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Your First Computer...

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  • D Dalek Dave

    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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    Alan Burkhart
    wrote on last edited by
    #67

    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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    • D Dalek Dave

      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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      ecooke
      wrote on last edited by
      #68

      TI-99 4A Cartridges, expansion box, 32k memory, 2x5 1/4" floppy and....drum roll....cassette tape drive (with the 3 wire adapter so it could control the start stop rewind record etc.) advanced basic, basic, and assembler. oh that was some fun days.

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      • A Alan Burkhart

        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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        ecooke
        wrote on last edited by
        #69

        Wow, did you ever get the big grey expansion box? hahaha. Heavier than a boat anchor on an air craft carrier.

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        • D Dalek Dave

          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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          Rich D
          wrote on last edited by
          #70

          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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          • D Dalek Dave

            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

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            patbob
            wrote on last edited by
            #71

            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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            • F Flynn Arrowstarr Regular Schmoe

              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

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              jesseseger
              wrote on last edited by
              #72

              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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              • D Dalek Dave

                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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                Jim SS
                wrote on last edited by
                #73

                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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                • N Nemanja Trifunovic

                  Dalek Dave wrote:

                  The first I owned was a ZX Speccy 48K

                  Same here. 48K looked like a lot of memory these days :)

                  Programming Blog utf8-cpp

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                  n lack
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #74

                  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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                  • D Dalek Dave

                    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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                    Lilith C
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #75

                    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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                    • D Dalek Dave

                      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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                      RoboJRR
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #76

                      A Colecovision Adam computer...it was a computer, game console and printer with TV output. It was the shiznit!

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                      • D Dalek Dave

                        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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                        BGArts
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #77

                        I did all my high school and college papers on a Commodore 64 and printed them out on an Epson dot matrix LQ printer. I learned programming in school on a Radio Shack TR(a)S(h)-80

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                        • E ecooke

                          Wow, did you ever get the big grey expansion box? hahaha. Heavier than a boat anchor on an air craft carrier.

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                          Alan Burkhart
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #78

                          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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                          • D Dalek Dave

                            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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                            Alexander DiMauro
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #79

                            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.

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                            • R Rich D

                              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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                              BGArts
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #80

                              Love the hexidecimal keypad.

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                              • M Mark_Wallace

                                I've just realised that still pronounce Vic 20 as "Vic venti" -- I was in Italy when it came out.

                                I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

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                                Antonino Porcino
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #81

                                The VIC-20 was my first computer too. I still own one and, it may seems strange, I still program for it. Of course I cross compile on the PC, but it is still a lot of fun to make programs stay within 3583 bytes.

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                                • D Dalek Dave

                                  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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                                  SBJ
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #82

                                  First programmed IBM 360 with punch cards then UCSD Pacal on Heathkit H-11 (LSI-11). First I owned was 286 AT clone.

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                                  • J jesseseger

                                    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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                                    Flynn Arrowstarr Regular Schmoe
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #83

                                    I used the Apple II in school (primarily 7th through 10th grades, and the IIGS in 11th and 12th). Never owned one though. I did have a few disks full of little games and such with a few favorite games -- Lady Tut, Droll and some of the Wizardry games. I was able to get most of those for my C=64 as well. :) My brother had the C=Vic20, but he gave it to me when he bought a C=64 in 1984. I bought my own C=64 in 1986, and upgraded it to a C=128 after a few years. The Amiga 500 I bought in 1991. Flynn


                                    _If we can't corrupt the youth of today,
                                    the adults of tomorrow will be no fun...
                                    _

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                                    • D Dalek Dave

                                      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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                                      rhoward
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #84

                                      Intertec Data Systems Superbrain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superbrain CP/M and SuperDOS Z80 @ 4Mhz! 64k of ram! Dual 340k floppies! Learned to program on this machine using Leor Zolman's BDS 'C' Compiler! Those were the days! :-D Rick

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                                      • R RoboJRR

                                        A Colecovision Adam computer...it was a computer, game console and printer with TV output. It was the shiznit!

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                                        G Offline
                                        Glenn E Lanier II
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #85

                                        RoboJRR wrote:

                                        Colecovision Adam computer...it was a computer, game console and printer with TV output

                                        I was beginning to wonder if I was the only person that had one of these. It was turned on Christmas morning, and sat there blinking. I started talking to it, and my dad handed me a programming book -- said you have to make it talk back. From there, I went to Apple //c and IIgs, then to the 486-DX100 and other clones.

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                                        • D Dalek Dave

                                          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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                                          Fabio Franco
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #86

                                          It seems nobody met the MSX. Well, that was my first, barely remember the stuff I did with it. But I do remember that it was where I wrote my first line of code.

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