What was your first computer and do you still have it?

[wiwior]

Hello,

My first computer was a ti 99/4a when I was 14years old with a cassette recorder each week I bought a newspaper called hebdogiciel and I copy the listing.I've wait for one year to obtain the extended basic.

I wrotte some game in basic listing for this computer in fact I play with a lot of coin Machine at this time so I try to make the same game.Result was not so bad with extented basic I wrotte also the first game on texas on the ghostbuster theme.

At this day unfortunately I don't have it. I gave this computer to a girl I was young...

Just after My mother offer me an apple IIc and I have always this computer.

Texas ti99 was an excellent computer but unfortunately floppy was too expensive.With the speech emulator I've also play a lot.

remembers....

sincerely as all

wilfrid

[Marconi Man]

My first computer was a home made analogue one!!!

I think it was built from a design in Practical Electronics in 1968, it was called the PEAC.

I've still got it in a cupboard somewhere, as its full of discrete 'op-amps' with germanium transistors in it... as well as hundreds of sockets for the patch leads and components.

It worked well, and was an ideal learning tool for understanding control loops and resonances etc... You could program it with a quadratic function and see what happened if you adjusted one of the variables etc...

My first digital computer was 78 a NASCOM Z80 based kit, it had an enormous 2k of RAM!!

Now I know I still have that tucked under my bed!!

[Malcolm G6ANZ]

Not my own but a schools. A LACE MK2A analogue device, 16 valve op amps a valve multiplier unit (which never worked) and a rack of 20x10 turn precision pots,all powered by huge stabilised psu's. All inputs and outputs were brought out to a patch panel so an analogue circuit could be set up. readout was via a crt or the meters on the op amps. If I remember correctly there were a set of buttons for 'initial conditions', 'run', pause', and 'stop' All relay driven
It was built in a gigantic set of 3x19" racks in one 6' high chassis.
Malcolm

[ppppenguin]

Originally Posted by Marconi Man

I think it was built from a design in Practical Electronics in 1968, it was called the PEAC.

I remember seeing PEAC in Practical Electronics as a 12 year old schoolboy. Thought it was really clever but not something I was ever going to build.

AFAIK, analogue computers are no longer being built but the great thing about them was the very "hands on" interaction with the computation. If you were approaching "divide by zero" or some other awkward point you knew about it immediately without delving through lots of code.

[electroanorak]

Mmmmm

Mine was a Sharp MZ80.

I broke it up in the end, but still have the PCB's and bit's somewhere !!

Daniel.

[electroanorak]

Yes, I do still have all the insides..

If enyone wants them, let me know...

Daniel.

[Neil Breward]

Hi,

I started with a kit-built ZX80, then went on to a kit-built ZX81, then a Spectrum. This was then updated to use a proper keyboard and the 'real' floppy disk system (can't remember the company name). Then moved on to an Atari 520ST before graduating to Macs and PCs. I use an IMac at home now, with a macG4 and assorted PCs at work.

Still prefer mucking around with valves!

Cheers,
Neil

[Keith]

I built a Nascom 1 from a kit whilst living in Munich in 1977. I'll always remember the comment from a work collegue when I ordered it: "home computers - bah, they'll never catch on..." I remind him of it whenever I see him!

Had some fun and games getting it up and running due to a solder splash shorting two of the address lines together but once it was going I was completely hooked, bashing in Z80 machine code till the early hours of the morning. I still remember some of the instructions to this day. As someone commented, it only had 2k of memory - and the operating system used over half of that! I remember writing a program to try and win the German state lottery - to no avail, sadly!

Eventually upgraded it to a massive 32k and built it into an old terminal case with the "high speed" Cottis-Blandford cassette interface (1200 baud - 2400 on a good day).

I've still got it up in the "retirement home for old computers" in the loft. My daughter thinks it's the business with games like "Keys of Krall" and "Dungeon Quest" (despite the fact that she's now 24 and has a Masters degree in Computer Science!)

Keith
G3XGW

[ianj]

I had no interest at all in computers when I was younger, and have no interest in computer games, so my first was a second hand 1999 Packard Bell with a pentium processor in 2002--It had windows 95 and I learnt about the internet on it!! I then started to download music, and put in a second slave drive of 1Gb!!!

It was replaced last year with this laptop Sony vaio 397 with windows xp which is different, but I have got the hang of emails, copying music and the internet!!! ianj

[Mach One]

My first "Computer" was an Amstrad 8256. With various upgrades this kept be going from 1988 to 1997.

I am now on my fifth computer since then, and the total cost of them has been over ten times that of the Amstrad!

[igranic]

My first computer (well, not exactly mine, but my empoyer's) was a sister machine to this:

http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpag...D&HO-Wills.jpg

It was a LEO II, built by a subsidiary of J Lyons, the cake and bread makers, Hence the acronym "LEO" for Lyons Electronic Office. It was almost entirely hollow-state, with a cast iron drum store, and around six thousand valves. Its processor was probably less powerful than a cheap pocket calculator, but it could play a mean game of three-dimensional noughts-and-crosses (checkers) although it had no means of graphically displaying the moves. Input was by punched card or punched paper tape. Output was either via a 10cps teletype, or a chart plotter that could print only red or black dots.

Built around 1956 it remained in service until 1968. The technicians that serviced the machine were thoroughly tropicalised - walking into the space between the back-to-back racks was like walking into a person-sized toaster, surrounded by hundreds of hot and glowing valves. The console featured oscilloscopes for monitoring the storage devices and a loudspeaker which allowed skilled operators to 'hear' any faulty programming or machine faults.

I subsequently moved on to another employer with the then state-of-the-art DEC PDP-8 minicomputer:

http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/%7Edjg/h...frontpanel.jpg

This featured a 12 bit register and 4,096 words (6144 bytes - yes, you did read correctly, six thousand one hundred and forty four bytes!) of ferrite core RAM, in which it was possible to run a stripped-down early dialect of BASIC which, IIRC, was named FOCAL. Oh the luxury when we added a 4,096 word RAM upgrade, and we could start using a high speed tape reader/punch and a line printer instead of the 10cps teletype.

There was no such thing as CMOS or NVRAM. In order to start the computer, one had to feed in, by hand, through the front panel switches, the 32 word octal 'RIM' loader program shown on the left of the panel. Only then was it possible to load programs from punched paper tape.

[Zelandeth]

First computer I had of my own was in 1998, a Toshiba T5200/100 portable running Win3.1. 386/11MHz processor, 4 meg of RAM, a standard 3.5" floppy, 100 meg harddrive, and a 640*480 gas plasma display. I got used to seeing windows in black and orange. Lovely machines these - really just a proper PC (even down to the 3.5" harddrive and ISA expansion slots) folded up and crammed into a compact (if heavy) case. Built like a tank too (except for the horrendously fragile display).

Wrote a novel on that, did all my homework on it for a year or so, then it got "traded" for an IBM PS/ValuePoint 433DX/Si. Which I still have to this day. The IBM was the first machine that I got online with in 2001.

Somewhere in the middle there, I discovered Amigas and Acorns...both of which I liked, lots. Hence ending up with several Amiga A1200's, rescuing two Acorn A3000's from the skip at the back of my school when they got thrown out, and most recently getting donated an Acorn A5000...which I've not quite decided what to do with yet. My introduction to the Mac world started even more recently when I discovered a Mac Classic sitting on top of a wheelie bin on the way home one day...needless to say it was grabbed. Works too! Since then I've bought a PowerMac (for the princely sum of £26), which I've really not investigated properly yet.

I have tracked down an old 5200 again, but it's unfortunately suffering from a duff floppy drive - as is my spares machine! So no, I don't still have my first computer...but I do have one of the same model, in better condition (floppy drive excepted), and with all the upgrades I wished mine had at the time.

[trevwgb]

Hi
Amstrad 1512 with the 2 floppy drives but no hard disk. How many hours did I spend trying to make progs run with only 512k of ram! Added a 32 meg ( wow ) hard card later. However all that time did teach me how a computer works.
Still have all the gear and the origional floppy discs boked up. When I finally put it to bed it all still worked - it just took all day ( sometimes literaslly ) to do anything.
Regards
Trev

[DL2MRM]

My first computer was also a TI99A4, w/o extended module, my brother gave it to me in 1985, the next was an C64 with casette and later the 1541 floppy following by the C128D (sounds like a Hoover) next was the Atari 520ST+ but not long - about half a year then i get the ultimate machine AMIGA 1000 and at the last comes normaly PC's i begin with 486DX66.
My first computer i don't have anylonger i give it back to my brother and i think he still have it? My C64 and my Amiga still there and a Atari STF1040 also but no time to use it because there is another hobby (my old tube radios) .
Regards Martin

[BlakeW]

to be honest, i have never kept track of the computers i've had.

I do, however, still have my dad's first computer, called the Dick Smith VZ-200 (screenshots attached, from last month when i dug it out). It's actually a rebranded Laser 200, some may recognise that name much more easily. My dad also got the plotter-printer, and the expansion rom module. Those images actually give a false sense of cleanliness, the real picture from it was constantly full of noise and strange things. It also made noises. those screenshots are from the official demo cassette (they came out with a floppy drive attachment a few years later).

My first computer would probably have been from one of dad's friends from work. They always used to give their old computers to me. I got given all sorts of computers, one i do remember was a tandy. It had some "Home Alone" game on it, but i couldn't play it because i needed the booklet.

I also got old computers from my dad's work. My first real computer was probably my IBM PS/2 55 Mhz, with a 60Mb hdd running win 3.11.

Anyway, enough blabbing from me.

[callisto]

My first computer was a Sharp MZ-80A with 48K RAM. I still have it in the attic - took it out 2 months ago and its working fine! Unfortunately I lost all the games I developed for it when I was a kid.

Next was a BBC Model B which ended up with Solidisk ADFS, Sideways RAM, and an 80 track DD 5 1/4" floppy. I ran a bulletin board I wrote in the excellent BBC Basic on it. Used a Demon Modem. Unfortunately my young cousins inherited it and fried it with coca cola.

Got an Amiga 500 after that, followed by an Amiga 1200 which I added a 3 1/2" 120MB HDD to and a GVP 68030 50MHz accelerator - and a true Multisync monitor! Used a SupraFAX 288 Modem and a naughty program called "RoxBox" and was mildly active in the "trading" scene. lol! Also ran a FidoNet point. Brilliant computer. SAS/Lattice C was the best. Not forgetting DevPac!

Then I got with the program and got a boring PC - 486DX80 which I built for myself, along with another 2 for my boss. We only "upgraded" to the PC at work when Microsoft released Windows 95 which was years behind the Amiga! Sold my A1200 back to my boss at the time.

Innumerable PC's in the meantime - all upgrades from the original.

Am now running an Athlon 64 3200 with 1GB RAM and NVidia 6800GT 256MB. Also have an old 1Ghz Pentium III laptop and a Dell 3.0GHz Xeon 1U server with 1.5GB RAM and 160GB HDD.

[DrZarkov]

I'm still using my Amiga 4000T with a Phase 5 68060 accelerator board and a Picasso IV graphic board, as a spare computer.

BTW: My book "Der Amiga, die Geschichte einer Computerlegende" (The Amiga, the history of a legendary computer) will be translated into english in the next couple of months. It will be available through the common ways, like Amazon etc.

[reel-to-reel-man]

Originally Posted by DrZarkov

I'm still using my Amiga 4000T with a Phase 5 68060 accelerator board and a Picasso IV graphic board, as a spare computer.

BTW: My book "Der Amiga, die Geschichte einer Computerlegende" (The Amiga, the history of a legendary computer) will be translated into english in the next couple of months. It will be available through the common ways, like Amazon etc.

I would still love to get an Amiga A4000T, I hade the A4000D with the cyberstorm 060 MK III (128MB), 4GB SCSI, CDR (Never got it working right) 643D GFX, Toccata sound, forget the 10T network card brand, loved it to bits! its gone now but I still have my first A500 and all the ectras all boxed as new (GVP A530 External HDD 30MHz 030 acc, Commodore A570 CD etc).

[DrZarkov]

For today's use the Amiga 500 with an accelerator is again a nice machine. Nearly any game will run on it, and for "professional" use there are better sollutions now... Currently the prices for Amiga parts are very high in Germany, so I'm thinking about a downgrade to an Amiga 1200 with 68030 and a small harddisc. It's enough for "Superfrog" and "Deluxe Galaga".

[reel-to-reel-man]

If you are thinking of selling the A4000T I would be very interested