What was your first computer?

[davehiggins21]

In the late 70's my first computers were 2 ICL 1904S machines with 128K and 192K memory. The disks were 8Mb but were being replaced by 60Mb ones (both as big as a washing machine). They ran online systems with 200 users 24 hours a day on the George 3 operating system which a prof from Leeds uni took a copy of and ran on a PC.

Later we had water cooled IBM machines with disk cabinets with Terabytes in them - doesn't life change.

We also had a Commodore Pet (wrote a version of Pong on that), various early Apples and I used to program BBc's and a Sinclair machine repackaged by BT as a One per Desk - which was also a phone and provided dial-in access to the mainframes - made middles of the night call outs much more bearable.

[davehiggins21]

In the late 70's my first computers were 2 ICL 1904S machines with 128K and 192K memory. The disks were 8Mb but were being replaced by 60Mb ones (both as big as a washing machine). They ran online systems with 200 users 24 hours a day on the George 3 operating system which a prof from Leeds uni took a copy of and ran on a PC.

Later we had water cooled IBM machines with disk cabinets with Terabytes in them - doesn't life change.

We also had a Commodore Pet (wrote a version of Pong on that), various early Apples and I used to program BBc's and a Sinclair machine repackaged by BT as a One per Desk - which was also a phone and provided dial-in access to the mainframes - made middles of the night call outs much more bearable.

[Ngiri]

Commodore Vic 20.  I was using TRS-80s at school, so I didn't care for the Vic 20 and very soon after receiving it, it was gone.  What I really wanted was a Commodore 64, but I never managed to get one.  A few years later I bought a used Apple IIe and had that for a long time.

[Ngiri]

Sorry.  Double post. Db connection error FTW.

[sparkyar]

CZ Spectrum 48k

(argentinian clone of ZX Spectrum)

[SohoStar]

Ohio Scientific C2-4P (6502) 1979. 4K ram

[dandeufel@comcast.net]

My first exposure to a computer was the Burroughs B5500 in college (1970). All EE freshmen had to take a Fortran course. After that, there was no looking back.

My first home computer was a DEC PDP-8M (1973) It was a lovely 12 bit machine with a whole 12K words of 12 bit core memory, an ASR-33 teletype with paper tape reader and punch (noisy), and a Hazeltine CRT (for those times that I wanted to compute quietly).

How things have changed!

[Pooters]

In 1982, a Sinclair Spectrum 48K. I'd bought it for my younger son in October for his xmas present - but "had a look at it" and by December had to buy another one to give to him... It really encouraged you to program. First in BASIC then Z80 machine code. Lots of good memories of Sinclair User mag. Had some programs published, 1984 onwards - all because the Speccy was just begging to be programmed.

This current project is brilliant - just what's needed.

[eudyptes]

LGP-30

It had vacuum tubes.  Main, executable program store was on a magnetic drum -- not quite 4000 31-bit words.  Paper tape IO.

[spurious]

In 1982, just as the Sinclair Spectrum was release in the UK, the price of the ZX81 was dropped. I got a ZX81 then as I didn't have the money for a Spectrum. I first learned Sinclair Basic, but then went onto Z80 with the help of the computer mags about at the time. How I wish we had access to the internet back then! The machine came with 1K onboard memory and I got a 16K ram pack... "I'll never fill that baby".. famous last words lol.

[RobS]

Jongoleur said:


gregeric said:


"….However, the earliest Acorn, the Acorn System 1 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_System_1 ), also a "bareboard computer conceived in Cambridge" has a better claim as it's an Acorn!  "

---------------------------------------------------------------

I hadn''t heard of this one but found this fascinating when I looked (having gone down the Acorn route)



http://www.computinghistory.or.....ie-Wilson/

[Matan]

PC 386 or 486 (I don't remeber), 16MB of RAM memory (later 32MB), 800mb HDD and sound card Creative SoundBlaster 16 Now my Nokia E63 is much faster than my first PC

[PeterM]

Philips VG-8020 MSX 1 with 64 KB Ram

[ElectronPusher]

More fun to think about the whole history...


Vic20 (BASIC)
C64-SX (suitcase) (BASIC / Machine Language)
C64 (normal) (BASIC / Machine Language)
Amiga 1000 (AmigaBASIC / C / C++ / Modula-2)
Amiga 2000 w/286 Bridge-board & separate VGA card and monitor, 30MB MFM HDD shared between PC and Amiga (AmigaBASIC / C / C++ / Modula-2 / TurboPascal)
Amstrad luggable w/dual 3.5" floppies, reflective LCD screen (Turbo Pascal / Turbo C)
486 (a few of these... DOS/Windows/OS2/Slackware at various times) (Turbo Pascal / various C/C++)
Pentium/PentiumII/Celeron dual-CPU/AMD Athlon 700 (windows/Various Linux) (Turbo Pascal / various C/C++ / MS.NET / Java)
Core 2 Quads (several, as both workstation and home-server) (MS.NET / T-SQL)
Current desktop: Asus mobo, Core 2 Quad 6600 (2.4GHz), 8GB, 1TB HDD, GTX 450 vid card... (MS.NET / T-SQL)
Current dev laptop: Asus N53SV-XV1 - 15.6in 1080p, i7-2630QM, 16GB DDR3, 256GB Samsung SSD, 500GB HDD (in optical bay), 1GB GT540M (MS.NET / T-SQL)

What fun it has been.

[tadryanom]

My 1st computer was an AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz, with 128 MB of RAM, 10 GB HDD, monitor CTR 14", running MS Windows XP SP2, Debian GNU/Linux and others distros Linux.
My 2nd computer was an Intel Pentium HT 3.06 Ghz, 256 MB of RAM DDR 400 Mhz, 40 GB HDD, monitor CRT 15", running MS Windows XP SP2, Debian GNU/Linux and others distros Linux.


My current computer is a laptop Intel Pentium Dual Core 2.30 Ghz, 2 GB of RAM DDR3, 320 GB HDD, Chipset Intel GM 45, LCD LED WideScreen 14", running MS Windows 7 Profissional and Ubuntu GNU/Linux 11.04.

And my next computer will be a Raspberry Pi.

[Andyh-rayleigh]

The first computers I used (as a student at KCL) were the IBM360/65 at University college and the CDC6600 at ULCC. I had an account code on the Atlas, but to my eternal regret never used it. I acquired a huge collection of IBM manuals that were thrown out from UCL as newer editions arrived, but the only ones of them that I still possess are a couple of PL/1 ones.

I then joined the computer unit at City University and soon was involved in systems support for the ICT1905 (later replaced by an ICL1905E) and was heavily involved in the selection and installation of its successors - a Honeywell Level 66/60 running GCOS III then some Gould "superminis" running Unix. (then on to workstations and micros of various sorts). I also did various things on a PDP 11/20 owned by the computer science department. The editor I wrote "doe" may well have been the first "screen editor" - both vi and emacs can trace their display concepts to "em" an editor produced at Queen Mary College at about the same time. I do not know whether that was an independent invention or whether the author had heard of my editor.

At home my first computer was a homebrew "77/68" - a simple 6800 based board very well designed by Mike Lord of the Amateur Computer Club. This grew and grew …

In the end it had a 6809 processor, 64K bytes of RAM plus a 256K ramdisk plus a pair of floppies. I had modified lunar lander to take its input from a slider via an ADC and put its height output to a huge meter.

Later I gained an Acorn Atom, a BBC B, a Spectrum, a QL, and so on.

Now I have too many computers in storage (anyone want some SUN kit?) ... and probably too many in use. But that won't stop me adding a Raspberry Pi

[sheath128]

The first computer I used was a BBC - B at school. The first I owned was a Sinclair QL. Sir Clive"s last hurrah before Sinclair went under. I guess I learned most from the 286 which (technically) my dad owned. pulled it apart, upgraded it, coded Pascal and C on it. Wonder if th Pi will feature a "Turbo" button..

[gregeric]

Jongoleur said:


gregeric said:


"….However, the earliest Acorn, the Acorn System 1 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_System_1 ), also a "bareboard computer conceived in Cambridge" has a better claim as it"s an Acorn!  "

---------------------------------------------------------------

I hadn""t heard of this one but found this fascinating when I looked (having gone down the Acorn route)



http://www.computinghistory.or.....ie-Wilson/

Thanks for the links re the Acorn System 1. I agree, a better candidate for the historic prototype.

[Tufty42]

Acorn Archimedes - I miss computers that were ready to use within one second of booting. I remember somehow convincing it that it didn't have any peripherals...

[drjohnsmith]

an interesting , but may be off topic thought

we who answer this thread are by definition, almost, all old geeks.

The PI is aimed at the new programmer,

I wonder how many of them there are on the forums,

how can we get 'them' involved in the project ?

[anoraknid]

A teletype connected to an accoustic coupler modem to a mainframe that ran basic. Then a Tangerine 6502 computer 512 bytes of  ram (33 chars by 16 line tv display).

Soldered a zx80 for  friend.

BBC model B

A home brewed z80 (wirewrapped) for which I wrote my own monitor program stored in eprom

Then IBM-PC  and so began the long dark years.

Oh look! A glimmer of light.. a computer that I am actually excited about again. Can't wait to get some of these raspberrypis for my kids.

[bagpuss22]

My first computer was a £69.95 Sinclair ZX81 from W.H. Smith.....

Went to the shop on launch day and got one, then moved trough the Sinclair range until I went onto an Enterprise 64!  What a computer!  I still have my original machines today, sad I know!!!

I currently program on a PC, but look forward to playing on the RaspPi.

[Cross]

First computer owned was (like many on here) a BBC B bought by my dad.  Many hours spent trying to code a motorbike jumping game at the local club, only to see a very close similarity being launched a few months later.  Many more hours spent playing Elite.

First computer bought was an Apple Mac SE with a 16mhz accelerator and Portrait display.  I remember buying a 1mb upgrade for it costing £899!

drjohnsmith said:


The PI is aimed at the new programmer,

I wonder how many of them there are on the forums,

how can we get 'them' involved in the project ?



The way I see it, a lot of us old geeks are now parents and some are also teachers.  It is our a role to instil that same enthusiasm into the younger generation. Alas it is also our responsibility to then step back and let them fumble in the same manner that we enjoyed.

My 6 & 2 year olds will both be getting a R-Pi in time.

[KnightInd2000]

I think anyone who had one of these ‘before mouse’ computers will have, at least, dabbled in a bit of programing.

I started with my older brother’s ZX81 and then bought myself a ZX Spectrum 48K on launch (wow – colour!).

Then, between us, we got an Apple II.  Nice to see some other ex-Apple II users in this thread!

[Luny]

My history went like this:

The first I touched was a ZX81,

The first I owned was a Commodore VIC-20,

But after the Archimedes,

I thought that was plenty.

or something like that. I also used an ICL 2900 series at school. Mega!

I'm hoping my 4 year old daughter will one day say her first computer was a Raspberry Pi. Wouldn't that be nice?