your first PC?

[crash]

What was your first PC you owned?

In the 80's I bought my first pc from Radioshack (Tandy), called an MC 10. It was a minuture keyboard, with word shortcuts using the tab key and had an amazing 4k memory, I later expanded this to 8k with cassette tape memory storage. I then traded it in on a TRS80 which I think had 16k of memory. The "rich" kids had 32k TRS80s or comadore 64s then. Can not remember what our computer lab at school had.

[OrangeZXr10R]

ZX Spectrum 16kb Tape Driven

ZX Spectrum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1984, what a year .... lol

[crash]

In school when we had the 7" floppys we would buy the single sided recordable floppy then cut out the notch on the other side of the disc to make it a double sided recordable. Of course the single sided ones were cheaper to buy than the double sided ones.
I am trying to remember what the speed of the high school modem was - 300baud I think it was.

[d@rk51d3]

C64.
Started with the cassette drive, and bought a twin cassette deck for, ummmmm, backups. Then got the 1541 FDD. The updated model with the twist knob to engage the heads and lock in the disk.

[incisor]

atari 800 and an atari 600xl modded to 256k ram :p

and they still work :p

[solmanic]

Dad was an engineer and pioneered computers in schools in the 1970s so we had all kinds of "cutting edge" stuff:

The first was around 1976, homebuilt using a Motorola 6800 CPU with cassette tape and no hard drive. Ran 8k BASIC. The case was also home-fabricated aluminium with a keyboard in one box and the processor and power supply in the other. There was a very well used red reset button on the front.

Next in about 1979 was another homebuilt unit with a Motorola 6809 processor and this was in a sexy, all-in-one homemade aluminium box that was actually powdercoated! It originally had two 5.25in floppy disk drives but on was eventually replaced with a 1MB hard disk. I remember programming BASIC games which used to have their scripts published in various nerdy computer mags and playing Star Trek and Lemonade Stand.

[JDNSW]

My first computer was an Altos, running a modified version of CP/M, with 8k of memory and two eight inch floppy disks. These held, from memory, a capacity of 640kB. The box was about four times the size of a typical modern desktop (weighing perhaps 40kg) and I had a non-graphic terminal with a built in keyboard in addition. The printer was a hefty dot matrix one weighing about 30kg.

John

[djam1]

Toshiba T1000 4.77 Mhz 8088 CPU 512K of Ram

http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/pc/h/t1000.jpg

[Scallops]

My first computer? My Grandpa's base 10 blocks....got them in 1968....:cool:

Buy Invicta Base Ten Group Set (Dienes) from Junior Scholars (http://www.juniorscholars.co.uk/Invicta-Base-Ten-Group-Set-%28Dienes%29-P5001111303481/)

[scanfor]

My first computer was a PDP11 that no-one else wanted - no screen but a teletype with fanfold paper running MUBASIC.
Not really a PC though, so I'd have to admit to a Commodore Amiga 1000. In 1985 it had GUI and a mouse, stereo sound and colour monitor, a meagre HDD and a 5 1/4 floppy.

[sheerluck]

First was a BBC Micro model A, around 1982, which was supplied by my school for a technology project, had to give it back though.

Then was a ZX81, circa 1983, with the god-awful rubber keyboard and a massive 1kb of RAM.

Then upgraded (!) to a second hand Commodore VIC-20 with a huge 16kb RAM expansion pack in about 1984.

Then a Commodore Amiga 2000 in 1988.

Crap machines, I think I've owned a complete set.:(

[Blknight.aus]

My first computer? My Grandpa's base 10 blocks....got them in 1968....:cool:

Buy Invicta Base Ten Group Set (Dienes) from Junior Scholars (http://www.juniorscholars.co.uk/Invicta-Base-Ten-Group-Set-%28Dienes%29-P5001111303481/)

Crap....

I remember those too....

can we stop it with the make dave feel old threads.

[wrinklearthur]

What was your first PC you owned?

In the 80's I bought my first pc from Radioshack (Tandy), called an MC 10*. It was a minature keyboard, with word shortcuts using the tab key and had an amazing 4k memory, I later expanded this to 8k with cassette tape memory storage. I then traded it in on a TRS80 which I think had 16k of memory. The "rich" kids had 32k TRS80s or commodore 64s then. Can not remember what our computer lab at school had*.

Hi Crash

* I still have mine in its box.

* Typewriters!

[Jay70]

Commodore 64

[DiscoCam]

Not sure on the model but I remember the green monochrome monitor, 20mb hard drive (tried as hard as I could but only filled half of it), and I think it had a Turbo button which wound up the clock speed from 8Mhz to 10Mhz! Phew that was fast.:p

[Chucaro]

Microbee, I used to like the awesome and versatile Z80 CPU

[mikehzz]

A Sord business computer. It cost $5000 in 1980, had no hard drive, 2 x 360kb floppies and 64kb of memory....all state of the art at the time. It ran a proprietry operating system and was programmable with a version of BASIC. The business apps were a rudimentry dos like word processor and spreadsheet. It also had an awesome snake game :) And the screen had 2 colours, black and green.

[crash]

You got to love Basic. You would spend all day typing out a program then when you went and ran the program you spent the next few days correcting all the syntax errors.

[p38arover]

Dick Smith System 80 Business computer (no cassette drive in that one, it was meant to be used with floppy drives.). It ran NewDOS and would run TRSDOS programs.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2011/11/553.jpg

System 80/Video Genie/PMC-80 Microcomputer Archive Site (http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/system-80/)

I bought it because we used them at work (I was in charge of the technical maintenance group which repaired all of the equipment in that area - keyboard display units, teleprinters, printers, etc.).

[Hoges]

Wasn't mine as such...was an Elliot 803, I was a student at the time and it was programmed in ALGOL and FORTRAN. We had blue 5 channel tape with holes in it and a hand held device for punching holes in the tape to make corrections (like the tram conductor punched holes in tickets...).
Those were the days when 'numerical analysis" was done using calculating machines with a handle... the kids doing advance maths were allowed to use the machines which had an electric motor... then in the early 70s my lab results were crunshed using a PDP8 ...which a few years later could be done on a TI hand held calculator... now think Excel spreadsheet... $250 for a 20Mb WD HDD in the late 80s was money well spent!
I think I am very lucky to have witnessed such transformation... ;)
First laptop...1985/86 as I recall...

[ade]

commodore vic twenty

[cal415]

My first computer was a TRS80, I was pretty young and dont remember much about it besides it having donkey kong, it used cassette tapes, after that i upgraded to a commodore 128d, i dont ever remember using that for anything but the C64 mode though.

[cjc_td5]

Apple IIe, monochrome screen. Later upgraded to a colour screen, wow! :D

CC

[amtravic1]

I had a Commodore 64. I used an old 14" tv for a monitor. Seems a lifetime ago. By the replies it seems we are all Old people on here.

[awabbit6]

I've still got my first computer - a Commodore 64 with tape "drive". I also have the floppy drive for it.

My second computer was a TRS-80 pocket computer (affectionately known as a "trash-80" while I was at school).
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2011/11/552.jpg
I still have that one too but the liquid crystal in the screen has leaked so while it still turns on, it can't be used.

[clubagreenie]

Vic 20 with cartridges and tape drive. Used to go to garage sales to buy cheap 2nd hand tapes and reuse. Nothing like waiting for a game to load a mid point from tape. Couldn't just make coffee, make a whole meal.

[Ratel10mm]

Looks like I'm the first here to have an Amstrad, the 464. Ours was the posh version - it had a colour screen!
It was still the main computer for us kids when I was in college a few years later. There was a lot of homework typed up on the word processor (Tasword iirc) and plenty of time to make a coffee while the programs loaded off the integrated tape player.

I think my youngest brother still has it.

[VladTepes]

A mate here in Aus had a Commodore 64 that we played games on "BC's Wheel was a favourite) but I assume that was mid early to mid 80s?

The first computer I can recall using was this thing Dad brought home from work. I first thought it was an oscilliscope! It was a big chunky box and when you took the lid off (well, it was hinged) there was a keyboard in the lid. Small built in monochrome monitor. I can't recall much else about it.

Our school had a "computer lab" and we had TRS-80s the ones with the keyboard and monitor etc all in the "case".

Later Dad bought our family our first computer - an Apple II Europlus. (no simple plus for us, thank you, we got the one that ran on 240v because we knew we'd be bringing it home with us. At the time we lived in 110 v land).

It had a green monochrome monitor, colour ones not being available at the time. We did have a colour TV though, but of course the Apple graphics card thing didnt think of that so what to do...

Dad built from scratch a colour graphics card ! Not only was I impressed then but I still am. The thing was a maze of various coloured wires soldered to electronic components of myriad varieties on a circuit board which plugged in just like modern PC cards - kind of.

The thing worked a treat!
Everything Apple has done since has been worse than the Apple II.
Not technically, but in terms of how marvellous the product is.

And yes I too remember the joy (well it seemed to be at the time) of typing in huge BASIC programs, and then marvelling when all those lines of "stuff" resolved into a space invaders game or something. Well cool.

Oh and before that we had an Atari. I didn't count it as a computer (though of course it was) - a gaming console that used cartridges. Some great games on that one and we had "paddles" for playing tennis, driving games etc. For the uninitiated a paddle is basically just a potentiometer (spelling Ron? ) turn one way and thing on screen goes one direction and vice versa. We also had conventional joysticks.

[SlowRide]

I had a TRS 80 too (well, the old man did), but it was a full size computer. I don't remember it doing too much apart from the dos type screen.

A commodore 128 was our next computer... I remember saving up for months for games like Ikari Warriors, Shinobi and Double Dragon :) Load "$",8,1

[BMKal]

I started with a Sharp - can't remember the model name. It looked a lot like the TRS 80 in the pic above, but more like an oversize calculator and with an inbuilt printer (ran those little calculator printer rolls of the time and printed in 4 colours, and ran Basic. Used it for doing the "metallurgical accounting" at The Granites Gold Mine in the NT.

Then the company decided to "go computerised". We were given 8086 Compaq desktops running very early DOS, and provided with absolutely no training or programming that we could use, other than the computers had Lotus 123 installed on them.

I bought an early Commodore in Alice Springs (IBM compatible model - not the 64), copied Lotus 123 from the work computer and loaded it at home, and taught myself to use it.

[WhiteD3]

Started with a Commodore Amiga with all the fruit in what I think must have been 1988. Got a job as a controls tech (no idea why they hired me) in 1990 and after a week at work trying to figure out DOS on the company's IBM x86 machines I splashed out $4k on a 386 for home so I could teach myself.

[SuperMono]

MicroBee CPM machine with 64K and dual 3.5 720K floppy drives.
Ran commercial 'Office' style software for word processing, database and spreadsheets plus we wrote customer software for financial including invoicing and account management. Later I used this machine for PLC interface with my own (reverse engineered) code and hardware interface.

Image even thinking about doing that on 64K of memory now :)

[George130]

First comp was a kit. Bought it second hand half built and finnished it. Can't remember the brand.
Next came the sharp MZ700 followed by the MZ800.
Since have had most of the PC's.
Favorite was the 386 with maths co processor, 8 meg ram, 40 meg HDD, Laser printer with 8meg print buffer and full pro scribe cartridge.
That thing used to wow everyone.

[NavyDiver]

Vic 20 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20) spend hours on it. Coding was fun, tape drive loading saved code was even entertaining for the first few days waiting:D

[rovercare]

Amstrad with cassette, Boulder dash is all I remember, how do I find an original I can play now?

School friends 286 with liesure suit larry another great game:D

[rick130]

My first computer? My Grandpa's base 10 blocks....got them in 1968....:cool:

Buy Invicta Base Ten Group Set (Dienes) from Junior Scholars (http://www.juniorscholars.co.uk/Invicta-Base-Ten-Group-Set-%28Dienes%29-P5001111303481/)


Crap....

I remember those too....

can we stop it with the make dave feel old threads.

Hahaha, good old cuisenaire rods Cuisenaire rods - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Haven't seen them for nearly forty years, so I'm with Dave :(

[Scallops]

Cuisenaire rods are not the same as Dienes blocks! Google Dienes blocks - Professor Dienes is my Grandpa....

Actually, here is a link....

http://www.infoagepub.com/index.php?id=9&p=p47901ab40a27e

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Trout]

MicroBee CPM machine with 64K and dual 3.5 720K floppy drives.
Ran commercial 'Office' style software for word processing, database and spreadsheets plus we wrote customer software for financial including invoicing and account management. Later I used this machine for PLC interface with my own (reverse engineered) code and hardware interface.

Image even thinking about doing that on 64K of memory now :)

I started with a microbe 16k :eek: then upgraded to a 32k then 64k. Started with a tape drive. Dad was into computers at work so I was very lucky high school student using computers when no one else really was. After this I had a very innovative for its time computer phone. Never really took off but was quite good concept and user friendly for office tasks.

[Blknight.aus]

Hahaha, good old cuisenaire rods Cuisenaire rods - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisenaire_rods)

Haven't seen them for nearly forty years, so I'm with Dave :(

But Im not nearly forty...

[33chinacars]

The one I'm sitting typing at now. Althought its have an upgrade or two since I got it .

Gary

[Ranga]

Looks like I'm the first here to have an Amstrad, the 464. Ours was the posh version - it had a colour screen!
It was still the main computer for us kids when I was in college a few years later. There was a lot of homework typed up on the word processor (Tasword iirc) and plenty of time to make a coffee while the programs loaded off the integrated tape player.

I think my youngest brother still has it.

That was my first. A mate had the posh one with the 3.5" floppy.

We learnt pretty quickly we could copy the cassettes, but they would only work on high speed dubbing :)

Sent from my phone using Tapatalk

[IndusD4]

A Tandy TRS-80 model I with 16Kb memory - bought this second hand in 1982. Upgraded to a Commodore 64 in 1983, then a Commodore 128 in 1986.

Ron

[fclandy]

Built my own in 1978 from a design in Electronics Australia magazine. Signetics (Fairchild) 2650 processor, 1k RAM (later expanded to 4k, never did the expansion to 12k - who'd ever need that much memory?) 1MHz clock speed. The "BIOS" in ROM was called PIPBUG. Keyboard was in a separate box - miles of wires to get that going, and the display board was about 40 x 16 or 18pin ICs on a 6"x6" PCB - that was a bugger to solder. For a display, i fed the output to the grid of the first video amplifier valve in an old 26" B&W TV. 16 lines of 32 characters, with the cursor fixed on the bottom line, a bit like a teletype. Cassette tape for storage. Programmed it all in assembly language until I got a BASIC compiler that occupied 1.6k of RAM. Still have it. (who's a hoarder?)

In 1979 the school got it's first computer, a TRS-80. Taught myself and compared notes with one of the maths teachers (who'd done engineering at uni and knew a bit of FORTRAN). Was often called on by the science teacher to demonstrate the computer when they were showing prospective parents around.

I worked for a small local PC company in the 80's, building and selling XT clones, then AT (286) clones, then 386 and 386 SX, but when we built our first 486 I was blown away by the speed. We used to sell a 40Mb 'voice-coil' hard drive for $1200!

[wrinklearthur]

To unpack the MC10 from it's carton, then start it, load the program to use, use it and finish the job and pack it away again, still took less time than this laptop takes to boot! :zzz:

.

[PhilipA]

My first AFAIR was a 286 clone in 1982 with 64k? (sounds too much) and floppy.
However I may be wrong as that is a long time ago.

However I used computers far earlier doing a semester of COBOL? in 1974.

Also in 1975 was the user rep for installation of an upgraded production control system in Ford Australia on a B4700 with AFAIR 64K. It was eerie on a weekend to be in the room with about 12 mercury tape machines and room for 22 punch tape operators , only with the programmer doing debugs. I used an old IBM card punch in about 1971 . Orders were digitised in Brisbane Ford plant by 5 ? operators and the IBM cards hung on the bodies of cars detailing the specs.
Later in 1980 I recall being at BMW Australia and doing my stock/sales rundowns by hand , then waiting until 8PM to fax the production orders to Germany on a satellite leased link. The fax machine had spirit printout and was approx 2metres high by 1metre x1metre.
Regards Philip A