computer from 1986 to 1993ish when I finally got an IBM. I still like Appleworks over Word...

 

Tempest

[deadmeow]

I always prefered Word Perfect on the Apple. On IBM PC Word Perfect used to also be king, but was overtaken eventually by MS Word thanks to the MS stranglehold on the IBM OS.

 

I still use WordPerfect on my PC to this day. I installed MS Office for college, because I had to but that was it!

[Video]

Well, I got a C64 in the mid 80's, and it was my primary computer for years. We did get an actual Tandy like 1990 or so, but it sucked, so it was never used. in 96, we got our first PC I think it was a 133 (maybe 233) and it was pretty cool, as it was the first computer I got online with. Modems for the 64 were expensive, and never sold here, and I find it funny that I can get a decent mid-top line computer now for less than I could get a 12000 modem for in the 80's

[+FujiSkunk]

The first computer I could truly call my own was an Apple II... given to me in 1990. Several book reports and other school projects were done on that machine.

 

Not too long after that I acquired my first Commodore 64, which for a while served as my only link to the Internet when I was home from college. A 300baud modem connecting to the college's telnet system... it was a miracle the college system's modems could actually match that speed.

 

It wasn't until 1996 that I finally acquired a computer with technology that could be considered "current."

[candiru]

We had a 386DX that my brother-in-law built for us out of spare parts around 92-93, about the same time that the first Pentiums were the new thing. It saw heavy use playing Wolfenstein 3D and Scorched Earth. I also used it to write a few papers for school.

 

My younger sister took it to college with her and used it for at least the first year, mostly for writing papers. That would have put the end of its regular usage about 2001. I think my mom still has it in her shed.

[+SpiceWare]

In the 80s I had a VIC20, followed by the 64, 128 and finally an Amiga.

 

During my junior year of highchool (82-83) I start wrote my own BBS software for my VIC 20, utilizing a combination of machine language and BASIC. I didn't have an assembler - my machine language routines were written on paper then converted to BASIC DATA statements and finally POKEd into RAM. It went online when I finally got a floppy drive at the start of 83(a BBS wouldn't run well using a cassette tape for storage ). Over time I migrated my BBS software to the 64 and the 128 and added real-time music, sprite animation, character animation, and joystick control - video demo of MusicTerm

 

In the late 80s I had started migrating the BBS software to the Amiga when I discovered the internet while attending the University of Houston. There was no web back then, we used email, news groups, FTP sites, and gophers. Instead of google we used Archie and Veronica. I frequented NASA a lot, they had a huge selection of Amiga files on their FTP site.

 

I used the Amiga thru the end of 94 when I bought a Pentium 60 PC and installed OS/2 Warp on it - after the Amiga I couldn't take the step backward to run Windows 3.1.

 

In the late 90s I started to use Linux along with OS/2 - I still have an Xwindows and OS/2 page up on my old site.

 

In 2003 a friend gave me an old PowerMac G3 with OS X on it to see what Apple had been up to. I'd used Macs a job in the past, and while I liked the GUI, I didn't like the lack of a command line. OS X fixed that and then some I run OS/2 and Linux on occasion via Parallels on my MacBook.

[mos6507]

I kept using my 130XE through college as a word processor (circa 1992). I then moved to an Amiga in 1993 and then got my first PC in 1998.

 

IMHO, PCs were overpriced and boring before Windows 95 and decent graphics cards came out.

Edited January 11, 2007 by mos6507

[FastRobPlus]

Amiga was a viable graphics workstation into the mid 90s, and I did use one for that role in a fairly large software dev house.

[BydoEmpire]

I used my Amiga 500 as my main computer until 1991, when I got a 386. I guess 90-91 counts as "into the 90s." =)

 

I also have a IIgs as well. AWESOME system. I particularly like Bard's Tale.

One of my friend's family got a IIgs. He had Bard's Tale and we were totally blown away (I had it for the c64). It was awesome. He didn't have too many other games for it, though.

[bfutrel]

My first computer was a Coleco Adam, purchased in 1987. I used that for two years or so, then bought a Commodore 128D. That was used for another 2-3 years until I bought a Tandy 1000EX running DOS v2.1.

 

Over the years I've used DOS (MS-DOS and DR-DOS), OS/2 v2.1 to v4, then Win95 and up. I started with Macs in 1999, and used some of the older ones (SE, Classic) through 2000-2001. Does that count?

[mos6507]

Amiga is kind of borderline in this discussion because the last AGA Amigas were really 1990s. When I got my Amiga it was an Amiga 1200. It was amazing how snappy the GUI was on a 14mhz 68020 (at least as long as you didn't use an 8-bit desktop). I edited Stella at 20 on a Toaster/Flyer system with an Amiga 1200 at its core and a special trapdoor/parallel-port expansion that restored the Zorro and video slots, a machine that Joe Decuir himself bankrolled. A pity how unstable the OS is (due to lack of memory protection). When run off of floppies it's stable, but once you load an Amiga HD up with a lot of software, it's inevitable that some badly coded piece will trigger a system-wide crash leaving you to play a game of detective, especially likely with a mammoth suite of software like the Toaster/Flyer.

[crunchysuperman]

Still an exclusive Commodore 64/128 user until around '97.

[Student Driver]

I used my Commodore 128 until 1996 or so. I used Novaterm 9.something to get online. Thank God for Lynx. It was pretty entertaining when friends on ISCA and other telnet BBSes found out I was using a Commodore. It had a beefed-up power supply, increased video RAM, a 1084s monitor, an REU, an HDD, a bank of 1571s and 1541s (and one 1581!), and a second-hand Apple laser printer for use with GeoPublish. Served me quite well; the only reason I finally joined the PC camp (with a used Zenith Data Systems 386) was because I really wanted to use Mosaic when online.

 

For occasional game playing use, I kept my Apple IIc and Atari 600xl hooked up.

 

I actually joined the Amiga camp a little after the PC camp-- in one month, I snagged a 500, a 600, and an old-school 1000. Also in that month, I scored rather massive Atari 800xl and TI-99/4a set-ups. And to think I wondered at the time why my (then) wife was getting ticked off with my hobby...

[Prodos8]

I used an IBM PS/2 Model 80 (386 class) machine runing PC-DOS until around 1995. When the DOS stuff started fast drying up, I finally broke down and bought a pentium so I could run windows effeciently.

[icbrkr]

I used my C64 as a primary machine until late 1993 when I got an Amiga. The Amiga served me until 1996.

[+HatNJ]

My trusty Atari 800 I got in 79 was/is in use full time til about 85 when I got a C=128 both are in use today but shifted to the PC with a Tandy 1000sx abt when it came out year eludes me (that Id like to get running again but fear the worst)

Edited January 13, 2007 by HatNJ