Your First Computer...
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
You guys are making me feel old! Actually, the Vic 20 and Commodore 64 were definitely my generation, but I was in the enemy camp: Atari 400! After that, an Atari 800. I actually learned to program on the 400. In addition to all my game cartridges, I had a BASIC cartridge that I found to be the most fun of all. Still reaping the benefits of that... Incidentally, I'm 41 now. I couldn't afford a new sports car for my mid-life crisis, so tracked down an Atari 400 on eBay instead. It's now displayed proudly in my office, along with "Centipede", "Dig Dug", "Star Raiders" (great one), and, of course "BASIC". How cool is that! :cool:
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
First computer I used - Control Data 3200 - in college - FORTRAN programming class. First computer I owned - Xerox CP/M computer with an 8080 (I think) installed so you could switch between CP/M and DOS. It had an 8-inch floppy disk drive (320KB I think) and a 10MB hard drive in an external case. Used it to write documents using WordStar and to dial into bulletin boards (ah ... Fidonet).
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
A Sinclair ZX81 that I built from kit (It was about £20 cheaper) - I later upgraded it with a "proper" keyboard, again a kit, and upgraded the memory to 16Kb. I still have a ZX81 I bought at a car boot sale for £1! I later moved on to Spectrum, PCW8512, Amstrad PPC640 (twin floppy), then various Dell machines, and my current one is home built
==================================== Transvestites - Roberts in Disguise! ====================================
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Timex Sinclair 1000 (ZX81) – Started programming on this, just realized I still got it Commodore 64 – Loved machine language, yes I said it. Amiga 500 – Still got it somewhere Boring PC
modified on Thursday, July 30, 2009 2:27 PM
HERE HERE on the Timex Sinclair. Also my first computer. Loved those little guys. And you could pick them up all day long for $50 (used) Note that I assume when the OP asked about your first computer - he meant the first computer you owned. I was accessing time share mainframes for school and work years before the first computer I owned at home. After the Timex I moved on the the original IBM PC. 8088 processor. 10MB hard drive. 640K RAM. Damn....that was da bomb baby! (paid about $4000 for it -- OUCH)
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
Mine was a Timex Sinclair, it even had that big ugly brick for the extra 16k.
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
I had a TI-99/4A. A whopping 16 KB of RAM Hi-speed tape drive Black and chrome - very cool. 16 brilliant colors I wrote my own versions of Go, Hangman (with a realistic drawn hang-dude), Yahtzee (sp?) and a personal accounting program. I loved it. I still miss it. I still have the "Beginners Basic" manual on a shelf in my office. And it never, not once, not ever............ crashed. Hear that Ballmer and Gates? NEVER crashed. :cool:
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
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I had a TI-99/4A. A whopping 16 KB of RAM Hi-speed tape drive Black and chrome - very cool. 16 brilliant colors I wrote my own versions of Go, Hangman (with a realistic drawn hang-dude), Yahtzee (sp?) and a personal accounting program. I loved it. I still miss it. I still have the "Beginners Basic" manual on a shelf in my office. And it never, not once, not ever............ crashed. Hear that Ballmer and Gates? NEVER crashed. :cool:
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
Heathkit ET-3400 Microprocessor Trainer. http://www.vintage-computer.com/heathkit3400.shtml[^] It had a Motorola chip, the 6800, with 256 bytes of RAM. I later got the add-on that had more memory and a Cassette Deck interface for saving programs.
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Ah the voice of youth, an Amiga as your first. By the Holy Hamsters that makes me feel old!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
Dalek Dave wrote:
By the Holy Hamsters that makes me feel old!
I know the feeling :) Problem is.. what "first" is the interesting one. Back when I got into computers, they weren't something individuals owned. First computer I personally owned: An Amiga 1000. Still got it. And the ROM Kernel manuals too, including the one with the wrong cover. I held off and bought this one because it had multitasking. Through it, I learned why MMUs are important. :D
patbob
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I had two A500's -- the original system and the A500+ (sold the original to get the A500+). Then I bought a sidecar expansion with 3 mb of RAM. Never did get the hard drive or the 486 bridge card for it though. :( Used to install some of the games into a RAM disk to mimic a very tiny hard drive. Best way to play games like Pool of Radiance and Wizardry 6 without needing to swap disks all the time. Also had some great graphics and rendering software for it. And, AMOS Basic was a blast. :-\ Flynn
The first computer I remeber using was an Apple2. The first computer I bought was an HP in 1995. It came with windows 95 on it. I didn't really use it until someone bought me Star Craft a few years later. Then I used it all the time. No I don't even get to play games anymore. It's all work, work, work.
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
CP-890/UYK - Some Univac mainframe converted to a form factor to fit it into a submarine. 30 bit words (plus 2 parity bits) and 64K of magnetic core memory. Programmed it to exercise different parts of computer for troubleshooting. Sperry 90 series - working on a BS in Math. Vic 20 - first one I owned. Took whole nights to print out results of Differential Equations class programs. IBM PC Jr. - first one with a diskette drive. Great Turbo Pascal machine. My current phone has more power than all of those put together. :)
SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill "Real programmers can write FORTRAN in any language". Unknown
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Dalek Dave wrote:
The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K
Same here. 48K looked like a lot of memory these days :)
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote:
Dalek Dave wrote: The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K Same here. 48K looked like a lot of memory these days Smile
So did I. But I bought it with 16K and upgraded it almost immediately --- was cheaper than buying a 48K Speccy off-the-shelf.
Norbert
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
Altair 8800 built from a kit. Soldered every board component and wire connection myself. Optical tape reader to alleviate the difficulty of loading programs via front panel switches. Punched my own tapes tediously using a Frieden Flexwriter. Started with 1K of static RAM but upgraded to 48K eventually. Replaced the 8080 processor board with a Cromemco Z80. Replaced the tape reader with Micropolis dual floppy drive. Still up in the attic but I doubt the floppies are good any more.
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
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Wow, did you ever get the big grey expansion box? hahaha. Heavier than a boat anchor on an air craft carrier.
I never did, though I did want one. Later got a TRS-80 Model 100 Portable, which I guess was the first laptop computer. Still have it around here somewhere. Good computer for its time. Last time I saw a 100 in use was in a bong shop in KCMO about 20 years ago (no, I don't do that stuff anymore). They had the optional cash register hardware for it and it handled sales, inventory, etc.
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
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Here is a suggestion list[^] The First I used was a Teletype Terminal connected to a 360 and only had paper out put, no screen. Then a ZX80 Then a 380z The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K I loved the PET and the Amiga. Ah the nostalgia!
------------------------------------ "When Belly Full, Chin Hit Chest" Confucius 502BC
My first was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4 (The first 16-bit domestic computer, according to Wikipedia...woo hoo!), upgrading shortly after to the TI-99/4A (Woo hoo!). Turn it on to a nice blank screen, and type away in BASIC if you wanted to see anything, and save to cassette tape! There was also a cartridge slot, but it was discontinued so soon after coming out that cartridges were rare...besides, I played all my games on my Atari, anyway... I spent countless hours on it programing in BASIC, it was the computer that got me into programming...so, I always have a soft spot for it.
