What was your first home computer?

Whelan · Post by **Whelan** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:46 am

Not what you had in school, but the first one your parents brought home. If you were born with a computer in the house, what was the model if you remember. LOL.We did not get a computer in my house until the early 90's it had to have been. It was an IBM PS/2. Big blue switch in front that when flicked was reminiscent of the fuse panel in your basement, a big ol DONK when it flicked on. Prodigy had JUST been introduced as well for the first internet experience as they called it. AOL was just coming out as well around the time. We did neither, for me it was your basic Entertainmnet Pack 4 with Chips Challenge and word processing.My homework was printed dot matrix style on a big Epson 810 or something, It was huge, loud, and got me many A's. I was typing at 65wpm with two fingers before I learned to type. Today I am approx. 150 when I get goin on average.So how bout you.

Nelson · Post by **Nelson** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:58 am

Commodore Vic 20!What a beast. It came with a tape drive. (Yep, imagine carrying around cassettes with your data on them.Then we upgraded to a 5 1/4 inch FLOPPY Disc drive. It was around $350!!

zionzr2 · Post by **zionzr2** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:58 am

Apple IIe it showed up at home around 1985

NibCrom · Post by **NibCrom** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:07 am

Early 90s: Gateway 2000 (back when it was called that). Windows 3.1.1 I believe. I spend many hours on that computer. And that was even before the Internet!

BlueCrush · Post by **BlueCrush** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:07 am

Packard Hell

tribalman · Post by **tribalman** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:17 am

i wish i could remember. i am like some people and cars. i have had sooooo many. right now i have a desktop as primary gaming, my laptop i do everything else on, an old dell i'm messing around with software and seeing what i can get it to do, a slightly older gaming pc i'm trying to mod into something cool, and a few parts for a new higher end gaming pc/server/crazy.

kevera · Post by **kevera** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:17 am

Quote, originally posted by Nelson Â»Commodore Vic 20!ahahaha,I had one of those and the 64 also.How times have changed.

keithvibe · Post by **keithvibe** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:43 am

commodore 64... with HUNDREDS of games.. thats the only thing it was good for Ghostbusters FTW

AKLGT · Post by **AKLGT** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:18 am

commodore 64 all the way!!!!

LOL

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:38 am

At home it wasn't until 1987-88 or so. Parents went all fancy and got a Mac SE, 40MB (!!) HD, dual internal Superdrives, and HP DeskWriter (300 dpi and you had to use special inkjet crinkly paper ). We picked up a 1200 baud modem too, I would *surf* to the sports listings on Compuserve. Lots of shareware games too, we were signed up in a local (San Diego) group where you got a couple disks filled with free/share-ware every month or so. Probably had around 50 disks like that by the time we left.At school we had been playing around Apple IIe's for awhile.Oh yeah, at some point we upgraded all the way up to *drumroll* 4 MB of memory!

harryyiii · Post by **harryyiii** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:17 am

I bought a Radio Shack Color Computer in 1982. Originally had a cassette tape storage, and I later upgraded to a single sided 5 1/4" floppy. I had a dot matrix printer with a typewriter ribbon. It came with a whopping 16KB memory which I upgraded to 32KB. I had about a 1/2 dozen plug in games. The operating system was on Rom.

kunkstyle · Post by **kunkstyle** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:36 am

Tandy 1000. No modem, 16 colours. But it did play Test Drive II : The Duel. And had a word processor that was marginally better than a typewriter. Would have been in either '87 or '88.

prathman · Post by **prathman** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:47 am

Ohio Scientific C1P.4K of RAM and storage at 300 baud on audio cassette tape. It was slow enough that you could read the data and program files as they were being loaded.

ClunkClunk · Post by **ClunkClunk** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:35 am

Apple IIgs. Circa 1987.My parents paid $2500 for it, a 12" 16 bit color display, 1MB RAM, 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drives, and an ImageWriter II printer. I still have the receipt somewhere I think.

Herb · Post by **Herb** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:03 am

In 1982 my folks got me an Apple II+ clone, back before Apple Computer stopped the clone manufacturers. I think it had 48k of RAM with a single sided 5.25 floppy drive.In 1989 I bought an Apple IIGS system which I still have today that I've modded and accessorized to the yin yang. Currently running at 16MHz with CompactFlash for a hard drive and even an ethernet card.

ehoff121 · Post by **ehoff121** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:17 am

Quote, originally posted by zionzr2 Â»Apple IIe it showed up at home around 1985+1, except that I bought mine in 1983 with a green monochrome monitor and a no-name joystick. I remember it had an 80 column card, two 5 1/4 floppy drives, and the joystick had to be plugged into the motherboard via a 16(?) pin socket. Even had a 9 pin dot matrix printer for printing school papers typed in using Bank Street Writer.Ah, the hours mispent playing Karateka, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Droll, Jumpjet, etc.

Herb · Post by **Herb** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:25 am

Quote, originally posted by ehoff121 Â»Ah, the hours mispent playing Karateka, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, Droll, Jumpjet, etc.Those were fun! And to name a few more I enjoyed: Rescue Raiders, Captain Goodnight, Cannonball Blitz, Lode Runner, Apple Panic, Choplifter, Might & Magic, Hard Hat Mack, Sundog, Willy Byte in the Digital Dimension

rdnzl · Post by **rdnzl** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:38 am

I still have my Commodore 64. It's fun to mess with once in a while.Right now, I'm running an Alienware Area 51 that I bought a couple of months ago.In between, I've had 11 different systems.Yeah, that's right, I'm a constant upgrader. One of the dummies who has wasted TONS of cash on computers.Oh, I forgot....I also have a MAC!

Vibe_dude · Post by **Vibe_dude** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:14 am

A Texas Insturment TI-99/4a, wow what a beast it was took small hands to use it.very small keyboard.here is a link to some pics of it and some options it had back in 81.http://oldcomputers.net/ti994a.html

northvibe · Post by **northvibe** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:47 am

IBM 286 i think..with DOS. mmm fun games on floppies.

Bikerscum · Post by **Bikerscum** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 12:49 pm

Atari 800... early '80's. Tape drive, 300 baud modem. Upgraded to a 1040 ST.... added a 10MB hard drive..... $1000 extra. But dude.... that was like THIRTY floppies worth of storage!!! Everyone wanted to be me.

jake75 · Post by **jake75** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:06 pm

About 1989 Zenith 8086, 2 - 3.5 inch 720 kb drives, unit all in one piece had b&w monitor, 64 kb memory I think, sold for about $800. I bought it from a so called bargain catalog for $600.They also made a model with a 10 mb hard drive that sold for about $1,000; $800 from the bargain catalog.As I remember you had to load DOS at startup from a disk. Then the program disk was in one drive and the data disk in the other.Next one a few years later was a KLH. I think that one was loaded with the first version of Windows. 2 mb memory, 3.5 in drive and a small HD with 14 inch color monitor cost about $1,200.

NUBlackshirts · Post by **NUBlackshirts** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:37 pm

Commodore 64 here back in 1985-86.Later on, I upgraded to an Amiga 500. That system kicked a$$ for it's time.Dumped Commodore completely around 1990 when I bought my first 486/33 system.Now, running three Athlon 64 4000 systems and one Windows Home Server on an Athlon X2 3800. Not top-of-the-line systems, but when you have three gamers living under the same roof, there have to be compromises.

jimincalif · Post by **jimincalif** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:50 pm

Original IBM PC, circa 1984. Upgraded with a 10mb internal hard disk in lieu of the 2nd floppy drive. Ran Wordstar 3.31, SuperCalc II and had a 1200 baud modem so I could connect to my grad school's mainframe to do assignments.Parents bringing it home? Not hardly, I'm too old for that.

Herb · Post by **Herb** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 4:16 pm

Quote, originally posted by rdnzl Â»I still have my Commodore 64. It's fun to mess with once in a while.Has anyone bought one of those 20MHz accelerators for the C64?

altimar · Post by **altimar** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:04 pm

Quote, originally posted by Whelan Â» for me it was your basic Entertainmnet Pack 4 with Chips Challenge and word processing.Chips Challenge! Wow, I was probably 10 or 11 and we spent a whole summer entertained by that game. I think there were only four levels (out of ~150?) that we never beat. Heh, that was one of my first experiences "hacking" too. I opened one of the game files in wordpad and found that the codes for all the levels were there (basically scrambled with a very simple cipher).The gateway 2000 386 w/ Win 3.1 was the first PC we really did much with. My dad had what must have been similar to several previously described machines: green monochrome monitor, dual 5 1/4 drives, upgraded to add 10MB HDD. We really only played a few educational games on there, MathBlaster and I think some reading game. Oh and probably the original PrintShop. That was cool. A dot matrix that was audible from 1 mile away, lol.Quote, originally posted by Herb Â»Those were fun! And to name a few more I enjoyed: ... Might & Magic...Was that "Heroes of Might & Magic?" I think we played the sequel. Fun game. Lots more fun when you modify the saved game so you have 65,535 (0xFFFF) halflings that can basically kill anything, lol.Man, you'd think I'd be some kind of evil hacker by now. (I'm not. I work on a medical billing software system.)

NibCrom · Post by **NibCrom** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:33 pm

Oh man, Chips Challenge. Good times. A few of the levels were impossible though.

Whelan · Post by **Whelan** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:12 pm

Loved it, I think we started with the Windows DOS where all the screens were selected by entering int he # of where you wanted to go. Then we went to the first windows ever that was so basic with 256 colors.And here is the heavy beast, except our power button was bright blue.

altimar · Post by **altimar** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:25 pm

And Lemmings! Anybody play that?

Whelan · Post by **Whelan** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 11:32 pm

I rented Lemmings for NES once, after 15 minutes of hitting all buttons I could think of the stupid guys kept walking off the cliff. Took me another ten years to figure out how to play it with picking different guys to do different tasks. I gave up, it was too much work instead of hitting B and having the guy just start digging.

coldmm803 · Post by **coldmm803** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:03 am

my first was a Tandy, thats all i remember. and i played Load Runner on it. i still have a copy of that somewhere...but it might be on my dead laptop2nd computer was a compaq pentium 166mhz3rd a compaq 266mhz?4th compaq 386mhz? may have been a celeron with windows 955th compaq pentium 3 486? bought at the same time as #4 for a business that my dad started6th and 7th bought at same time, one for dad's business and one for me. this was back in 2001, one had windows 98 and other XP. we still use these but both have XP now, both pentium 4 1.6ghz#8 i paid for myself in 2005, AMD X2 2.2ghz dual core#9 I upgraded to AMD am2 and my brother now uses pc #8#10 soon to come, i just need money for a mother board, already have an Intel quad core and will use parts from #9

ramenboy... · Post by **ramenboy...** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 1:05 am

atari 400. it had that crazy membrane keyboard which my brother and i 'upgraded' to a regular one like the newer atari 800 had. we basically played joust on it. and had a program with voice synthesizer on it

03vibedriver · Post by **03vibedriver** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:49 am

Commodore 64 with a 300 Baud modem

gr8vibe · Post by **gr8vibe** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 4:29 pm

1st: Tandy 1000 (pre 90s')2nd: Packard Bell (95'-ish-2000)3rd: "Tiny" Computer (y2k craze buy)end of family computers.my own first:1. Compaq Presario Laptop 1.8gigz (2004-ish)2. Gateway GT5056 (2006- present)2.5. Averatec Laptop (2007-present)yeah. im a nerd.

Vibe_dude · Post by **Vibe_dude** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:55 pm

Check on youtube.There are alot of old game vids on there.Saw some from my old TI99/4A on there.Wow what a great system for its time.Considering you could not even buy it here Canada for the firts few years.WE went over the border to get ours.lol

JohnC · Post by **JohnC** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:42 am

A really nice 12" easy to read slide rule, we then moved up to a texas instruments 24 (TI24) then the commador 64. We have probably spent over $15K on various PC hardware/software over the years.Slide rule has been by far the most reliable, it still works!PCs have got to be the worst investment in the history of man.

Kamikaze · Post by **Kamikaze** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 4:07 am

commador 64, then atari, then Ibm 286, then a 486 dx-2...

What was your first home computer?

What was your first home computer?

Re: (zionzr2)

Re: What was your first home computer? (Whelan)

Re: What was your first home computer? (BlueCrush)

Re: (Nelson)

Re: (kevera)

Re: What was your first home computer? (Whelan)

Re: What was your first home computer? (harryyiii)

Re: What was your first home computer? (kunkstyle)

Re: What was your first home computer? (Whelan)

Re: (zionzr2)

Re: (ehoff121)

Re: What was your first home computer? (Whelan)

Re: (northvibe)

Re: (jake75)

Re: (rdnzl)

Re: What was your first home computer? (Whelan)

Re: What was your first home computer? (altimar)

Re: What was your first home computer? (NibCrom)

Re: What was your first home computer? (Whelan)

Re: What was your first home computer? (altimar)

Re: What was your first home computer? (Whelan)

Re: What was your first home computer? (Whelan)