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whiskeytown
11-15-2005, 04:53 AM
Mine was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A which I used to play chess on all the time...and I also learned the first I'd learn about programming - in basic. - but my first real IBM, that's a different story.

The scene starts with a roommate - he has a computer - it starts old gears cranking again - I hadn't had a PC since the TI994A days and I sure didn't have the internet -
the wheels start in motion - I'm poor but a friend says he can let go of a blown custom made Computer City PC for $250. (He's a manager there) - It needs a motherboard - and it's only a Pentium 125, but we think we can overclock it, and eventually, we have it going at P166 speeds.

The bed is a giant wooden loft - I sleep on two foam matresses on top - below is a blanket and an office chair and a box to move desks in. It has books in it currently, but it's obviously the size of the desk - a 14 inch VGA monitor - old IBM that no one will miss is given to me by some station engineers at the radio station I work at - but it's obvious either the video card or the monitor sucks, so both are upgraded. I get in a 56K modem that someone left lying around the repair shop one day. (no kidding, under a rack of shelves - I was also fixing PC's at the time) - and my provider supports the x2 USR Robotics standard, so I'm usually connecting at 46,000 bytes/sec.

Sitting under that loft, blanket down as to not disturb roommates, I proceeded to well, start the life that would become this one - one more internet focused -

Not sure if that's a blessing or a curse - jury will be out a long while, but thinking of that old piece of [censored], wanting to play Heroes of Might and Magic 2 - 800 MB harddrive - that was the day.

That eventually went to my stepmom who I THINK still runs it today...it's older then dirt, but she still runs. the next PC, an AMD K6-2/350 had issues - so I eventually build a PIII 600 for my main box and Athlon 1200 for my Windows 2000 server - I try to upgrade that to my home PC but no dice so now I have a new custom built 3.2 Gig pc.

But I still like that old p.o.s. too - back when you could find computer parts that actually might help rather then hurt your machine.

That was a long, long, long time ago. Hard to believe I've built 4 upgraded PC's since then.

RB

Malachii
11-15-2005, 05:03 AM
I had an old Amiga as my first computer. It was badass.

dblgutshot
11-15-2005, 05:06 AM
http://www.old-computer.de/comp/bildcomp/appmacp.jpg
Stolen from my jr high school.

Besides that, first computer was a pentium 100 from NEC.

11-15-2005, 05:10 AM
I got a used Tandy from a friend of my mom's when I was about 8 or 9. Me and my brother played Leisure Suit Larry on it all day for a couple months.

Edit: And I'd just like to point out that I've used an Apple IIe as recently as 4 years ago in high school. It was an alternative ghetto HS.

siccjay
11-15-2005, 05:12 AM
Commodore 64 baybeeeeee

11-15-2005, 05:17 AM
1983 - TRS 80 Color Computer Baby!

It came with 4K of RAM. I remember upgrading it to 8K. Wow!

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/tandy_coco2_1.jpg

TheMainEvent
11-15-2005, 05:22 AM
http://people.clarkson.edu/~johndan/datacloud/images/commodore_64.jpg

followed by:

http://www.abc80.net/pics/IBM_8530_PS2_m30_big.jpg

386, 25mhz, 4mb ram, 40 mb hard drive.

AAmaz0n
11-15-2005, 05:26 AM
[ QUOTE ]
1983 - TRS 80 Color Computer Baby!

It came with 4K of RAM. I remember upgrading it to 8K. Wow!

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/tandy_coco2_1.jpg

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here. Yes, with the 8K upgrade how could you ever run out of memory? I had a cassette tape drive hooked up to it, and a modem, maybe 1200 baud.

Shauna

Reef
11-15-2005, 05:30 AM
Apple 2E baby

11-15-2005, 05:33 AM
[ QUOTE ]
Same here. Yes, with the 8K upgrade how could you ever run out of memory? I had a cassette tape drive hooked up to it, and a modem, maybe 1200 baud.

[/ QUOTE ]

I had the same accessories (it sucked having to type your program in every time before the tape drive). I remember getting a subscription to Compuserve in 1984, text only interface...wow, the changes!

Because of that tape drive I have the "CLOAD" command permanently in my brain!

The Truth
11-15-2005, 05:39 AM
IBM aptiva.... those were the days


blake

11-15-2005, 06:23 AM
A Commodore 64. It had an excellent flight simulator.

And then a Lisa (the Mac precursor), which turned my off Apple ever since.

stigmata
11-15-2005, 06:29 AM
Ah, you american's missed out on these bad-ass mother-f*ckers. A whopping 48k of memory and rubber keys. Oh the nostalgia! Spending 10 minutes loading Manic Miner from a cassete tape, only for the screen to blank just as it loaded! All hail the genius of Clive Sinclair.

The ZX spectrum defined the 1980's for me.

http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/spectrum/system.jpg

whiskeytown
11-15-2005, 06:35 AM
I love how some of us musta thought the checkbook program for stuff like that was gonna revolutionize computing -

I remember those - we called then the Timex Sinclair - and as I recall, it had 2K with a 16K upgrade - LOL - yours musta been a newer model - it looks familiar.

I totally spazzed out the Commorore PET which was the first PC I ever really used.

RB

housenuts
11-15-2005, 07:14 AM
i remember the time i had more gigs of HD space than megs of RAM.

i was running a BBS server and kept putting any money i could scrape up into hd space. i had a 13gb and a 27 gb for a total of 40 gigs. it was running on a p200 with 32mb ram.

that was my first comp..however my families first comp was a 486/66. i'm still running my 2nd comp which is an athlon 550. i'm gonna retire it pretty soon though.

Piper Tim
11-15-2005, 07:45 AM
TRS-80 Model III
3 5.25 disk drives
One Cassette Tape drive
and a good ol' dot matrix printer

kenberman
11-15-2005, 08:31 AM
[ QUOTE ]
http://people.clarkson.edu/~johndan/datacloud/images/commodore_64.jpg

followed by:

http://www.abc80.net/pics/IBM_8530_PS2_m30_big.jpg

386, 25mhz, 4mb ram, 40 mb hard drive.

[/ QUOTE ]

wow...thats a big technology gap.

canis582
11-15-2005, 09:13 AM
http://www.retro-electro.co.uk/HANDHELD/speak&spellbig.jpg