What was your first computer and do you still have it? - UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum

rank-bush-murphy · 2nd May 2007, 3:17 pm

my first was of course the spectrum zx80 complete with thermal printer

followed by an old bbc b from my old school
then an old at8086 that was built for me by a friend
but the first one i actually remember learning about pc's as we know them now
was a toshiba laptop model t2000sxe
running dos 6.22 and win 3.1
and saddly it got disposed of when we moved house in november 2000
wish i still had it better built than this awfull dell machine im using now

Dave Moll · 2nd May 2007, 4:00 pm

I have a feeling I have said this elsewhere, but the first computer which I owned was a BBC Micro.

On the other hand, my first encounter with a computer was in the late '60s, when I programmed an IBM 1800 to which my school had access (I was in the sixth form at the time).

Steve_P · 2nd May 2007, 4:50 pm

My first machine was a ZX80 too. Which I upgraded to ZX81. There was an 8k ROM (That's all!) and a keyboard you could get. Anyone else do this?

I sold this, but I've still got my ZX Spectrum, 48k, with rubbery keys!

Cheers,

Steve P

evingar · 2nd May 2007, 4:56 pm

Mine was a BBC Model "B" - It was one of the first "big ticket" items I bought when I started work. It cost more than my first car

In real terms (after general inflation and specific deflation in consumer electronics), I should imagine it would be virtually impossible to pay that much now for a domestic computer system

dave walsh · 2nd May 2007, 5:08 pm

Top of the range Rainbow 100 circa 1983 [but I aqquired it in 1996]. Not at all recognisable in modern terms as it looks more like a Belling oil filled electric storage heater that should be in the bathroom with a towel on it!
The monitor is tiny and the 5" floppies go in a secret door on the side! Never had it running but then I am a computer duff. Had a colour screen Amstrad but couldn't do much with that either
[no icons]. Didn't get a "modern" useable one until 1998. Missed out on the early Sinclair/Amstrad period. Dave

Focus Diode · 2nd May 2007, 5:24 pm

I worked in a shop in Torquay selling those early 1980s models: ZX81, Spectrum, Oric 1, Dragon 32 and BBC "B".

To be honest being surrounded by the above I never bought one myself, rather put off actually. Out of all of them the BBC "B" impressed me the most and think it still would do.

Brian R

liamoliver · 2nd May 2007, 5:57 pm

Mine was the excellent Atari 520ST. I still have fond memories of it, and bought another one, but it's not the same without all the wonderful software I had in the '90s (I would have used it in the eighties, had I been born).

Then again, it could have just been a boring 386; I can't really remember.

dsergeant · 2nd May 2007, 6:24 pm

Compukit UK101, built myself from a kit. Then upgraded to a BBC B. I was ace in 6502 machine code in those days and even won first prize in a one of the magazine 'hackers' competitions (fortunately that dark side of me is long past...).

First computer I ever worked on (in 1968) was a Ferranti Argus 100.

Dave

razor600 · 2nd May 2007, 6:28 pm

Amstrad 1640,with 20Meg hard drive
Cutting edge technology ?
Sadly no longer have it.
Ray....

ALANS ANITAS · 2nd May 2007, 6:29 pm

Sinclair ZX81 (same initials as my car) Yes Somewhere.............

Others have included Texas TI99/4a
BBC Master
Amstrad 3386
Several Homebuilts
Atari 520st (upgraded to 1040)
Cybermax (Medion) Pentium 4 3.2GHx

The Cybermax is now 3 years old and has been trouble free.

Dave Moll · 2nd May 2007, 7:15 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by evingar

Mine was a BBC Model "B" - It was one of the first "big ticket" items I bought when I started work. It cost more than my first car

In real terms (after general inflation and specific deflation in consumer electronics), I should imagine it would be virtually impossible to pay that much now for a domestic computer system

Even if you assume (incorrectly) that the inflation/deflation cancel each other out, you get a fair amount of computer these days for the £400 which the Beeb cost - and that didn't include such luxuries as a monitor/disc interface/disc drive etc (let alone hard disc, CD/DVD drive, modem) which we take for granted these days.

Incidentally, I forgot to say in my previous post that I do still have the remains of this computer, although the power supply died while the machine was still in regular use about 15 years ago. At the time, I managed to acquire two machines (with a monitor and various other extras) for £40 (one tenth of the price paid for the original system unit!) I still occasionally use the replacement machine - mostly just for copying data to a PC, and the spare is part of my collection of old computers.

ukcol · 2nd May 2007, 7:44 pm

My first computer was a ZX81. I think (hope) it's still up in the loft.

Denis G4DWC · 2nd May 2007, 8:46 pm

My first Computer was a 6502 Microtan Tangerine I built from a kit around 1980. It had a whole 1k of memory and was programmed in machine code. I later added an extra 6k of memory at about £7 per k together with an assembler. I later added Basic and made the Elektor Dynamic Ram card bringing the total RAM to a whopping 23k. No one kicked sand in your face when you had that much RAM!! I used a 6" Rigonda TV for the monitor modified for video in. The Gov Dept where I worked at the time didn't have computers so I wrote a Project control program for up to 100 projects with various start dates, durations, and who was doing the job etc. I assigned numbers to the customers, start dates, end dates, who was doing things etc. The various numbers were concatenated to one big number about 10 or 12 digits long and poked into data statements. With no disk drives I just saved the whole program and data together. It took about 15 minutes at 300 Baud onto a Cassette. Reading the data at start up the program disassembled the big number into the correct text characters and words on the 32 x 16 line screen. The printout was sheets of tractor fed paper which you stuck side by side on the wall. It was a big improvement on the manual system and all done in 23kB. Beat that Mr Gates! I still have the Computer and the old Red Rigonda TV somewhere. I then built the wireless world Z80 CPM project with 8" floppies. After that I aquired a Cromenco Z8, Z80 S100 Bus machine that ran CPM with a huge 5MB Hard disk. A couple of days ago I found some old Cromenco Invoices.

Computer System with DPU, 256k RAM & 5MB Hard Disk......£5,097.00
512k RAM Board .................................................. ......£2,066.55

That was a huge sum in 1982. Don't ask what a DPU was!!

Denis

Duke_Nukem · 2nd May 2007, 9:04 pm

Mine was a proper computer - an Acorn Atom - and I still have it (though not all of the keytops, which were a bit on teh week side). I remember going to Tandy to buy some more ram (each chip was 1024x4bit) and when the told me the price I innocently asked them "how much is that _each_?". Needless to say I bought them from somewhere else at around a tenth of the price.

Ah, happy days. And a good lesson - the 6502 basically has 3 8-bit user registers whilst the Z80 had many 8/16 bit registers, but the addressing modes of the 6502 ran rings around the Z80.

TTFN,
Jon

Courtney Louise · 2nd May 2007, 9:29 pm

Hmmm, in order and unfortunatle no longer have any of mine...

Vic20 (commodore)

Spectrum+ with Interface 1 & Microdrive

BBC B - Torch Z80 SP

Commodore PC10 with twin MFM 20Mb HDD's running Dos5 with Windows 3.11 on a Herculese Mono Graphics monitor and stacker 3 on the HDD's to give me 100Mb

Apple Plus

Amiga 1200 with a 800Mb HDD and the sound running through a Concorde linear valve amp into a vintage Kef Coda(left channel of amiga only)

Various PC's since then...

Currently have (appart from PC's)

Commodore 64 with 2 5.25" disk drives and plotter
Commodore CD32
Atari 2600 (original woodgrain)
Vectrex
NEC PC Engine
Xbox 360

Cheers & Beers

Andi

Paul_RK · 2nd May 2007, 9:50 pm

2.4GHz HP Pavilion running Windows XP, back when I was a kid of 43

Still in daily use in my wife's study three and a half years later...

Paul

jay_oldstuff · 2nd May 2007, 10:12 pm

first computer baught for me cerca 1988 was an amstrad cpc 6128 when i was 9. however i also had verious older micros given to me around the same time zx81 spectrum 48k commodore 64 commodore vic20 ect. the best of all was a commodore pet system given to me by the chap next door who was a lecturer at manchester uni this thing had two 5.25" disk drives and best of all a 10 MB 8" winchester hard disk. sadly i no longer have the hard disk thought i do still have all other hardwhere mentioned plus a lot more.

Jay

plumbweiss · 2nd May 2007, 10:28 pm

They say you always remember your first...ahem...computer. Commodore 64, the 2nd one worked and the 3rd tape deck eventually worked. There was a countrywide shortage of these (around 1983..

) and poor Dad drove miles to get mine, cost about £220.

Steve_Bell · 2nd May 2007, 11:11 pm

Mine was a Jupiter Ace. 4K memory, programming was in FORTH.

muttley · 3rd May 2007, 12:04 am

Oric Atmos, and what a load of crap it was too

. It never loaded games first time and I never knew anyone else with one. I remember it having some good sounds on it though. I'm gonna have to dig it out of my parents loft now....

2nd May 2007, 3:17 pm	#1
rank-bush-murphy Retired Dormant Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: nr taunton somerset uk Posts: 32	What was your first computer and do you still have it? my first was of course the spectrum zx80 complete with thermal printer followed by an old bbc b from my old school then an old at8086 that was built for me by a friend but the first one i actually remember learning about pc's as we know them now was a toshiba laptop model t2000sxe running dos 6.22 and win 3.1 and saddly it got disposed of when we moved house in november 2000 wish i still had it better built than this awfull dell machine im using now

2nd May 2007, 4:00 pm	#2
Dave Moll Dekatron Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: West Cumbria (CA13), UK Posts: 6,055	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? I have a feeling I have said this elsewhere, but the first computer which I owned was a BBC Micro. On the other hand, my first encounter with a computer was in the late '60s, when I programmed an IBM 1800 to which my school had access (I was in the sixth form at the time). __________________ Mending is better than Ending (cf Brave New World by Aldous Huxley)

2nd May 2007, 4:50 pm	#3
Steve_P Dekatron Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Bolton, Greater Manchester, UK. Posts: 6,639	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? My first machine was a ZX80 too. Which I upgraded to ZX81. There was an 8k ROM (That's all!) and a keyboard you could get. Anyone else do this? I sold this, but I've still got my ZX Spectrum, 48k, with rubbery keys! Cheers, Steve P __________________ If we've always had it, why is the Car Boot open? You're not sneaking another Old TV in are you...?

2nd May 2007, 4:56 pm	#4
evingar Octode Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK. Posts: 1,770	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Mine was a BBC Model "B" - It was one of the first "big ticket" items I bought when I started work. It cost more than my first car In real terms (after general inflation and specific deflation in consumer electronics), I should imagine it would be virtually impossible to pay that much now for a domestic computer system __________________ Chris

2nd May 2007, 5:08 pm	#5
dave walsh Dekatron Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Ramsbottom (Nr Bury) Lancs or Bexhill (Nr Hastings) Sussex. Posts: 5,722	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Top of the range Rainbow 100 circa 1983 [but I aqquired it in 1996]. Not at all recognisable in modern terms as it looks more like a Belling oil filled electric storage heater that should be in the bathroom with a towel on it! The monitor is tiny and the 5" floppies go in a secret door on the side! Never had it running but then I am a computer duff. Had a colour screen Amstrad but couldn't do much with that either [no icons]. Didn't get a "modern" useable one until 1998. Missed out on the early Sinclair/Amstrad period. Dave

2nd May 2007, 5:24 pm	#6
Focus Diode Octode Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Borough of Gateshead, UK. Posts: 1,420	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? I worked in a shop in Torquay selling those early 1980s models: ZX81, Spectrum, Oric 1, Dragon 32 and BBC "B". To be honest being surrounded by the above I never bought one myself, rather put off actually. Out of all of them the BBC "B" impressed me the most and think it still would do. Brian R

2nd May 2007, 5:57 pm	#7
liamoliver Retired Dormant Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Nr. Harrow, NW London, UK. Posts: 104	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Mine was the excellent Atari 520ST. I still have fond memories of it, and bought another one, but it's not the same without all the wonderful software I had in the '90s (I would have used it in the eighties, had I been born). Then again, it could have just been a boring 386; I can't really remember.

2nd May 2007, 6:24 pm	#8
dsergeant Octode Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Bracknell, Berkshire,UK. Posts: 1,156	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Compukit UK101, built myself from a kit. Then upgraded to a BBC B. I was ace in 6502 machine code in those days and even won first prize in a one of the magazine 'hackers' competitions (fortunately that dark side of me is long past...). First computer I ever worked on (in 1968) was a Ferranti Argus 100. Dave

2nd May 2007, 6:28 pm	#9
razor600 Retired Dormant Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Worthing, West Sussex, UK. Posts: 80	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Amstrad 1640,with 20Meg hard drive Cutting edge technology ? Sadly no longer have it. Ray....

2nd May 2007, 6:29 pm	#10
ALANS ANITAS Rest in Peace Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: North West Northamptonshire, UK. Posts: 346	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Sinclair ZX81 (same initials as my car) Yes Somewhere............. Others have included Texas TI99/4a BBC Master Amstrad 3386 Several Homebuilts Atari 520st (upgraded to 1040) Cybermax (Medion) Pentium 4 3.2GHx The Cybermax is now 3 years old and has been trouble free. Last edited by ALANS ANITAS; 2nd May 2007 at 6:33 pm. Reason: Forgot the ATARI

2nd May 2007, 7:44 pm	#12
ukcol Rest in Peace Join Date: May 2003 Location: Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, UK. Posts: 3,944	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? My first computer was a ZX81. I think (hope) it's still up in the loft.

2nd May 2007, 8:46 pm	#13
Denis G4DWC Pentode Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brackley Northamptonshire, UK. Posts: 238	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? My first Computer was a 6502 Microtan Tangerine I built from a kit around 1980. It had a whole 1k of memory and was programmed in machine code. I later added an extra 6k of memory at about £7 per k together with an assembler. I later added Basic and made the Elektor Dynamic Ram card bringing the total RAM to a whopping 23k. No one kicked sand in your face when you had that much RAM!! I used a 6" Rigonda TV for the monitor modified for video in. The Gov Dept where I worked at the time didn't have computers so I wrote a Project control program for up to 100 projects with various start dates, durations, and who was doing the job etc. I assigned numbers to the customers, start dates, end dates, who was doing things etc. The various numbers were concatenated to one big number about 10 or 12 digits long and poked into data statements. With no disk drives I just saved the whole program and data together. It took about 15 minutes at 300 Baud onto a Cassette. Reading the data at start up the program disassembled the big number into the correct text characters and words on the 32 x 16 line screen. The printout was sheets of tractor fed paper which you stuck side by side on the wall. It was a big improvement on the manual system and all done in 23kB. Beat that Mr Gates! I still have the Computer and the old Red Rigonda TV somewhere. I then built the wireless world Z80 CPM project with 8" floppies. After that I aquired a Cromenco Z8, Z80 S100 Bus machine that ran CPM with a huge 5MB Hard disk. A couple of days ago I found some old Cromenco Invoices. Computer System with DPU, 256k RAM & 5MB Hard Disk......£5,097.00 512k RAM Board .................................................. ......£2,066.55 That was a huge sum in 1982. Don't ask what a DPU was!! Denis __________________ If you take something apart often enough, eventually you'll have two of them....

2nd May 2007, 9:04 pm	#14
Duke_Nukem Octode Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Birmingham, West Midlands, UK. Posts: 1,260	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Mine was a proper computer - an Acorn Atom - and I still have it (though not all of the keytops, which were a bit on teh week side). I remember going to Tandy to buy some more ram (each chip was 1024x4bit) and when the told me the price I innocently asked them "how much is that _each_?". Needless to say I bought them from somewhere else at around a tenth of the price. Ah, happy days. And a good lesson - the 6502 basically has 3 8-bit user registers whilst the Z80 had many 8/16 bit registers, but the addressing modes of the 6502 ran rings around the Z80. TTFN, Jon

2nd May 2007, 9:29 pm	#15
Courtney Louise Octode Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Nuneaton, Warwickshire. UK. Posts: 1,316	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Hmmm, in order and unfortunatle no longer have any of mine... Vic20 (commodore) Spectrum+ with Interface 1 & Microdrive BBC B - Torch Z80 SP Commodore PC10 with twin MFM 20Mb HDD's running Dos5 with Windows 3.11 on a Herculese Mono Graphics monitor and stacker 3 on the HDD's to give me 100Mb Apple Plus Amiga 1200 with a 800Mb HDD and the sound running through a Concorde linear valve amp into a vintage Kef Coda(left channel of amiga only) Various PC's since then... Currently have (appart from PC's) Commodore 64 with 2 5.25" disk drives and plotter Commodore CD32 Atari 2600 (original woodgrain) Vectrex NEC PC Engine Xbox 360 Cheers & Beers Andi __________________ *33, 45, 78, around and around they go...*

2nd May 2007, 9:50 pm	#16
Paul_RK Dekatron Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Fakenham, Norfolk, UK. Posts: 4,129	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? 2.4GHz HP Pavilion running Windows XP, back when I was a kid of 43 Still in daily use in my wife's study three and a half years later... Paul

2nd May 2007, 10:12 pm	#17
jay_oldstuff Octode Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Hyde, Greater Manchester, UK. Posts: 1,074	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? first computer baught for me cerca 1988 was an amstrad cpc 6128 when i was 9. however i also had verious older micros given to me around the same time zx81 spectrum 48k commodore 64 commodore vic20 ect. the best of all was a commodore pet system given to me by the chap next door who was a lecturer at manchester uni this thing had two 5.25" disk drives and best of all a 10 MB 8" winchester hard disk. sadly i no longer have the hard disk thought i do still have all other hardwhere mentioned plus a lot more. Jay __________________ The light at the end of the tunnel is probably the headlight of an oncoming train

2nd May 2007, 10:28 pm	#18
plumbweiss Retired Dormant Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Manchester, UK. Posts: 157	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? They say you always remember your first...ahem...computer. Commodore 64, the 2nd one worked and the 3rd tape deck eventually worked. There was a countrywide shortage of these (around 1983..) and poor Dad drove miles to get mine, cost about £220.

2nd May 2007, 11:11 pm	#19
Steve_Bell Hexode Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, UK. Posts: 452	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Mine was a Jupiter Ace. 4K memory, programming was in FORTH.

3rd May 2007, 12:04 am	#20
muttley Triode Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Leicester Posts: 13	Re: what was your first computer and do you still have it? Oric Atmos, and what a load of crap it was too . It never loaded games first time and I never knew anyone else with one. I remember it having some good sounds on it though. I'm gonna have to dig it out of my parents loft now....