Gawd, they know how to make me feel old...
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
In university, Xerox Sigma 6. My first was an Apple IIe with dual 360k floppies I bought before float in the Marines. You should have seen the admin guys look at me: "Here's that report sorted by serial number, here it is sorted by last name, here it is sorted by rank and date of rank." In the off hours the troops would play NFL football on it.
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IBM AT: EGA "Graphics", 512kB RAM on the MB and a 6MHz processor, but 2 20MB Harddrives (5¼" Double height, could be used as anchors) and one 5¼" floppy (1.2 MB) The 512MB RAM was a very frustrating limitation. So when I upgraded it I had enough money for a DX50 + 16MB RAM or a DX2/66 + 8MB RAM. Being as frustrated as I was with the RAM limits of the old MB I chose more RAM. Just to find out that there were no programs that could use more than 8MB at the time. :sigh: At the same time I also upgraded to an 800MB 3½" HDD supposedly state of the art at the time, just to find out that the old battleships were faster. :wtf: <edit>And the old IBM keyboards were so sturdy you could go to battle with them as a Claymore substitute</edit>
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
My first "real" computer was the True-Blue PC AT 8mhz with 640K and the 384K add-on board for TSR programs, 32 MB HDD and 2 1.2MB HD floppies and EGA video. Second hand at a "must-sell all" sale for only $1,100. Although if moving up from cassette is the only criteria, then it's an Atari 800XL. (Great programming system)
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
1978 - My first true [digital] love. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_Data_Processor#mediaviewer/File:PDP-12-Update-Uppsala.jpeg[^] I used it to do my thesis on speech recognition by computer. I actually had a functional zero-crossing detector interface module (c/w directional microphone) and the software written. If I'd only stuck with it after my paper was written.... one of the few regrets of my life. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. :^) (P.S. Ok, I didn't own it. More like it's owned me all these years.)
Cheers, Mike Fidler "I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright "I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
Ithaca Intersystems DPS-1, Z80 processor, S100 motherboard, 64K RAM + 64K hard-to-access memory, 2 x 720K 8" disk drives in a separate cabinet. Computer + disks weighed > 80lbs together. Text-only monitor was connected by RS-232. I also had a 512 x 512 graphics monitor and a primitive dot-matrix printer. I programmed in assembler, Pascal, an muLISP.
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
I bought my first PC in 1984 (had been using university and work hardware before that):
- IBM-AT 80286 processor @ 8MHz, 512KB RAM
- Hercules EGA Graphics
- 20 MB Seagate hard disk
- 5¼" 360K floppy drive
- 5¼" 1.2M floppy drive
- Princeton Graphics Color Monitor
- Okidata Microline 192 dot matrix printer
- Hayes 1200 Modem
Software:
- MS-DOS 3.1
- PC Write (editor)
- Lattice C compiler
- Vitamin C GUI SDK for DOS
The hardware set me back $4500. I think the compiler was $300, Vitamin C was $50 and PC Write was $30. The box came with MS-DOS. I misread your question as "What was your first PC?" My first computer was a Honeywell Multics system with the world's most awesome terminals I'd ever seen. Circa 1980. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Ithaca Intersystems DPS-1, Z80 processor, S100 motherboard, 64K RAM + 64K hard-to-access memory, 2 x 720K 8" disk drives in a separate cabinet. Computer + disks weighed > 80lbs together. Text-only monitor was connected by RS-232. I also had a 512 x 512 graphics monitor and a primitive dot-matrix printer. I programmed in assembler, Pascal, an muLISP.
Peter, are you THE Peter Grogono who wrote "Programming in Pascal" (circa 1980) - the book that changed my life (for the better) forever? /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
Mine was a TRS-80 MC-10 (baby CoCo). It had 4k of RAM, jacks for attaching a tape deck to load software that didn't exist, and could display a whole nine colors. Even for the time, it was a PoS, it made the C64 look like a supercomputer. But it was mine, and I learned to write (short) programs on it.
OriginalGriff wrote:
I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count
Ridiculous, you're excluding most 8-bit computers because they used tape instead of (expensive at the time) floppy drives. Back in the day, those were "real" computers. This just seems like an arbitrary way to exclude anyone who got their first computer in the '80s and didn't have a lot of money (those business-class IBMs went for $3k-$5k in '80s dollars).
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A 520 ST, which I still have. But, if you ignore the cassette restriction, a TI 99/4A (Which I probably still have...9or maybe my sister has it.)
We won't sit down. We won't shut up. We won't go quietly away. YouTube and My Mu[sic], Films and Windows Programs, etc.
The TI99 was great! Got a kick out of looking at ones for sale on ebay the other day... we had one in '83 or '84... Wish I still had it. Loved playing Donkey Kong, Hunt the Wompus, TI Invaders, and Centipede on it!
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Yeah we ha a ti994a also but thought it didn't qualify here because of the cassette. We had great fun writing basic programs to scroll expletives on the screen. What fun teaching a computer to swear. Just look what we've done!
I remember messing with the voice synthesizer on it. That was really cool.
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Peter, are you THE Peter Grogono who wrote "Programming in Pascal" (circa 1980) - the book that changed my life (for the better) forever? /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
Yes, that's me. Good to hear that I changed your life -- for the better :) I wrote the Pascal book during 1977-78, before I had my own computer. The Pascal programs in the book ran on a CDC 6400 at the university where I was working. Peter
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
Altair 8800 (still up in the attic) 64K Ram (a portion of that was ROM for the CUTER system) Punched paper tape for storing programs Front panel switch input Video to Channel 3 NTSC Eventually upgraded to Micropolis 390K floppy drive
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
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Yes, that's me. Good to hear that I changed your life -- for the better :) I wrote the Pascal book during 1977-78, before I had my own computer. The Pascal programs in the book ran on a CDC 6400 at the university where I was working. Peter
Wow. It's an honor to bump into you @ CP! I think I emailed you a couple years ago to thank you for opening doors for me in a way you could probably not have imagined. I'm pretty sure I've saved your reply. Thank you, again! :rose: /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Move over, parvenus! My first computer was a Commodore PET 2001 with 8KB (that's KILO-bytes)! My dad bought it in 1977, and it was one of the first five of its kind in Israel. The Commodore PET 2001 had a built-in cassette recorder/player, which could be used to store/load programs and data. Given that many (most?) mainframes of the time still used tape for mass storage (a disk drive might be used for the O/S and for commonly-run programs), I take exception to the assertion that a computer with a cassette tape was not a computer. I used it for many things, from calculating e and pi (to about 10,000 digits - all that I could do in-memory) to learning 6502 assembly language to game playing (I purchased an incredibly slow version of chess that ran in those 8KB). Those were the days! :)
I sooooo wanted one of those... but my dad bought an Exidy Sorcerer[^]. I later borrowed it for an extended period of time. My actual first computer was an Amiga 1000.. which I still have and fire up once in a while. I even still have the original monitor and Rom Kernel manuals (a set with the mislabeled manual).
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
Wow, Timex Sinclair (admittedly, no drive, but a 40 col thermal printer!) [I returned it, BTW] TI 99/4A (Expansion Pack, Plus Floppy) TRS-80 Model 1 PDP-11/34a (at school, 20 paper terminals, and 3 CRTs for the cool kids, LOL) All within 1yr. Then I moved UP in the world: I got a Tandy-1200 HD (monochrome, green screen) DOS. With a HD and a Floppy, LOL... This lasted me until my first Dell in College. And I have been using various Dells since! (Of course, Dell was called PCs Limited back then). Kirk Out!
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
My first computer was an s100 bus z80 base system (back in the late 70's). I wire wrapped all the boards except for the graphics card (16 lines by 64 ASCII characters) which connected to a small TV. I had a 2KB monitor program called Zapple and a total of 4K of RAM. I use to know most of the z80 instruction set by the numbers since I didn't have a z80 assembler. This system eventually morphed into a CP/M system with 48KB of RAM and 2 high density 8 inch floppy drives! Talk about a fun time learning about computer hardware and software.
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
My first computer was one I designed and built myself, starting the day the 8080 CPU was released, in late 1974. There was no commercially available microcomputer in those days. By Feb. 1975 I had it up and running, with a huge 1K of RAM! I had to put a small boot program using the front panel switches, and I had an old 33ASR teletype with a paper tape punch and reader for mass storage, as well as keyboard input and printed output.
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Comitstrip: First Computer[^] My first was an Amstrad 1640: EGA graphics, 640K RAM, 8MHz processor, no math coprocessor (but a socket so you could add one), no HDD, but twin 5 1/2" floppies (360Kb per disk). And that was second hand... What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count :laugh: )
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
My first was a Philco C2 (named for the building that housed it). It had a fantastic 28k of RAM. Data and programs were loaded using 80 byte punch cards. Due to limitations, we could only load 2007 data cards. If we exceeded the data limit, I would have to do the calculation on a Friden calculator to determine which of the cards I could yank to complete the run on the C2.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Mine was a Commodore VIC20 - was great at the time (I was 8 at the time and got given this at Christmas instead of the Atari console that I'd asked for - wise move) :) http://oldcomputers.net/vic20.html[^] Introduced: June 1980 Released: January 1981 Price: US $299 (cost about the same in GBP) CPU: MOS 6502, 1MHz RAM: 5K (3.5K for the user) Display: 22 X 23 text, 176 X 184, 16 colors max
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
Ah, the mighty VIC-20. I still remember that special plastic smell when I first unboxed it, more than 30 years ago.
