What Was Your First Computer?

[princesscinderella]

Tandy from Radio Shack

 

[LuvOrlando]

We got a Dell back when they could be leased so like 1993 or so. I still remember when the leases ended and the business didn't prepare for taking all the machines back I kept getting billed and had nowhere to mail the stuff, what a mess.

Pretty sure we found it in an add in a later issue of this:
https://archive.org/details/computer-shopper-november-1990/page/n23/mode/2up

 

[tx911]

First real computer was a custom build from Micron.

300 MHz CPU, 16MB RAM, and a dedicated 3DFX graphics card with 4MB memory. I thought that thing was the cat's meow, and back then, it was.

IIRC it cost about $3K back in the mid 1990s.

 

[SteveH]

My dad had a Commodore 64, mom bought a Packard Bell XT, my first one was a

 

[rotlex]

Atari 800 which was really nothing more than a higher end gaming machine, lol. Post that, a Packard Bell desktop that was well, not much more than a word processor, and gaming machine!

 

[soccerdad72]

Team Vic-20 here. I remember writing a program that would fast-forward to the game you wanted to play on the tape drive. C-64 had a floppy disc - boy was that ever an upgrade.

Jumpman FTW! I really wish I could find that game on any platform RN.

I remember that floppy drive was humongous! It had to have weighed like 50 pounds.

I remember my wife explaining to one of her new staff accountants the experience of dragging her first "portable computer" to client sites - one of the original Apple Macintosh's:

 

[BrianL]

I remember my granddad had an Apple II computer...

But the first "real" computer....

An Apple II is a real computer! They, and their 6502 based competitors set the standard for a generation of computing. The Apple II series was sold from 1977 to 1993!

Atari 800 which was really nothing more than a higher end gaming machine, lol. Post that, a Packard Bell desktop that was well, not much more than a word processor, and gaming machine!

That's a gross mischaracterization of the Atari 8-Bit series of computers - they were more than just gaming machines. It's an interesting and capable series, though they got eclipsed by the Commodore 64.

Out first home computer was an Apple IIc knockoff called a Laser 128:



It was cheaper, and had a whole 128K of RAM! It ran all Apple ][ software. We got the dedicated monitor and dot-matrix printer too. It was a nice little machine actually.

I did learn programming at school though on C64s and and we had some TI-99s that we did mostly just play edutainment games on. There were a couple of Apple IIs in the computer room too, but I can't recall ever really using them, probably because there were like 30 C64 setups so every kid could have their own. LOAD "$",8

 

[NeeseyL]

Team Vic-20 here. I remember writing a program that would fast-forward to the game you wanted to play on the tape drive. C-64 had a floppy disc - boy was that ever an upgrade.

Jumpman FTW! I really wish I could find that game on any platform RN.

Jumpman was my FAVORITE!

 

[sam_gordon]

I think the Atari 1200XL

Could do Basic programming on it. I also remember working with some kind of "computer network" (dumb terminals hooked to a processor) in HS. I built a program to keep baseball stats on it. Maybe a Wang computer (I remember hear jokes about the math teacher and his Wang-- teenage boys)?

College introduced me to the Apple II for word processing, and there were dumb terminals in each dorm and computer lab for other work.

 

[bdrex28]

I'm going to date myself here and say the Comodore 64

We also had the Commodore 64.

It originally had a tape deck drive then we got the actual 5" floppy drive and the "fast load" cartridge

 

[moonshadow]

Commodore 64 for me too!

 

[E&Cmom]

It was an Epson ( model ?j) in the early-mid 90s. My brother gave it to me when he moved.

 

[Kennywood]

Tandy TRS-80

 

[MillauFr]

I had a CDC 6500.

 

[geargrinder]

Timex Sinclair 1500 whopping 16k of memory. Membrane keypad. Cassette based data drive.

The parents ran their business for years with a Tandy TRS-80 with dual floppy's.

After my Timex, I got upgraded into an Atari 800xl.

After that, I had a 8088 based PC that I took to college.

 

[BrianL]

Tandy TRS-80
View attachment 890167

Ah, the "Trash 80" - very nice! I actually never used one of these but they get a bad rap. I know they were Zilog-80 based instead of the more common 6502. That's a nice little integrated unit there, though I remember ones that were just the unit with the keyboard, etc. and an extrenal monitor.

 

[ChrisFL]

Commodore VIC-20....realize "my" computer was my parents as I was about 4 or 5 years old.

There was some awesome games for it, Omega Race (similar to Asteroids), I think Frogger and Q-bert also came out for it. Also played some text-based adventure games, something like Voodoo Mansion and Pirate's Cove?

I do remember attempting to type my own game using BASIC (?) and you had to type every line of code correctly and can't go back if you mess up and it wouldn't save anywhere.

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

We had an early Amstrad computer which was pretty cool until my little bro thought it would be a good idea to jam a candy bar in the disk drive...

Earliest computer we had that I remember the name of was an Apple Mac Performa 6200. We were in awe of it!

 

[AustinTink]

I didn’t have a computer growing up. I had to use the computer lab in college to write my papers, etc.

But I can tell you my husband had an Apple II GS for his first computer and he still has it!

 

[Vorlon36]

Atari 1200 XL here too! I learned how to program in BASIC on that machine.