First Computer?

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TheShakoMaster

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I thought it would be interesting to see what peoples first computers were (I didn't see a thread that already existed for this.) It's always fun to reminisce and think about how different things are today (as I write this from a 2012 Macbook Air.)

My first PC:
Maker: Packard Bell
CPU: Intel DX4 i486 75mhz
RAM: 4MB RAM - Upgrade to 24MB later
HDD: 500MB Hard Drive
4x CD-Rom Drive
3.5" Floppy Drive
US Robotics 56K Modem
Shipped with Windows 3.11 but very shortly after Windows 95 came out and we upgraded!

I think we got it from Wal-Mart on a Black Friday sale for $999. What a deal!

Anyways, feel free to post yours, I'm looking forward to seeing what was out there.
 
My first was around '95:

Custom built by a local PC shop

486 DX 40MHz
8MB RAM
730MB HDD (Western Digital, back when they were actually worth a damn)
SVGA (wow!)
15" monitor
DOS 6.22 and the guy even threw in a copy of Win 3.11 WFW. But I rarely ever used Win at the time everything was DOS based anyway.

No modem, no CDROM, no sound card, no nothing but a floppy drive. I believe it was about $2500 or so. There was a 4MB RAM option and 14" monitor, but I got it souped up - I remember the upgrade to the 15" monitor was an extra maybe $100, and the upgrade from 4 to 8MB of RAM was $200 extra.

Later on I added a hand-me-down soundblaster knockoff CDROM+sound card where the CDROM had a proprietary cable that connected to the sound card, and an EXTERNAL 14.4 modem which I used to connect to local BBSes.

It ran Doom like a dream :) (with the right config.sys / memory settings - the guy even threw in a copy of QEMM by Quarterdeck which really sped things up!!)
 
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Time to show my age. I bought my first computer through a mail order catalog called Fingerhut. For $1200 I was a proud owner of a packard bell. It was a XT turbo. The turbo feature bumped up the 4mghz CPU to 10mghz. It had dual high density floppy drives and 640 k of ram. No hard drive and only a 4 color video card (I think it was CGA)
 
Techguy67 said:
Time to show my age. I bought my first computer through a mail order catalog called Fingerhut. For $1200 I was a proud owner of a packard bell. It was a XT turbo. The turbo feature bumped up the 4mghz CPU to 10mghz. It had dual high density floppy drives and 640 k of ram. No hard drive and only a 4 color video card (I think it was CGA)
Click to expand...

I remember fingerhut :)
 
I got my start in computers on IBM mainframes (e.g. 1401, 360, 370) in the 70's.

My first personal machine was an Apple II in 1979. I was the "big guy" on the block as I had TWO floppy drives and a printer. :D (I don't recall how much each floppy held, I think it was 100K. The printer printed on a continuous roll of thermal paper.)

In the early 80s, I wanted to move to a PC architecture, so I got a PC AT (it used DOS 2.0). The whole package retailed for $5000, but as an IBM employee at the time, I got the employee discount and paid only $4200! :eek:
 
My first real computer was a Compaq Portable (suitcase) in 1985. It was the first real clone.

8088 processor 4.77mhz
128k ram
Dual floppies
External hard drive case with 30mg Seagate ST4038 Drive
Novation Smart Cat 1200 baud internal modem
Okidata ML84 Step 2 Printer
Compaq DOS

Cost - $5200.00

I actually used my sisters credit card to buy it. She wanted to build up her credit and I didn't have any but I had a good paying job and didnt want to wait to save up the cash. I paid her back $500 a month without ever missing a month.
 
My first one was an Amstrad 1512 with 512k of memory and twin 5.25 floppies, no hard drive running dos 3.2 I think. I think I move onto a 386 that cost me £1500 and an external 9600bps modem for £186!!!
 
Back in 1984 or so: TI-99 4A, cassette tape drive, small TV as a composite-video monitor. Later added an expansion box, hard drive and speech synthesizer. Don't remember how much RAM or what I paid. Fun days.
 
Atari 400
1.78 MHz CPU
8KB of RAM
Cassette drive
BASIC language cartridge

Back in 1983 I think...

picture from images.google.
79atari400.jpg
 
486DX 60mhz
8 mbs of ram (had to pay extra 4 was standard)
3.5 floppy
2x cd rom (had to pay extra
500 mb hard drive

price tag 2500
 
My first PC cost me $1200. That was in 1989ish, and was from CompuAdd in Texas.

My $$ made me the proud owner of an 8088 processor, 1mb of ram, a 30 mb hard drive, and a 5.25" floppy drive. And it was high density, so it would hold 1.2mb per disk. Oh, and it had CGA graphics with an AMBER screen. :eek: I think it came with MS-DOS 3.3.

I could have gone up to a 286 and color screen, but that would have bumped it up to $1600 and I just couldn't swing that at the time.

EDIT: I should add, the first one I *used* was an Osborne 1. A co-worker bought 1 and I was able to use it several times while we worked together. A portable, it weighed 24 pounds and came with a five-inch screen, modem port, two 5 1/4 floppy drives. The keyboard was built into the lid. Attached a picture.
 

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OK, so since I am clearly in the company of an 'experienced' team, I guess I can own up my first computer being a hand built Z80 design based on an circuit published in the September 1976 issue of Byte magazine. I still have the white ceramic and gold 2.5MHz Zilog Z80 CPU datecode 7634 which I bought mail order from the USA as they were hard to find in the UK at the time. Most of the rest of the parts (screens/keyboards etc.) were scrounged from the DEC minicomputer service guys who worked on the PDP11s that I was using at work at the time. Z80 assembler and fixed point BASIC were all I had to play with until CP/M came along on 8" floppy disks, and eventually 5.25" full height hard drives (5Mbytes). Happy days!

z80-1.jpg


Neil
 
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TheShakoMaster said:
Keep the specs coming!

Although I can't tell if this forum is frequented mostly by 'experienced' techs, or if the young guns are affraid to show their age. ;)
Click to expand...

i am experience and a young gun. I am 26 and been taking apart computer for 15 years and using them for 20 years. I am proud of what i know for my age and also know i dont know it all. I am very grateful to the even more experience techs on this forum that have helped me plus countless others.
 
Bobscomputerservice said:
i am experience and a young gun. I am 26 and been taking apart computer for 15 years and using them for 20 years. I am proud of what i know for my age and also know i dont know it all. I am very grateful to the even more experience techs on this forum that have helped me plus countless others.
Click to expand...

Sorry for the implication, I was using the word 'experienced' to be kind to the people from other generations; tongue-in-cheek. It appears that the only thing different between you and me is that my name isn't Bob. :-)
 
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