Jeff Mottle Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 There were some comments posted on our Facebook group so I thought I'd start a new thread here. What was the very first computer you ever used. Mine was an Apple II Plus and the Commodore 64. The first Mac I ever used was I think around 1982. The Apple II Plus. http://apple2history.org/history/ah06/ Our school had the Black Bell & Howell branded version. We even had a robotic turtle (http://www.theoldrobots.com/turtle1.html) that we used to draw pictures on a large piece of paper on the floor using a programming language called LOGO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_%28programming_language%29). Looking back I'm thinking our school was pretty damn lucky to have such cutting edge software and hardware. Must have been what started my interest in computers and graphics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 The very first machine I used was an IBM Intel 8088 and I was in the 5th grade, then there was the Commodore 64 which had a color screen even though it was a TV it was a great game machine. It wasn't until 1992 that I got my first real computer an ACER Intel 386 SX laptop with 4 megs of ram and a 120 MB hard drive. It was a laptop with a black and white screen and it cost me $2600, it ran Windows 3.1 and it had a 2600 baud model that I use to get online to AOL . I'm not really sure what I did online since no one had e-mail and web sites were almost unheard of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bev.lynn Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 Commodore 64. Then I moved up to the big league: A custom built DOS PC to run AutoCAD v2.4 which shipped on 6 or 7 5 1/4" Floppy disk with an Amber CRT! My first 3D drawing was a closed polyline of a floor plan extruded... I was hot snot..LOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianKitts Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 (edited) ahhhhh memories!... my uncle worked at IBM so we never got to go the early apple route. My first was an IBM model 25. I remember my parents complaining saying how greateful we should be because of how much they paid for it. when you're 9 you have no concept to appreciate it. Intel 8086 processor with 640K of RAM and a 20MB hard disk, we were lucky to have the dual disk drives so you didn't have to load DOS then swap disks to put in Lotus Notes for typing school papers, or for my favorite Bruce Jenner's Decathlon...... ohhh if that keyboard could count the number of times I sat there slamming on two keys to "run" a dot around a track http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=138 Edited June 14, 2012 by BrianKitts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Dombrowski Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 (edited) We had an AT&T branded 8086 with a 512K of RAM, a 10MB hard drive, a green monochrome screen, and a 300baud modem. I learned how to program in BASIC on it and played Microsoft Flight Simulator (somehow) at roughly 1 frame per second. We upgraded around 1992 to a Gateway 486 DX2 and a 14.4Kbaud modem. We eventually got a CD-ROM drive and a sound card for it. Wolfenstein 3D pumping through the stereo system was totally cool. EDIT: Found it! http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/computer.asp?c=531 Edited June 14, 2012 by nauticus27 More info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Mottle Posted June 14, 2012 Author Share Posted June 14, 2012 oooh... my uncle worked at IBM so we never got to go the early apple route. My first was an IBM model 25. I remember my parents complaining saying how greateful we should be because of how much they paid for it. when you're 10 you have no concept to appreciate it. http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=138 That was my first PC too. A year later we even got the Math Co-Processor upgrade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 Apple II plus in '82 as well. No turtle but i did have the Koala pad tablet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 (edited) In 1982, we were living on Andrews AFB in Maryland. My dad came home with an Apple IIe. I was 9 years old. My dad set it up in the TV room and my 3 brothers and I were just amazed. We had an Intellivision, but this was a totally different ballgame. It had a green screeen monitor. My dad also bought a joystick and the very first game we put in there was "Hadron". It was a vector based first person shoot 'em space game. It was awesome. Like Battlezone in space. The next game we played was "Cranston Manor". My favorite game was Ultima IV in the late 80's. Spent many late nights in high school with my friends playing that. I even tried a crack at 3D animation, but failed. I just didn't have the resources and had no idea what I was doing (pre-internet days). Wasn't until 1996 that I got truspace....that was not the best thing to start out on. My parent's still have that Apple IIe in their house. It got many many years of use 'till 1992 when my dad purchased a Hewlett Packard PC. 2 megs of RAM. I think the printer was an HP550 Inkjet. Edited June 14, 2012 by hockley91 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 First I used was a mainframe that the UN School in NY owned. teletype! Much later I owned a Commodore32 and then a Commodore64 The first machine I used for 3D work was a Kaypro brand 8086 clone (weird non-Intel 16bit chip emulating the 8086)... mid 80's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lester_Masterson Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 Atari 400 circa 1981. Membrane keyboard ( try typing pages and pages of code with that baby ) and a cassette recorder to back to all up. Still remember some peek and poke codes. First "real" PC was in high-school. A few of us "mature" students were allowed to check out a new thing called AutoCAD. We could use the tablet to draw a Lamborghini. Couldn't tell you any spec's, 'cause to be honest, it was high-school and I had other priorities Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ismael Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Commodore Vic 20 :0) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Atari ST 1080 it had a bit of painting ostftware that did crude animnation called Neochrome ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEOchrome ) that i loved this computer lasted a couple of years and then i didt touch another computer again until i was 18 that was a first gen Apple G4 for architecture school that cost a bloody lot from memory... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 wow some old people here! (me included...!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cjmcphail Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Packard Bell 386 with 64 mb Ram Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mi75 Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 (edited) Amstrad 2086 Specifications CPU 8Mhz 8086 Processor RAM 640KB Video Extended VGA adaptor that supports MDA, CGA, Hercules, EGA, MCGA, VGA, Expansion 3 full size 8 bit expansion slots Sound Built in 'PC Speaker' Drives 3.5" 720K Floppy Drive and 32MB RLL hard disk with hard disk model. Second internal 3.5" 720K floppy drive or external drive (5.25" 360K, 720K 3.5", or 1.44M 3.5") Operating System MS-DOS 3.30 Microsoft Windows 2.1 Microsoft GW-BASIC Edited June 15, 2012 by mi75 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchrender Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Zx81 sinclair Vic20 Spectrum 48 Apple II in school and coded the tron grid in pascal. (I am old) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Thomas Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 ZX81 for me too, Phil! With 1k of RAM, expandable to a mighty 16k with the added RAM pack http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81 I spent ages typing in code for simple games and recording them to tape. It was so temperamental though, 1 bump could cause the thing to crash. It did however have the genuinely terrifying 3d Monster Maze, probably one of the very first 3d games I would think. I then got the ZX Spectrum, I remember having 1 bit of 3d software for it and modelling a wine glass. After that it was Commodore Amiga, where I loved playing around with Deluxe Paint 3, the Photoshop of it's day, which even allowed you to do simple frame-based animations. It was a great piece of software that surely must've inspired many a computer artist out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBetke Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 I entered with a 286 PC. it had 1Mb Ram and 12Mhz. When Wing Commander 2 was released I had to buy a new harddisk because my 20MB Drive were full. One good thing compare dwith today is that you never run out of discspace because you know how to use it properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quizzy Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 zx81 from timex gummy buttons FTW!!! and then through MSX1 and MSX2 where I did some z80 compiling on as well (even wrote a published game for MSX1 in basic) I landed into the world of 8086, 8088 etc etc.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Twyman Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Atari 520 STE with 512kb Ram. I remember upgrading it to a whole 1mb so that I could play Street Fighter 2. They were the days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephenbannister Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 The first one I owned was a Spectrum with 48k - the type with the old rubber keyboard. Prior to that my friend had a ZX81 with a RAM pack that I think might have taken its memory to the heady heights of 8k! We'd spend all morning typing in a listing from a magazine that would allow us to play an incredibly crude move-the-block-across-the-screen game, only to have it disappear when his mum walked past too heavily, causing the RAM pack to move slightly and crash the machine. Happy days.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamRosauio Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Apple IIc - Hands down best PC i've ever used! Of course my memory is a little sketchy, I was only 7, but I don't recall ever have to ctrl-atl-delete once. http://oldcomputers.net/appleiic.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hockley91 Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Apple IIc - Hands down best PC i've ever used! http://oldcomputers.net/appleiic.html As I stated earlier we had the Apple IIe....when we moved to Texas, our neighbor had an Apple IIc....it was awesome. I remember how compact that thing was! It also had a color monitor which just amazed me. We still had the green monitor, but my brother got a TV adapter and we were able to hook the IIe up to our TV....wow...color!!!!! It was blurry though...not as clear as the monitor. I believe that was 'round 1986-1987... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramy Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Ahhh the memories. My first computer was purchased in 1990. It was a 386 with 30MB HDD and 2MB RAM. The most exiting part was later buying Creatives Multimedia Suite that came with a Sound Blaster sound card!!! It made playing Monkey Island amazing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamopinheiro Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 The only thing I can remember is that it was a 386 probably in the early 90's. Did any of you used Autocad and 3ds Max on DOS? I did Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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