Your First Computer

What was it?

[phidentity]

First computer: Amstrad cpc64 with tape drive.

My first programming experience came when I was 8 with BASIC (line numbers and all).

Amazing fun playing R-Type and Double Dragon till late!

Jon

[HelenDev]

First one I ever used was a BBC at school in the early '80s. A few games I remember playing on this wer:

Pod - where you type in suggestions for Pod to do - ie Pod can jump!

Into the Unknown - I loved this one, it was like a treasure hunting game and we got printed grid maps to fill in the squares of where things were when we found them.

Osprey! - I can't remember anything about this one.

Granny's Garden - This was great from what I remember.

At home the first one I had was a ZX81, passed down from my grandad. Second was a Commodore 64 which I played on for years.

[grelmar]

First got a Timex Sinclair, 82ish (TC 1000)

Then an Apple IIc, right when they were "new" in 84.

Then in 87 (or 88?) got a PC AT compatible running at a whopping 10mhz with 640K of RAM, dual 5&1/4" drives, and an absolutely massive 20Meg hard drive. Amber monitor, and a Hercules graphics adapter that had an RCA jack so I could output the graphics to the TV. I used to tape my games of Ancient Art of War and Ancient Art of War At Sea so I could re-watch them later and see where I'd made mistakes.

Promptly poked around the BBS scene until I found a wonky prog that let it multi-task based on dividing the clock cycle, so I could run a dial up BBS and still do my homework. It was amazingly stable, it only crashed hourly.

Anyone here remember the FidoNet/OpusNet wars?

I consider it my first "real" machine, and kept it running until 4 years ago, when the hard drive irrevocably imploded. (If you've ever heard the sound a read/write head makes when it comes into contact with a spinning platter, you understand the pain I felt that day).

[pmkpmk]

Anyone here remember the FidoNet/OpusNet wars?

Sure. 2:242/2.242 here :-)

[Lipik]

My first computer was.. a manual. I had no money for a computer, but could lay my hands on a manual of the TRS-80. So I learned programming without computer :-))

First 'real' computer was the C-64 with cassette, later I bought printer and later floppy drive. I still have my c-64.

[TheDoctor]

Does a slide rule count?

[pmkpmk]

An abacus might...

[grandpa]

I didn't purchase the thing, nor could I take it home. But my first computer was mounted in a standard 6ft equipment rack, on board a submarine. I got to program it by flipping switches and monitoring red lights on the front panel. The thing was used to control a radio receiver; apparently the computer could make sense of even the worst signal. That was in the early 70's.