Your First Computer...
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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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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
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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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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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!
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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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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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.
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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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
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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A Colecovision Adam computer...it was a computer, game console and printer with TV output. It was the shiznit!
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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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
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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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
Compaq LTE 486DX4 laptop...to this day the best pointing device ever on a laptop.
Trollslayer wrote:
Meetings - where minutes are taken and hours are lost.
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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 programmed was a TRS-80 Model I. First computer I owned was a TI-99/4A. Learned assembly on that one.
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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.
I owned the TI-99/4A as well. As you say, it was the first 16-bit machine. However, it doesn't seem to garner much respect among the people who collect historic machines. There's a club near me that isn't interested in it at all, and they have more TRS-80's than you can shake a memory stick at.
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I owned the TI-99/4A as well. As you say, it was the first 16-bit machine. However, it doesn't seem to garner much respect among the people who collect historic machines. There's a club near me that isn't interested in it at all, and they have more TRS-80's than you can shake a memory stick at.
It may not have as much respect as other historic machines, but it did have a bit of a following. One other thing I remember is that it also had it's own magazine. I had a subscription, and remember spending hours every weekend typing in the huge programs that were in there. Fond memories...
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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
ZX80 - 1k RAM. Could do a lot with that then. UK101 - Kit built machine in the UK. 6502, 8k RAM, 1k Video memory - still got it after 25+ years! Amstrad CPC 6128 - Z80 with 128k and a 3" floppy built in. Did my final year thesis on that, including write the firmware etc for a couple of standalone processor boards. Actually broke out the expansion port on the back of it to make a Z80 emulator. Computer died after 10 years for want of an elastic band to drive the floppy disk. The old one perished and wouldn't grip :(. Still got it in the hope that I will get round to fixing it one day. Then just PC after PC after PC......
