What was the first computer you ever owned? (page 2)

Nosferatu

I loved that Commodore 64. I wrote so many BASIC programs for that thing...

This is the main reason I don't have the heart to throw it out. I remember developing a way of "copyrighting" a basic program where you couldn't list it and I taught it to another C-64 buddy of mine. The ideot put his journal on a floppy and password protected it so I couldn't read it. Since I developed the copyright thingy, I was also able to crack it ;)

Ah ... level 3 BASIC ...

I was a step down from you Simon, Level 2 :)

rem

Yeah, I still feel bad about throwing it out... but I know it probably doesn't work anymore and the floppys are all probably demagnetized. Those were the days (we're talking early eighties here, Tinks )

Did anyone else send in their BASIC programs to 3-2-1 Contact magazine to try to get them published? I sent in a few when I was a kid, but my programs were always too long and weren't very portable to the other platforms so I never got any published.

rem

maxwell

The first computer my family owned was a TI(Texas Instruments)-99, not IBM-compatible. It had 16K RAM and the CPU and the keyboard were all one console. We had an adapter to connect it to the TV so that we could use the TV as monitor. We had no harddrive and no floppy drive. There was a slot for connecting cartridges which were read-only like a video game. But I don't remember us owning any cartridges. They were using the same computer in my school while I was in the first through the third grade. There were two of them in the whole school and each class would get it for short period of time, like maybe a week, and we would get a few minutes to play at the computer each day our class had it. Very little guidance or teaching. The school had some mouse in a maze game and maybe a few math, grammer and typing programs on cartridges. Still no harddrive or floppy disk drive at school even thought these were available as extra accessories. The one cool thing about the computer was that a simple BASIC compiler was included in the computer, so even if you had no cartridges with premade programs, I could play with that. Very limited playing considering that I didn't have any way to save programs and only 16K of memory. But I learned a few basic BASIC commands. At the age of 9 or 10, I was reading this book we had on BASIC, and making the computer count up and down by 1's 2's 5's in finite and infinte loops using the BASIC version of the for-loop. Then later, I got good enough to write a simple program that randomly generated elementary addition problems told the user if they got the answer correct or not.

The first modern IBM-compatible computer I bought myself in 1996 was built by a guy in my small hometown in TN. 128 MHz Pentium processor running Windows 95, 16MG of RAM, harddrive about 1.5 gig. I don't think it was quite out of date just yet when I bought it.

DFWnonJW

Tandy Color Computer was my first. It also had the data cassette and cartridge programs that had to be plugged in. Totally useless except for the fact that it also had a version of Basic.

Next was a 286 16mhz speed demon. Then came the 386sx25 maxed out at 4megs RAM, built a 486 DX2-80, upgraded to a 466 Celeron eMachine, and now a 2.3 Celeron eMachine.

So what's the most useful thing you've done with a computer? Me, I can print address labels.

ashitaka

Kaypro (forget specs, I had it when I was 5 years old in 1984)

Tandy 8100 (I think)--horrid machine.

ash

Lady Lee

Like Saint Satan an 8088. By the time I was finished with it I couldn't even give it away for free. Put put it in the garbage and someone picked it up in 5 minutes

Next garbage day it was out again at a neighbors house. And it disappeared again. Who knows maybe it is still out there wandering from house to house looking for a home

Mutz

I still have my old ZX Spectrum plus a load of games and extras for it!

dmouse

Does the Binatone tennis console count?

If not then it's the ZX 81 (16K?) then a Spectrum.

The first REAL computer I had was a 386 DX40, then a 486SX25 upgraded to DX80, then a P166, P200, P2 333 celeron, P3 500.

In those days I was always upgrading something - chips, graphics, motherboards, RAM etc.

My current machine is a P3 800 with 64MB GEforce2 graphics - had it for about three years. I know it's really outdated now but I just can't afford to upgrade. Seems to run everything I want though, even most modern games (on reduced detail).

The need to upgrade seems to have slowed a bit.

iiz2cool

Wow! Looks like I started late. My first mistress was an AST 486/50 with 24 MB RAM. I still have it, and it works well as an answering/fax machine.

I have 7 others besides it.

Walter

Elsewhere

alt

What was the first computer you ever owned?

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