[mercbuggy]

First computer I interacted with:

TRS80 Model 1

My first computer:

BBC Model B 32k:

This machine was awesome at the time for two reasons, Elite and Revs. It took me 6 months of after school evenings to reach Elite status.

 

[FalconP]

An second-hand Apple ][ plus compatible with a colossal memory of 64 kilobytes. Very fun to play Ultima 4 with.

 

[The Pieman]

About 1974. The school I went to had a computer which was used for "Minitran" which I believe is some variant of Fortran. I had many happy hours

using an HB pencil to mark cards, like punchcards, to put programs through the box.

cheers
Simon

 

[GAD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercbuggy /img/forum/go_quote.gif First computer I interacted with: TRS80 Model 1

That's a TRS-80 Model II. Here's a Model I (fully tricked out too!):

GAD

 

[GAD]

I've used almost every one of the machines mentioned. I learned programming using punch cards on an IBM system 360/370 mainframe. I still have the receipt from my first 486 motherboard. $1000 for the board and processor, and another $1000 for the 2M of RAM.

The Timex Sinclair was huge at the time, but those little blister keys were awful!

I can remember putting a 386 upgrade card in my IBM PC. For $3000 you could get 386 speed out of an IBM PC/XT. Good times.

GAD

 

[GAD]

Here's the TRS-80 model III that was my first computer:

Tricked out with dual floppies and 16K RAM, this was a $3500 machine. Imagine what you get for $3500 today.

Anyone remember the RS 15M hard drives? They had keys!

GAD

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GAD /img/forum/go_quote.gif Here's the TRS-80 model III that was my first computer:

That's the first computer I used, except that the ones I used initially had no floppy drives. Instead, there was a cassette recorder that would store your programs on cassette tape. Also, I'm pretty sure that it only had something like 4KB of RAM and a 1 MHz Z-80 processor.

 

[hciman77]

Burroughs B6700 - 1976

http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/picture...ages/cimg0709/

 

[kwkarth]

Ahh, the memories!
The first computer I actually remember using was the campus wide Xerox Sigma 7. Punch cards were the way we "interfaced" with the beast and dropping your deck was truly a nightmare. I hated the punch card machines we had with a passion because they were not buffered. When you hit a key, it punched a hole. If you hit the wrong key, you threw the card away and started over. Man, did I ever throw away a lot of cards!

There were a few interactive terminals around the campus for the seniors, but we freshmen could not go near them. I remember I hated the punch cards so bad that I made a deal with the head of the math department (who, at the time, controlled the computer) to write a trig program in Fortran for his 2nd year class, in exchange for access to the interactive terminals. Hot stuff!! No more card decks!!! Yay! I could compile and debug interactively instead of a half day turn around just for a compile.

Then our EE department had a Mits Altair. I didn't have much interest in playing with it as I was focused on SS physics, analog audio and video communications, etc. Eventually, we got a DEC PDP8, which was cool.

The first computer I actually bought, besides my HP45, was the Timex Sinclair. It was not much more than a toy.

Eventually, I bit the bullet and bought a Kaypro Z80/CPM based machine.

I was able to do so much with that machine. It was awesome. It had 2 x 200k floppy drives and 64k of RAM, and a 1600baud modem. What could a person possibly do with all that memory?
I eventually upgraded to this bad boy which had 2 x 400k floppies and a 3200 baud modem!

I was in good company, Aurthur C. Clarke used a Kaypro to write and collaborate remotely.

I used my Kaypro as a remote terminal to log into computers all across the US and run benchmarks remotely for the company I worked for. As far as I know, I was the only employee at the time who had his own "terminal" or emulator. Plus, with the word processing capability, I could do a better job of communicating with my customers. Ahh, yes, those were the days.

I remember my first encounter with DOS... How primitive it was compared to CPM.

The wrong guys won the battle there, and that's another story.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lini /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nice! Looks like a Tandberg Data design. They used to make great keyboards - Siemens used to sell OEM-Tandbergs with a lot of their mini computers and early pcs like the PC-D. 4 MHz ring the Z80 bell, so I'd assume the Tiki ran some CP/M variant...i

Z80 it is. Its made by the company "Tiki Data"", and but I have no clue if Tandberg were involved in the development process.

 

[craiglester]

Duggeh, the Master was the follow up to the original BBC Model A/B right? I Had a Model B, played chuckie egg sooo much.
And Elite.. i lost the summer of 1984 to that.. but I made Elite (without cheating)

 

[GAD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwkarth /img/forum/go_quote.gif I remember my first encounter with DOS... How primitive it was compared to CPM. The wrong guys won the battle there, and that's another story.

In this industry, they usually do!

GAD

 

[ken36]

Vector 3 (1983)

 

[Superpredator]

First computer I ever used was probably in second grade - 1985. Monochrome green monitor. Don't remember the make or model. We played math and spelling games on it. Later we got an actual lab filled with IBMs running MS-DOS, with WordPerfect, Railroad Tycoon and other goodies. They trained us to be office slaves who killed time by playing games.

First computer my family owned was a Commodore 64 in 1992. Yes, 1992. A family friend kind of scammed my dad I think. My English teacher used to make fun of my papers. The old C64 printer produced documents that were hilariously difficult to read. Soon after that we landed a Powerbook with a B&W display, then a Pentium 75 a few years later that I quickly moved to my room for safekeeping.

 

[omegaman]

The first I used was also the commodore PET at school.

The first I had at home was a ZX Spectrum with a whopping 16k Memory !!!!!!