What was YOUR very first computer?

[Mad-Mike]

Tandy 1000 SX...

- 8088 @6 and 4.77 MHz

- 384K (later 640K) RAM upgraded to play Ultima VI: The False Propohet using Radio Shack's outdated hardback in-store catalogs in 1997 (yes, 97', not 87', 97!)

- 2X 360K Floppy Drives

- 16-color video

- 3 voice Tandy Sound

- tandy CM5 color RGB monitor

- 84 Key Proprietary Tandy keyboard

 

Man I still remember that computer like it was yesterday. My sister gave it to me as a "going away present" when she got married and moved with her sweetie to another part of the state. So I was given this old Tandy as my first computer, and I really used the crap out of it....till the day that it died with an "error I/O of 8253" message on bootup almost 4 years later. Used to play Ultima V and Ultima VI on it, the latter of which was a Sunday morning ritual to get going on such measly hardware (but hey, at least I had 3 channel sound). While everybody else was playing Half Life on PII and III powered Windows 98 boxes, I was pecking away at some DOS relic.

 

Then I wanted more graphics power and a hard drive, and got a 386 SX from a bandmate (I play lead guitar) that I just happened to have some family-friend-aquired and trash-picked parts that would fit, and built myself my first computer that had internet, a 486 DX-33 with 8MB of Ram wind Windows 3.1....in the great golden age of 2001! I was friggin retro/oldskool before it was cool. I still have much of that computer as one of my old DOS gaming rigs.

[Caterpiggle]

My very FIRST computer is Atari 800XL PAL ! My mother brought it for me in Singapore when we were at Singapore in 1984 ! I still have this original PAL Atari 800XL with me ever ! Works like a champ ! I am using PAL/NTSC special monitor via BNC port & audio port !

 

In one day, I will upgrade 1 Mb or 512k on both PAL & NTSC 800XL, 1200XL !

 

I wish my mother took a picture of me and my 800XL PAL when I was back home in 1984 !

[bomberpunk]

some kind of HP (w/ a 13 inch monitor). specs included 1 CD drive, 1 floppy drive, a soundblaster card, windows 95, 500 MB hard drive, and LOLWTF for memory. my best friend's computer had a TURBO BUTTON on it. it went from COMATOSE to NAPPING.

[Keatah]

I'm still debating whether the TI-59 programmable calc counted as a computer or not. And if that's the case, then I could go back earlier to the SR series..

 

And right! What about the VCS with BASIC PROGRAMMING and KEYBOARD CONTROLLERS? I was programming on that almost right away! Or are with sticking with the traditional sense of a computer, as in keyboard,monitor,console-box, and perhaps peripherals?

[Grig]

I don't remember - was there any way to save your Basic programs from the 2600? My first thought is to say no.

[Gabriel]

My first computer was a Vic-20 with a datasette. I spent lots of time programming little BASIC games, utilities, and animations. When I wasn't using it for that I was playing my tiny selection of cartridge games: Jupiter Lander, Gorf, and Choplifter.

[Tanrunomad]

Apple IIGS. Got it around 1989/90.

[the.golden.ax]

Adam was the first in the early 1980s. Then a Tandy 1000 in the late 1980s. Then things heated up quickly. Got a Tandy 1100FD laptop, a 386 (don't recall the brand) the a Packard Bell 486 SX33, then a DX, then on the of first Pentium 60s, all in about a 2 or 3 year period. At that point I was upgrade crazy. It's a blur after that moving up through the ranks to MMX, Dual processors, P2, P3, then P4 in about 2003... and I stopped. Dead in the tracks. I got a few laptops in there but I've not had a new desktop in almost a decade.

[JohnnyRockets]

My first computer infatuation? Commodore Pet that cost $3000.

 

Couldn't get my parents too excited about that one...

 

Finally got that awesome amazing: VIC-20 bought with Christmas money for $79.99

 

 

JR

[Aquaman]

I started with an Unimex - Mark-V / B Pong game system, moved up to a Philips Videopac (Oddyssey2 for people outside the EU) and after that the first real computer was a Mattel Aquarius.

[yerzmyey]

It was TIMEX COMPUTER 2048.

[dr. kwack]

Commodore 64! Loved it and should have never sold it in college. Just got a 64C last month and am rebuilding the library of fave titles.

 

Also have fond memories of my 6th grade classroom's Apple II. I remember taking in an issue of Mad magazine that had a program lisiting in it that would draw Alfred E Newman on the screen. My buddies and I worked on that for weeks!

[ClausB]

I'm still debating whether the TI-59 programmable calc counted as a computer or not. And if that's the case, then I could go back earlier to the SR series..

 

Absolutely it counts! Which TI SR programmable was your first?

 

Mine was the SR-56: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/195379-what-was-your-very-first-computer/?do=findComment&comment=2485184

[Keatah]

I still have my SR-52, box, dox, everything.

[macgoo]

VIC20. Which stopped working after 9 weeks so I swapped it for a C64.

[cncfreak]

Thought I would chime in on the history of me and computers:

 

Very first computer: Timex Sinclair 1000 (was given to me, never could get it to work) mid 80's

Ti-994/a (no drives of any kind but i programmed on it for hours and hours loving every minute of it) mid 80's

Saved my money and with some help from my parents got an Atari 65xe, 1050 driver, printer and Amdex color monitor (prolly my best memories) 1986

Commodore 64 setup (prolly spent over $1500.00 on games over it's lifetime as a teenager / young adult) 89-92

KLH 386sx 16mhz 2 megs of ram (my first PC and sold it to a friend) 92-94

PC clone 486dx 33 (bought from a friend who built it for me) 94-???

[onthinice]

Vic-20 - My Mom saves everthing so I still have the box with the $89.99 price sticker from Montgomery Ward.

1530 - $69.99 also from Montgomery Ward.

 

Then later the Commodore 128 Childrens Palace sticker $268.86. Seems like an odd price but I guess it isn't $269.00.

[+wood_jl]

Vic-20 - My Mom saves everthing so I still have the box with the $89.99 price sticker from Montgomery Ward.

1530 - $69.99 also from Montgomery Ward.

 

Ahhh, this brings back old memories of shopping at "Monkey Ward!" I had almost forgotten about that store. Early/mid-80s memories - similar to Sears stores: Mom/Dad can spend as much time as they'd like, browsing "boring" things like clothes and housewares, and they'll always know where to find me.....in the videogame/computer section of the store.

[+stephena]

Commodore 64 with a Datasette. It was about two years later before I could afford a 1541-II floppy drive, and when I got it, it was like upgrading to a new computer. Everything was so fast Of course I later found out that the 1541 is gimped on a C64. My current 128D with JIffyDOS runs circles around it. I used it for gaming of course, but also started to learn programming (in BASIC). Computer itself was pretty cheap, but the drive cost well over $200 back then, much more than the system itself.

 

My first (what I consider) real computer was the next one; an Amiga 500. I learned C programming on that one. Cost $700, and took a year of saving from a paper route to buy it.

[IAMAMRA]

If I remember right the computer that was MINE was a 486dx....my sister got a new Dell with windows 95! So I got her old computer. Growi up though we had all sorts of computers in the house as my dad ran a software company.

[OBO]

Thomson MO6

6809, 1mhz

160x200 16c with 4096c palette

320x200 16c/4096c with spectrum-like proximity issue

640x200 2c

Cassette drive

RGB output on TV via SCART

and... 1 sound channel on 3 octaves.

[macgoo]

I've played quite a few Thomson M05 games actually, they were quite Sinclair Spectrum/MSX ish looking but some nice games on it. Might record and upload some to Youtube one day.

[Briza1]

Mine was a Vic-20 with the Ram expansions, Mult-expander slots, tape drive, and Joysticks. Miss that machine should never have traded it for a bird cage and birds, But aye I was a kid back then. if I could go back I would have never did it

Then at X-mas 86 coco 3 with tape deck and a couple games, later on the full works Cm-8, Games, Os-9 lvl 2, disk drives and hard drive setup etc, still use it today to hack the gime chip to see what it can do

then around 87 my Father brought home a Tandy 1000, tried using it, found it boring as hell lolz. I had more fun with my fathers CPM based computer that used those massive 8 inch drives talk about noisy and clunky while it read or writes to floppy. And the printer it used was massive had a feature to make it quiet, yeah right it would shake the table all over the place and was noisy as hell, so we used it with the standard power mode and found it was half as noisy and rocky.

Then I got a Amiga 500 with a 512k ram expansion and games galore it is since now been stripped to pieces etc as it does not work anymore

[OBO]

I've played quite a few Thomson M05 games actually, they were quite Sinclair Spectrum/MSX ish looking but some nice games on it. Might record and upload some to Youtube one day.

 

Yeah, but I'm talking about the MO6, the STE of the MO5

It has some specific games (Bactron, MGT, Space Racer...) better looking than a MO5 game (Bactron & MGT are graphically very close to the Amstrad CPC, the issue being with crappy sound, and lack of processor power for animations).

But that's a common trait of the whole Thomson computer lines, they originally were intended for schools...

[guyjin]

Depends on your definition of your, and computer.

 

First thing that involved a computer was my older brother's Atari VCS. We had a 4 switch woodgrain one as far as I can remember.

 

First computer I used was, like most american public school students in the 80s, an apple ][. Dunno if it was plus or e or what, but it was one of those beige wedges.

 

As I became more fascinated with those beige wedges, I started wanting one of my own. My parents tried to placate me; first with a Vtech learning window (which was fun, but limited, and I promptly lost the cards) and a Vtech Socrates a few years later. (A tremendously bad deal, BTW; at launch, it cost the same as a XEGS, which would have been more useful, fun, and educational; the only thing I could stand doing on the Socrates was drawing.)

 

Between the LW and the Socrates, I got a NES for my birthday. First thing with a CPU in it that was mine. Also during that period, I encountered the first and only Commodore PET I ever used.

 

Finally, my parents caved. My middle school had 2 computer labs, one with networked IIGSes, the other had networked PS/2S. I thought the IIGSes were better, and asked for one. Dad goes to the store and brings home... a Packard Bell 386SX. VGA, 2MB ram, 1 each of 3.5 and 5.25 drives, a hard drive, and a built in speaker. Family's first computer.

 

It had... issues. Enjoyed QBASIC and a few games; Castles 2 was a favorite. Did word processing. It had a very simple GUI that was really just a DOS launcher. There were constant, but minor, problems.

 

A decade (and another PC) later, I bought parts for, and assembled, my first computer. It was an AMD based PC system, that used socket A, IIRC. Windows 98. It was pretty awesome.