i dont know about you guys but my parents werent exactly the techno types,

i had no computers till i was about 8, according to u guys that means i was deprived :rolleyes:

any way at about 9-10 i had 3 computers, a C64, a toshiba 386 laptop, that i still play wolfenstein on (yes the 2D version) and the good ol' 486, god that computer was a screamer in those days, you press enter and five seconds later your still waiting, even the most basic things took ages. oh well, that means that the pentium 3 733 im writing this on is only my fourth computer!:hmm:

I'm 35 now. I bought my 1st computer from my tenth grade teacher in 1983 which was a TRS-80 Model 1.

http://www.kjsl.com/trs80/graphics/trs80.gif

I learned a lot of BASIC programming on that thing.
Then later I upgraded and got a COCO MC-10 !

http://www.8bit-micro.com/images/tandy-mc10.jpg

I still have the model 1 which is tricked out to look like this one.

http://www.8bit-micro.com/images/Trs80-mod1ex.jpg

Lets see, it was probably 1983 and it was an amstrad cpc 6128. It had a disk drive, but pretty much all of my programs or games were on tape. My first game for it was blockout, which I typed in all the code myself (it came in the manual for the comp). Then I got donkey kong on disc. Sweeet. Then i had a Spectrum 64 (i think it was a 64 anyway), which was total crap. My next computer was probably my P1 133 back in 94 or 95, which was super computer status back then :)... I'm 30 now.

I'm 19, my dad bought our first computer in 1988-89 or so, not exactly sure. It was a smoking Packard Bell 12 mhz 286 with a 30 meg harddrive and 2 MB of RAM.

I enjoyed playing paperboy on it.

My dad has always been into computers and lets just say I was very young when I got my first hand me down.


The first computer I actually owned and bought is the one im using right now. I bought it last summer.

DELL Inspiron 8200 Laptop. Its specs are:

Intel Pentium 4 Mobile CPU 1.6GHz
384 MB of RAM
Microsoft XP Home (I know, should have gotten PRO)
Toshiba 40gig HardDrive
NIVIDIA GeForce4 440 GO video card
Samsung CDRW/DVD drive
Internal 56k Modem
2 USB 2.0 Ports
1394 FireWire Port
Network Cable hole thingy
Infared Port
The best Sound Card I could get on it at the time (dont know how to look for its name)



Dont mistake me for a lucky rich kid. I worked my @ss off for this. (granted dad did pay half :}

Oh yea, im 19 (turn 20 in 3 months!)

I'm 19 - my first computer was a 386 33mhz with 4 mb ram and 100mb hard drive. I got this sometime in the early 90s. Was dual booting OS/2 and Win3.1, so I had about 20mb of free space left on the drive. I considered that plenty :D

I can't remember what it was exactly, I think a Compaq Portable. It was an old (1982) XT (I think?) box that booted off one of the 5.25" floppies and ran programs (my dad's spreadsheet, my submarine game and word processor) from the other 5.25" floppy. Supposedly an early laptop, but bigger than most modern desktop. I'm 20 years old. By the way the first computer I owned, not my dad, was a 386 DX 33mhz that we bought from my elementary school when they switched to Macs.

I'm 19, first computer was a TRS 80 Model I at around 7 years old or so. Good ol computer game via the cassette tape. Space Warp. Still have the tape. Broke the '80 and threw it away. I wish I hadn't, know enough now that I could have fixed it. :-(

I want another one.

I'm 35 (this Friday) and I used an Apple II c in High School for writing essays. Used a word processing program called Magic Windows (or something like that).

I later used my girlfriend's computer in University - a Tandy 1000. A 286 running on DOS.

The first one I owned was one I had made for me by a friend. A PC clone - 386 with 8 mB of RAM... just hummed along (that was 1992 or so).

my first 'computer' was a TRS-80... :) (*good way to learn BASIC*) :)

Hmm, sometime around 3 or 4 i started with something less then a 286. This thing was so wierd i cant even remember what it was called.

This was somewhere around 1986

Then a 286. Then a P1 250mhz. Then finally a PII 700mhz.

Im on a P3 950mhz now.

scarry

first computer was a 486 DX2 66, with a turbo button to do from 33 to 66 mhz. dot matrix printer, the works.

first one i owned was a 400 mhz Dell celeron that is still in use today, and runs like a champ.

I'm 37. First computer I ever used was in '78 and I don't even know what it was. It was in a Jr High programming class: there was no monitor, just a continuous printout of inputs and outputs. We'd spend the whole period playing this car racing game.

Bought my first computer in '89. A 386 for $2500. Splurged on the color monitor but couldn't afford the HP inkjet for $750. Also insisted on a 3.5" floppy drive in addition to the 5.25" cuz I knew that was the wave of the future. In '90 I discovered the internet and credit card debt thru a 1200 baud modem with per minute charges from PC-Link->Prodigy->AOL.

My first computer was am 286 custome build with a green screen and a 14.4 Kb/s modem. I first learned about IRQ and Com settings then when trying to get the modem to work since it comflicted with the IDE card. It took me a couple weeks, but after than, I spent my evenings playing Door Games on various local Bulletin Board Systems with some friends. I was 13 then and I am almost 22 now. Three systems later, I currently have an AMD 1.2 GHz with GeForce II graphics. Man, I sure do miss the good ol' days, hehe ;-)

First computer was a commador 64.

i'm 19. we had an Apple IIe and IIc, about the same time they came out i dunno year 89?. then we got a Performa 575 in 94?, then I got a PowerMac 6500/225 in 1997, and last fall i got eMac 700.

I too am 21 but didnt get a computer until I was 14. I had an Apple Performa 6300 - 100 mhz. Still have it, remote control and all.

Mine was a 286 with a 20MB hard drive. It ran at a nice 16Mhz, with the turbo button down. It was perfect for playing Dune 2 and wolfenstein 3D on. Doom, unfortunately, wouldn't run on it. It took floppies, and low density 3,5" disks.

I then switched to a cheap 386, then a pentium 133, and then to a pentium 2 300. I'm still using that last one right now. I don't need much processor power to be happy :)

madsen: i didnt get a remote with the 6500, but i programed my tv remote to do so :p although all it did was turn on/off and do volume, still cool though

My first was an Apple IIe, then i got a 386.

Well, I'm 24 and my first 'rig' was an Atari 65XE, sorta like the C64 but from Atari and didn't have alot of upgrades and I learned how to program BASIC on it. And I still have it.

first 'real' computer was a 286 with 2 hds, win3.1 1mb ram 3.5 5.25 and 1200 baud modem....I could be wrong about the 286 and it could have been a 3 but I'm almost positive about the 2, and I still have it. The main HD head crashed so it is about useless now.

First computer I bought, PB 486dx2 66mhz 4mb ram 14.4k baud modem windows 3.1 2X CD-rom 15" monitor....those were the days....

a tandy :D, all i did was BASIC, and play digger

Learned basic on a C64.

Ahh the good old apple ][ way back in grade school. I would say I was probably 8 or so. currently I'm 21.

My first was a BBC Microcomputer, with 32Kb (later upgraded to 48k, then even 80k!) It ran at about 1Mhz I think (later 2Mhz). However, the games were awesome and I still play Elite! Taught me a fair bit about (bad) programming - trying to write in 6502 assembler when you only have 3 registers and only one of them is any use!

Did aynone not own a speccy. I'm 2.......3. First PC was a spectrum 48k solid plastic keys but i had a friend with the rubber ones. That had to be back in the early 80's. Best game was viking raiders by far. Multiplayer woo hooo.

we used trash 80s in grade school, commodore 64s in jr. high.

the first machine i owned was an original macintosh. the inside of the case was signed by the cupertino crew. wish i had known enough to hold onto it.

1982, Started with a C64 with the 1541 and a cassette tape drive too..... good times... good times....
26 years old....

Tandy 1000SL, 384 KB RAM (upgraded it to 640KB), no hard drive, OS = some crappy precursor to a full-blown Windows OS.

Radio Shack sucks, but at least I learned DOS commands.

hah my first computer was like 5 months ago, amd athalon xp 2100+. 512 ddr pc 2700 ram, g4ti4200 and 40 go 7,200 rpms harddrive....good enuff for me!

Comadore 64, and I still have it, though minus the monitor, and it has been somewhat patched up and bandaged. But it still works perfectly, just have to use the RF adapter to connect to a TV

Macintosh Classic around 1990. I think it was around $4000 or so.

20 MB Hard drive, 4 MB of ram (Maxed out), 9 inch Black and White (Not gray scale) monitor, 2400 baud Modem (Fax send and receive). The modem was around $400.

19 this May past, born in 1984, the first computer that I owned was the Power Macintosh 6100/60, bought and opened on June 23, 1994. Coincidence that I was born the Year of the Macintosh?

The first computer i used was a 486/66, the first computer i built was a 150 Pentium 1 with a black and white monitor and a 500MB Hard drive.

I'm about to turn 25 and my first personal (not family) computer was an Amiga 1200 and that was back in 1993/93 I think...I still miss amigas :(

The first CPU that was actually mine was the old 386 IBM my parents were gonna throw away once they bought a new 133 pentium. I think it had 1 or 2 mb ram, and had less than 100 mb HD. Ran at a blazing 33 mhz, when the "turbo" button was pushed in! kinda funny, cause now i have a computer that runs almost 85 times faster processor wise.
I am 18, almost 19

i'm 22, and my first computer was a texas instruments something or other, circa 1986. i remember being so excited the first time i used BASIC to play a scale. heh.

I'm 32 and had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum in 1982 with a wopping 16k later upgraded to 48k. It used to be the must have toy when I was a kid, that was until the C64 came into being. Brings back memorys of copying games with my mates tape to tape, Ah the good old days.

The first system I used was a C-64 back in '83/'84 or so - I particurlaly remember Chopper.

1986 IBM 286...10 MB hard drive, 10 mhz processor, orange monochrome monitor, oh yeah...plus the old skool all steel case that weighed 50lbs. I'm using the keyboard to type this message, an IBM "clicky" Model M (aka the One Keyboard)...had to slap a PS/2 adapter on it many many years ago when they phased out the old AT ports. I'll never give it up, it'll go to the grave with me...

It was either a Tandy MC-10 or a Sinclair (the black one with the membrane 'board).

They boath had a 16k expansion. Wow!

Commodore 64, which I still have and a ton of cracked games I got in college. Still fire it up every blue moon..

Another one that was "de-virginized" by a Timex Sinclair 1000. It was '82 and I was twelve. I bought it at a yard sale for like five bucks, and I felt like I had just bought something from Star Wars. :) I honestly thought that I would be the only one posting about the Timex Sinclair 1000.

I'm 23 now, but my first computer was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A.

ROM-encoded BASIC! Whoo-hoo!

First computer I remember using was the amazing Apple IIe to play Oregon Trail during elementary...First computer I owned was a Tandy 386...couldn't do anything on it until I learned the damn DOS commands.. then an Acer 486 with Windows 3.1...btw I'm 18

first computer = packard bell 486. 66 Mhtz. oh yeah.

I'm 20 and my first computer was a Tandy 1000. I can't really remember what year it was but I couldn't have been older than 8 or 9, I would guess.

Amstrad 128 . . . . man it had a disk drive and everything . . woo hoo . . . mustabeen in mid eighties . . . . its amazing what years of drug abuse does to one's mind, can't remember much from that period . . .

I am 36 and my first computer was a C 64 and I got it for christmas in 1982.

I'm 26

first true computer was an epson

DOS 3.2
088 processer
15 meg HD
RAM was 800k

1987 - Apple IIe, shortly replaced by a PC-XT clone.

Yeah i rocked the 512k dual floppy hercules system for a long ass time :D

My experiences with the C64 and 128 came in the early 90's. I used to code basic like a madman.

THe first computer I used was a mainframe Uni of Sheffield (UK) to play Star Trek. (Had to load using punch cards) 1978ish

First to program and Apple II (1982)

First to break and dstroy a Sinclair QL mid 80's

First to Own a 286 PC with 640K Ram.

Proud to Own Acorn Archiemdies A5000.

Currently own:
1.4 Athlon 512 KRam Windoze XP
iMac G3
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
Tandy PC-8
Dell inspiron latpop.

Dream of owning something cool with Linux, got to break from MS.

Dreffed

I'm 25 and my first computer was a "Fountain" 286. 20 meg HD, 8 megs of ram, some crazy trident video card and DOS 5. I got it around 1993. Carmen Sandiego never looked better.

some Apple that i cant even remember the name of at this point...

>sigh< those were the days

I got my first computer in 1985 i think. It was a tandy 3 from radioshack. I cant remember the specs on it. It had some pretty cool games for back then though. The first good computer I bought was in 1995. It was a packard bell pentium 166 with 24 megs of ram and the 12 gig hard drive and ran windows 95. It only set me back about $2,500 too, lol.

It was an imac, don't hurt me

You know, it's been more than three
months since I posted that.

I'm still waiting for someone to put me
out of my misery.

Well?????

Packard Bell 486 in 1992. It was great, megarace was the best game ever.

IBM 286, 8mb RAM, less than 1 gig HD...ah good times. It was later upgraded to a pentium 133 and my nephew uses it for kiddie games.

I had an old 486 which still runs.

I'm 21. The first one I can remember using is an Atari 800XL when I was about 3 or 4, although my dad say I was playing games on an old TI since I was 2. First PC I used was an XT clone. 10 mhz, 640k RAM.

First computer I bought myself was a 200mhz Pentium MMX. It was the fastest Pentium available and remained that way for a whole week and a half after I bought it.

1993.... 486/33SX Still have it somewhere. May make a good shooting target.

I'm 23. My first computer was a 286 with 2 MB of RAM and a 20 MB hard drive running DOS 3.3. I think it was '87 or '88.

26 and counting.

The first "computer" I used was a tandy something or other.. Everything except the tape drive was inside the keyboard. Went out to a tv monitor I believe.

First pc was a 386-16 with 4mb of ram. I was the cool kid on the block with that kind of speed.

BUMPED BACK FROM THE DEPTHS!!!!

Old Tandy 1000. 640k, dual floppies, VGA graphics, 2.5 MHZ processing power.

Games:

Dark Castle

Dr J. vs. Larry Bird 1 on 1

F-15 strike pilot (which, ironically, had you bomb Iraq.)

Lotus v 1.1, baby. Woot!

I'm 20. Let's see.....first computer I used was the old Macintosh's in elementary school. First computer I had was a pentium 133 MHz.

C64, then a Laser 128k Apple compatable.

Icky.. Those days.

First PC was a 486sx25, 4Megs of Ram.
Added 4 more megs after xmas.

-SF

I was probably 45 when I used my first computer....an IBM dumb terminal connected to an IBM-370 H-mainframe...with "unlimited storage capacity" This is one of the current fortune 300 companys, and you can not believe your eyes when you walk onto the floor and see what looks like acres of large hard drives....(they look like R2D2 standing in rows) plus a robotic tape system for backup.

My first personal computer was this 1998 Dell V350 that I got when I was 65.

First computer I had was a gateway p5-120. $3500 for that piece of trash that couldn't run video with sound at the same time.

I'm 39

all the old Apples were available and we had classes writing BASIC in math

I had an Apple IIc+ for years that my wife wrote all of her law school papers on in the late 90's, with that old loud dot-matrix printer

I think it was an 1997 P3 500 MHz EMachines? I dunno.
Boy, that thing sure was slow.
Probably in the garage collecting dust

Macintosh IIci
$1800
1987-88??
System 6.0
8MB RAM
160MB HD
I had a small business that I ran on the thing, simple spreadsheets, and graphics programs.

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~RY4M-AKHS/macIIci.jpg

First computer I used was an Apple II, and then the Comodore PETs. First computer I owned was an Amiga 500.

Timex Z-80

http://www.futurebots.com/timex.jpg

i'm 20, and the first computer i played games on was a commodore 64 when i was 6 or 7. as far as actual use goes, it wasn't until i was 11, in middle school, and all i know was it was an ibm POS. as far as a pc goes, my first was at 14

Man. Way back in the day. I was about four or five, so that would make the machine about 15 years old. Probably a 386 or something. The only thing I remember about it was playing hangman on it :)

My dad said I started on a TI 99/4A, but my earliest memories are of an Atari 800XL that I used when I was 3. I'd type in BASIC games from books.

I just found one the other day at a Goodwill for 10 bucks, and I ordered a power supply for it in eBay. That's gonna bring back some good memories when I fire it up. :)

First computer I ever _used_ was a Microdata mini circa 1981 with the never-popular PICK operating system. I was a journalism major hired to put a software company's manuals in some kind of reasonable shape. I learned. Had a big ADDS Regent B/W terminal that pretty much ate my desk.

As a writer, even the minicomputer's limited text editing and formatting capabilities appealed to me, so in '82 I brought a used Apple II+ with two single-sided 160K disk drives, an Epson MX-80, an 80-column card, a modem card, a Microsoft CP/M card, and a bunch of used software. Cost $2500 for the package; at the time, a steal. Used it mainly for word processing, and heavily. Me and WordStar -- we were real close.

Sure don't miss that 300-baud modem, though. Painful.

You had 8 megs of ram on a 286?!? I envy you!

My 5th computer was a Tandy w/ a Intel 486sx-25, it only had 8 megs of ram!

-SF

I bought a 386 for $600 back in '94/95 not sure when. I got gipted(sp?) for sure.

I ran Doom II on it at about 15 fps :D

Don't remember all the specs but I had these:

1996 - 386 that I upgraded to a 486 and upgraded from windows 3.11 to Win 95

1998 - Bought and built my first pc. a 233mhz AMD K5. Ran Quake 1 really crappy. I put in a Voodoo 1 in it with a ATI all in wonder.

1999 - AMD K6 w/3Dnow! 400mhz with a Voodoo 3 which I still have around. Needs a hard drive. Ran Q2 great and Unreal like a dream. That machine kept me entertained for a long time.

2001? - AMD T-Bird 1.2 with a GF3 MX400. I think I already had HL2 installed on the previous computer. I wet my pants when I upgraded to this.

2003 - AMD XP2500 w/ FX5600 256mb. This machine the first to dissapoint me. Ran everything else ok. Not much of a difference from the previous machine except that it ran UT2k4 like crap for some reason.

Now - AMD FX53 w/ ATI X800 Pro. I wet my pants every day :D

I know that this thread was about the first PC ever own but it brought back memories.

IBM 360 with 1MB of core ram, card sorter and IBM keypunch/tape combo using BASIC and Fortran.

50.

The first computer I used was an old 286 with a whopping 8Mhz of processing power and a whole 4MB of ram, with a 20MB hard drive, CGA monitor, and a 9600 BPS modem. I was about 3 at the time, back in '87. A that point, I could read really basic stuff and didn't really do much with the computer other than a few games. My father taught me to use computers at an early age, and I was able to type by the time I was 5, and around that time I started gaming, with good old Mega Man, Qbert, Space Invaders, stuff like that. I first beat Zork when I was 6 or 7, and I've since regressed to the point where I can't get past the stupid snake or the dwarf that throws axes. For school, I used that computer for word processing (good old WordPerfect)

In second grade (around age 8) , I got my first computer, one that my uncle's workplace was throwing out. It was a step up, a portable computer with a 10Mhz processor and EGA graphics. It had a keyboard that attached to the case and covered the monochrome LCD screen. It was the first computer I fixed, changing switches and jumpers until the LCD actually worked, although I usually connected an external monitor. It had Xwrite, Civilization (the first game I hacked, changing the credits and in-game messages by using "edlin" to rewrite lines of text files,) Duke Nukem, and Commander Keen 3 and 5.

I finally let my mom convince me to get rid of the old portable comp three or four years ago, and my biggest regret is that I didn't save backup copies of the original Civ or Commander Keen.

Commodore 64, I learned basic on it and then they came out with some utility, I don't remember what it's called, where you type programs like 2G5, 743, 294, 210, 204. It would piss me off so bad after typing a program for a game for 3 or 4 hours and it not work, then trying to proofread all those numbers on a shitty 16 color monitor. It had some kickass games on 5 1/4" floppys though, I had Indiana Jones, One On One Dr.J vs Larry Bird, some Olympics game, and a bunch of others. We used to copy them from each other at elementary school for a dollar.

Apple II ... don't remember the year but it was a new computer.

My first computer was either an 8088 or an 8086 XT IBM clone.

Boy, reading through a thread like this makes me feel very old. Some people had their "first" experience by the time I had my own kids, yikes.

The first "real" computer I had (word processing, etc) was an Apple IIc that my parents bought in the early 80's. (I think I am 32, no, I turn 32 this year, yeah that's the ticket)

On the other hand, my daughter's first computer was a PIII (850Mhz) when she was 3 1/2.