What was your first computer?

[RetrogradeOrbit]

Thought this might get some interesting answers. I'll start...

The first computer I got to make use of was a Sinclair ZX81 around 1981/2 but the first computer I owned was a 48k Sinclair Spectrum which I bought in 1984.
Using this I learnt my first bits of computer programming with Sinclair Basic and went on to dabble into a bit of Machine Code.

The first game I bought for it was "Star Trek 3000" by dk'tronics

 

[hopefuldreamer]

Grew up with Acorn's in school (British computer company, schools were full of these comps in the late 80's early 90's while I was at school). Don't ask me the model or anything lol, but I know there was a slot for a big and small floppy disk in them, but no cd slot yet. I miss the games as well... you know the kind where it's just this basic pixelated picture and writing along the bottom saying 'do you want to go left or right' 'you've run into a troll, what do you want to do' and you have to write in 'Use broomstick' or 'Open door'. Simple times

This brings back memories:

My first computer at home was a Packard Bell one I think, with Windows 97 on it.

 

[O_B_Juan]

The Atari 800.

 

[ComicChick]

all i remember is that it was a Packard Bell that ran Windows 3.1

 

[Anubis]

A Compaq Presario Desk Top.

 

[Ultra Lantern]

My first and current computer is a Dell.

 

[The Amazing Lee]

Commadore 64.

 

[elgaz]

Amstrad CPC 464, then followed by an Acorn Archimedes A3010. Then moved onto PCs, think I had a 386 first followed by a succession of P3s/P4s/etc. Luckily I have been working in IT for 10 years so I've basically been using very good spec work-supplied laptops for that time, and haven't had to spend any money on computers myself. Gf bought me an iPad last Xmas too, so struck lucky again

 

[RetrogradeOrbit]

My computer chronology...

48k ZX Spectrum (around 1984)

Commodore Amiga 500 (around 1987)
Which ended up being upgraded various times, eventually had a side-expansion which contained a 20mb hard drive and 2Mb of extra RAM along with what was installed, 1Mb I think. I did the motherboard mod which gave me extra video memory. Along with two floppy drives and a 14 inch monitor rather than using my TV.

This gave way to my first PC (around 1990) bought second-hand and cost me £1000 (I thought I got a bargain!)
486DX-33 with 2Mb of RAM and 512Kb graphics card, 3.5 inch floppy disk drive and a 40Mb hard drive running DOS and Windows 3.1. 14 inch monitor with max resolution of 800x600. No CD ROM drive as they did not exist commercially. No sound card.
I upgraded this several times culminating in a 486DX2-66 CPU, 4Mb of RAM, 1Mb graphics card, 1 x speed CD ROM, Windows 95, 17 inch CRT monitor and a creative labs sound blaster live.

Went over to Pentium CPUs which involved a complete renewal of the motherboard and case.
Have upgraded many times since and my current rig (2011) is as follows;
Core i5 2.67GHz oc to 4.00GHz (water cooled)
8Gb RAM
AMD Radeon 6950 2Gb graphics card
128Gb Corsair 3 SSD SATA III drive as C:
750Gb Seagate SATA II hard drive as D: and E:
2Tb external USB SATA II drive for backups
Blu-Ray optical disc drive
DVD optical disc drive
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Onboard 5.1 channel sound card
3 x Packard Bell Viseo 23 inch monitors

Amazing how things have progressed in just 21 years...

 

[Dave McFly]

Acer Aspire desktop
166 MHz CPU (later upgraded to 200)
16mb of memory (later upgraded to 32mb)
10 gig hard drive
CD ROM
33.6K modem (later upgraded to 56k)
Windows 95 (later upgraded to Windows 98)
14" VGA monitor

came with a single cartridge Lexmark printer (had to swap from a color to a black if I wanted to print text without killing the color cartridge)

bought for $999.99 on a black friday special

 

[Kane52630]

Mine was a Compaq Presario from the late 90's. We only had it for a couple years until we gave it away to our cousin and got an HP.

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

Packard Bell 120Mhz Computer with Windows 95, 4MB of Ram and a whopping 120MB hard drive. It had a CD Drive with Journeyman Project Game and Spiderman Movie maker.

It came with Packard Bell Navigator, their own GUI!



I still use the included microphone

 

[Teelie]

Family's first was a Pac-Bell running Win 95 my own personal one was a Compaq Presario running Win 98SE.

 

[RetrogradeOrbit]

Packard Bell 120Mhz Computer with Windows 95, 4MB of Ram and a whopping 120MB hard drive. It had a CD Drive with Journeyman Project Game and Spiderman Movie maker.

It came with Packard Bell Navigator, their own GUI!



I still use the included microphone

I remember seeing this... I also remember "The Journeyman Project", great game. A bit like Myst, if I remember correctly.

 

[ComicChick]

i remember my modem speed was actually 0mb per second

 

[Kane52630]

Pretty much if you don't remember hearing this when you logged on to the internet you were too young.

[YT]GSRG0TqxLWc[/YT]

 

[ComicChick]

young, i think i was still hearing that in the early years of high school

 

[Kable24]

Not counting gaming systems my first was a Texas Instrument TI-99. Hooked it up to the tv. I then had a Tandy 3000 I think. It was from Radio Shack.

 

[Scourge2099]

My first computer was a Compaq desktop that my grandpa bought me in 2000. Lasted me till 2008 , when a hacker killed it.

 

[Franklin Richards]

TRS-80 Color Computer 2 64 Extended Basic.

Dungeons of Daggorath and Zork ruled.

 

[CelticPredator]

That ****ing sound. ****ing horrible evil sound...

 

[Microchip]

Because 64k RAM is probably enough.

 

[RetrogradeOrbit]

Pretty much if you don't remember hearing this when you logged on to the internet you were too young.

[YT]GSRG0TqxLWc[/YT]

I remember that sound.... I also remember going from a 14.4kbps modem to a 28.8kbps and marvelling at the increase in Internet speed which I had discovered.

And kids today moan if they can't stream videos on their smartphones.... phooey!

But just to put speeds into perspective, I am currently waiting to get my Virgin business media cable connection upgraded to 50Mbps download with a 5Mbps upload speed.
I mean come one, we are talking about LAN like network speeds for residential areas.
Compare this to how things were only ten years ago when the fastest speed you were going to get at home was almost certainly a 56kbps dial-up modem.

Almost scary isn't it?

 

[Kable24]

talking modem speeds my first internet capable computer had an external modem with a 9600 baud rate. So I was roughly getting 1.2kbps speeds. 2GB HDD and 16Megs of RAM. No audio and no CD drive. I paid $1000 for it.

 

[kedrell]

An outside(vendor) built IBM compatable PC(I think it was a 286) back in the 1980's. God, what a POS. Lousy dot-matrix printer came with it and it cost about as much as a decent used car. Floppy drives, DOS, the works of what comes to mind when thinking of 1980's computer technology. No Windows what so ever. And we kept that damn thing all the way up until the late 90's.