What Was Your First Computer?

[hertamaniac]

Ti-99/4A with cassette recorder/games. I also had the speech synthesizer. I programmed a simple shoot-em game at like 10-11 years old. Ah....the days of using the Call Character code.

 

[PollyannaMom]

My parents got a TRS-80 when I was in high school. Primarily my dad used it for word processing. I remember playing some kind of game called Ghosts using just the up/down/left/right arrows and the space bar. It was probably 10-15 years later before I had my own computer; it was used and I forget the brand but probably a Tandy.

Same here! (Only mine looked more like this:



with a separate monitor, than the other pic someone posted above.)


I think I remember that game, too. - Was it like a castle/dungeon maze, and you had to avoid or attack them?

I also remember having a book to learn BASIC and playing around with a kaleidoscope program in it until I had something pretty neat.

 

[DVC-Don]

Gateway, 1995.

 

[DodgerGirl]

Was the Texas Instruments Home Computer that one that you could connect to your TV and play games like a Nintendo? I remember my father finding a Texas Instruments Home Computer at a garage sale in it's original box and it came with tons of games and the speech speaker too and he bought it to try it out. And my father and I were surprised at how great it was and the games it came with were mostly educational games but we had Hangman and Alpiner and for a starter computer the Texas Instruments Home Computer was a good deal. I think my mom gave it away but Dad mainly wanted it for a collector's item because in his spare time one of my dad's hobbies is collecting old computers. I remember the Apple IIGS "2 GS" because our school used them a lot for every classroom and they were good but a pain to use because when my teacher and I would do schoolwork they would always freeze and we would constantly have to restart the computer many times and I would always have to redo my schoolwork but the games they had for our Apple IIGS were okay. But when my teacher got the Macintosh Performa for our school classroom she was in heaven with it because it was wonderful and hardly had problems with anything. And soon our school computer lab got Macintosh Performas too and we loved using them

 

[BrianL]

Was the Texas Instruments Home Computer that one that you could connect to your TV and play games like a Nintendo? I remember my father finding a Texas Instruments Home Computer at a garage sale in it's original box and it came with tons of games and the speech speaker too and he bought it to try it out. And my father and I were surprised at how great it was and the games it came with were mostly educational games but we had Hangman and Alpiner and for a starter computer the Texas Instruments Home Computer was a good deal. I think my mom gave it away but Dad mainly wanted it for a collector's item because in his spare time one of my dad's hobbies is collecting old computers. I remember the Apple IIGS "2 GS" because our school used them a lot for every classroom and they were good but a pain to use because when my teacher and I would do schoolwork they would always freeze and we would constantly have to restart the computer many times and I would always have to redo my schoolwork but the games they had for our Apple IIGS were okay. But when my teacher got the Macintosh Performa for our school classroom she was in heaven with it because it was wonderful and hardly had problems with anything. And soon our school computer lab got Macintosh Performas too and we loved using them

Well, many computers of the time could be hooked up to a TV like that and played software off of a cartridge. You are most likely describing the TI-99 4A, as shown below. It was common in schools with an educational games line.

 

[disneyseniors]

The thread about encyclopedias and the mention of Microsoft Encarta got me thinking about my first computer.

I remember my granddad had an Apple II computer that I played on when I was really little, and I remember having an IBM computer at home at some point too.

But the first "real" computer was a Packard Bell my parents gave me for Christmas 1996. It had something like an 8X CD-ROM drive and a full GB of hard disk space. I thought it was great!

What was the first personal computer you remember having?

I really can't be sure of the type computer we had, but it was probably an Apple or Mac? It was a big desk model that was white and sky blue. It looked very modern. Later on, you could buy them with other colors, such as yellow. Dang, I wish I could remember what it was, but I'm leaning towards a Mac???

 

[jlundeen]

I also had a Vic 20.... no internal user storage (only system programs) no internet connection (didn't exist for home then) or screen so had to connect to TV - yes I am THAT old. This was probably in the late 70's or early 80's ?

Had to buy an external storage cassette "drive" and KEY IN anything I wanted to store (like games for the kids) that you could get in magazines... line by line.... took me days.... just so they could play GHOSTS (kind of like Pac Man - the Ghosts would grin if they got you) or ADVENTURE (a maze you have to go through to get to a castle, and that had a dragon who would eat you and a crow that would grab you and carry you to another part of the maze - it was pretty fun!

 

[Belle1962]

Not quite a full computer but Webtv and at work a Wang.

 

[DodgerGirl]

Well, many computers of the time could be hooked up to a TV like that and played software off of a cartridge. You are most likely describing the TI-99 4A, as showbn below. It was common in schools with an educational games line.

View attachment 890842

That's the exact same Texas Instruments Home Computer my father had Brian and I don't know how much Dad paid for it at the garage sale but he got a whole bunch of games with it and it had it's original box which was beat-up and torn but it worked great. I think my mom gave it away but my dad LOVES collecting old computers and he still does today

 

[kyton]

Amstrad 1512 - 1989 I started University in a degree of computer software. It cost my parent $1999 which was a huge amount of money back then to a single income family.

 

[sam_gordon]

I really can't be sure of the type computer we had, but it was probably an Apple or Mac? It was a big desk model that was white and sky blue. It looked very modern. Later on, you could buy them with other colors, such as yellow. Dang, I wish I could remember what it was, but I'm leaning towards a Mac???

iMac?

 

[_19disnA]

First computer I recall using was in high school but don't remember what it was. We used it as part of a computer programming class. I don't believe I bought a PC until a few years later when it had more functionality for home use. Until the internet came along, there really wasn't a whole lot at first to do with a PC at home. As I recall, dedicated game consoles were initially more popular than computers since you could actually play games on them. Many people who had the very early computers were more into the novelty of them since they had a tiny amount of storage and there weren't that many software programs available.

 

[JLTraveling]

When I was really little, my dad got a Timex Sinclair to do his engineering homework.

Anybody remember that one? It was so slow that when I played chess, I could make a move in the morning, go to school, and get home in the afternoon just as it was making its move!

Then my dad worked at a computer store for a bit, and they allowed him to bring home a Vic-20. That was a fun one, but we had to give it back when he left the job.

Next, I sold the most Christmas ornaments for my elementary school and won a computer. But my dad said the one they were offering was crap, so I took the cash equivalent and put it toward a C-64. Several years later we upgraded to a C-128.

Our first "modern" computer was a Compaq, which we got when I was 16. The first computer I bought was a Packard Bell from Sears. Right after I married my now ex, we realized we needed a computer of our own, and the nice salesman at Sears was all too happy to sign us up for a SearsCard Plus with easy payments lol. That was also my first credit card.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I am not sure of the model, but it was one of those IBM things w/the 3.5 floppy drives

 

[kanerf]

TI 99/4A with Expansion box.

 

[disneyseniors]

iMac?
View attachment 891147

Yep, that's it. I loved it back then. Never had a problem with it.
Thanks for the picture

 

[DodgerGirl]

Do you remember when the Macintosh Performa was all the rage in 1994? Back when that computer came out Apple made themselves very famous and you could never go into Best Buy or Circuit City without seeing commercials for the Macintosh Performa followed by a demonstration by a sales clerk. I never understood why Compaq Presarios were all the rage because when my family tried it out we were hoping it would be good because from what I saw of Compaq Presarios they had a TV installed in it that let you watch home movies but the TV option never worked on my family's Compaq Presario and also it had a virtual operator that you could actually use the computer as a telephone answering machine and even call people with it's built-in telephone and Dad thought it was cool. But the annoying thing that Compaq Presarios had was to install a game and play a game was Tabworks and Tabworks was indeed an annoying pain to figure out and use and I can't figure out why Compaq put Tabworks in the Presarios? But I can see why people bought those computers because they thought they would be great to use

 

[OrangeBirdGirl]

IBM Aptiva, around 1998

 

[HannaBelle]

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

Me too! Commodore 64 for the win!

 

[jimmymc]

Our family computer was a beige Dell running Windows 98.

My first PC was a Dell XPS running Windows Vista.