DOS

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Originally Posted by Ferret

Wow some old memories there. The first computer I used was an ICL 1904A mainframe about 1974. 96k of magnetic core memory running the George 3 operating system. Data input via punched cards. Still got the operating handbook for it.

Later graduated to a PDP 11/45 and then a PDP 11/70 which at least had input via a terminal.

After that got a Perkin Elmer 3220, one of the so called 'super minis' of its time. Four boxes each about the size of a domestic fridge, cooled by 2 x 7hp air conditioners, 350k of ram and 4 x 5 Meg hard drives, two of which were used exclusively by the machine. Ran OS/32 and this was well before OS/2 was even dreamed of by IBM. What a machine.

Sadly, things went down hill from there and someone in the office got a PC - 640k ram and 1 x 10Meg hard drive all in a box you could put on a desk. Is it any wonder it took off.

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The CDC Cyber was a bureau service - and we had programmers who could work through all the loopholes in their charging system; when they closed the loopholes, we were able to justify replacing their service with a Data General - can't remember what model. What I do remember was that six months later we wanted more memory - and the cost of another 256k needed to go to the BHP board for approval! Also remember the hard disk drives - all of 20MB, and the size of a washing machine.

John

My first computer was a Commodore Amiga with an external HDD. Taught myself QBasic (I think that's what it was called). In 1990 I stumbled into a job as a tech doing automation and bought a new 386 for $4k:eek:. At the time we were using IBM 286's at work running our DOS version of our Automation OS.

When our OS moved to Windows 3.10 I fought the move like crazy because the windows version was so much more time consuming to program than DOS (and still is).

My 1st (work) computer was an IBM 360-30 with 16K ram where you could see the banks of ferrite cores with 3 wires running through each core and at 1 core per bit, that was quite a sight to see.

I had a fix for the sometimes broken return spring of the console typewriter (an elastic band) that got us programmers extra access time for having gotten the operations people out of a bind.

I still program my home computer using Quick Basic running in DOS sessions, having never bothered to learn to program under Windows.

My first computer was a TRS-80, i dont remember the hardware stats, as i was only a young kid then im only 30 now, but i do remember the commands i used to use to run programs, and remember how long it took to load programs from the cassette drive.

shortly after i went to a Commodore 64/128d with a tape drive, it even had a 300cps modem and thankfully it had a floppy drive(i still have a c64 at home with heaps of programs and games packed in a box somewhere) around that time i was also the computer boy at my primary school, setting up there micro bee computers with monochrome monitors etc, i knew more about them then the teachers did so they always got me to set them up.

Then i was at the age that i got into gaming consoles, starting with Sega's, my collection has grown over the years and still keeps growing with new consoles as they come out now, i have collected 2 megadrives, 1 megacd, 1 32x, 2 master systems, 1 nes, 2 snes, floppy disk backup for catridges for the snes and megadrive(baught from friend who got them overseas) a sega nomad(also from overseas) atari lynx, game boy, game gear, sega saturn, nintendo 64, ps1, ps2x2, ps3, psp, xbox, 2x xbox360s, there probobly more i cant remember, but i still have them all much to my wifes disgust :)

When i was in high school i got my first IBM, a 486sx33 with 4mb ram and a 200mb hdd, i also got a 2400baud modem, it was pretty damn flash at the time, and i found my first dial up BBS service. I eventualy saved enough money to upgrade to 16mb ram, a dx4 100 CPU, and a 1.3gb hdd, I also managed to get my hands on a new 14.4k modem speeding up my BBS downloads considerbly,

Shorlty after i built my first computer a pentium 133, with 32mb ram, and a voodoo 3d graphics card(the type with the loop through from the main display card), it took me ages to get the money up to buy it, i think this was when i was in yr11-12, most of the parts were recycled from old computers i had got my hands on except for the mainboard, cpu, ram and graphics cards. It was a huge step up for game play, eventualy i upgraded to a voodoo 2 card, got my first network card, upgraded to 200mhz cpu, more ram and a 2gb hdd. I started playing lan games alot with nerd friends :) I also got myself a 33.6k modem when they first come out and i was helping run a local BBS with 4 dial in lines etc as a co-sysop I was a huge nerd..... :)

Around this time i started working in IT so my collection of computers just grew like made, at the moment i must have 10-15 laptops, I was working for HP for a while so i managed to collect a bunch of old laptops and repair them, probobly 6-7 good ones, the rest are old p3s or older, and about 4-5 desktop machines with reasonable hardware but also stacks of old parts right back to old 486 gear and heaps of old HDDs.

Working in IT still its crazy to think how far its come, these days i work for a mining company as IT support looking after computers, servers, network and comms gear and looking around in my office at the moment, I have about 8-10 laptops im setting up for users worth around 4k each, plus stacks of desktops piled up on my work bench, my desk has 3 22in flat screen TFTs plus my laptop and a 2nd machine.

Well thats a long post!

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Originally Posted by clean32

... so what were your first first computer

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The first computer I bought was a Commodore 64, in 1984. I had seen the tape storage system on a friend's PET and decided I would lash out and get a HDD! I added another HDD and a modem later on.

I used various computers at college and work, before and after getting my own, but the first computer I worked on was an ICL <something> in 1971 - 256kB of core memory, reel-to-reel tapes, some hard-disks, card reader, paper tape reader and a chain printer. The operators' console printed on paper - no screen. All in a huge air-conditioned room.

David M

My first computer was an Apple iie. Twin disk drives, 6502 processor running at 1 MHZ, 64k of memory with an 80 column display card which also had an extra 64k of memory on it!

I still have it and it still works!

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Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

My first computer was an Apple iie. Twin disk drives, 6502 processor running at 1 MHZ, 64k of memory with an 80 column display card which also had an extra 64k of memory on it!

I still have it and it still works!

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The Apple 2e was probably the most successful PC before the IBM PC.

John

Amiga- the most advanced home computer of the time.
My first computer was an Ohio Scientific that I imported from US. Basically a board with 6502CPU that outputed to a TV. One of the first computers with animated graphics.
Next a VIC20, then Commodore 64, followed by Amiga 500. What an awesome advance over the 386 PC of the day. It had only 512K of RAM which I expanded to 2Mb in external 20Mb HDD). The Amiga500 had parallel processing with dedicated CPU/GPUs for each major function. OS was based on UNIX. This allowed 3D graphics, stereo sound, and multitasking with only a 7Mhz clock speed. My mate who had just spent $10K on latest 386 nearly cried when I showed him what $1000 Amiga could do!
I've still got it & still works.
Couldn't affort Amiga 2000 or 3000, so reluctantly went down the IBM clone path & still there. Now run an ASUS MV51Va laptop which is as powerful as most Desktops & about same price.
Maybe someday we will see another little startup company as Amiga was, bring out a revolutionary computer & OS to bring some real competition back into the PC market.

Cheers..B

In the Eighties, I was the Principal Technical Officer in charge of the OTC Message Relay System.

The hard drive there was a 99 Mb Fastrand Drum

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...d/Fastrand.gif

Specifications (FASTRAND II)

Storage capacity: 22,020,096 36-bit words = 132,120,576 6-bit FIELDATA characters = 99 megabytes (8-bit bytes) per device
Drum rotation rate: 15 per second (880 [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPM"]RPM[/ame])
Heads: 64
Sector size: 28 36-bit words
Track size: 64 sectors (1,792 36-bit words)
Track density: 105 tracks per inch
Average latency ([ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seek_time"]seek[/ame] plus [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_delay"]rotational[/ame]): 92 milliseconds
Data transfer rate: 26,283 36-bit words per second = 118 kilobytes per second (8-bit bytes)
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_storage_density"]Recording density[/ame], one-dimensional: 1,000 bits per inch (along one track)
Recording density, two-dimensional: 105,000 bits per square inch of drum surface
Max FASTRAND [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_device"]devices[/ame] (drum units) per controller: 8
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_controller"]Controller[/ame] price: US$41,680 (1968 dollars)
FASTRAND device price: US$134,400 (1968 dollars)
Weight per FASTRAND device: 4,500 pounds
Weight per kilobyte: 6 ounces



I still have one of the frames from the disassembled unit as a bench holding my drill press.

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Originally Posted by bruiser69

Amiga- the most advanced home computer of the time.
My first computer was an Ohio Scientific that I imported from US. Basically a board with 6502CPU that outputed to a TV. One of the first computers with animated graphics.
Next a VIC20, then Commodore 64, followed by Amiga 500. What an awesome advance over the 386 PC of the day. It had only 512K of RAM which I expanded to 2Mb in external 20Mb HDD). The Amiga500 had parallel processing with dedicated CPU/GPUs for each major function. OS was based on UNIX. This allowed 3D graphics, stereo sound, and multitasking with only a 7Mhz clock speed. My mate who had just spent $10K on latest 386 nearly cried when I showed him what $1000 Amiga could do!
I've still got it & still works.
Couldn't affort Amiga 2000 or 3000, so reluctantly went down the IBM clone path & still there. Now run an ASUS MV51Va laptop which is as powerful as most Desktops & about same price.
Maybe someday we will see another little startup company as Amiga was, bring out a revolutionary computer & OS to bring some real competition back into the PC market.

Cheers..B

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I agree - my boys had an Amiga 500 - until a year or two ago I was using the TV set that came with as a monitor.

I think there is an Amiga emulator available; probably runs under Linux.

John