First Computer?

My early experience was very similar to yours coffee, my first introduction to programming was in 1976 via an RPGII programing class in college using punched cards. Had to write the program on a "coding sheet" then type out the program on the keypunch machine to create the program "deck". It was typical to draw a heavy, diagonal line across the top of the deck in case you dropped it as it was very hard to put the cards back in the correct order without that. Check out the data "deck" from the admin and place both "decks" in the card hopper to be read in. Once the cards were read, then had to wait 20 minutes or so for your results to spew out on the printer. First few times only garbage came out due to coding errors but eventually you got the thing to work correctly.

After that experience I didn't understand why anyone would ever want to be a programmer.

When I got my IBM PC in 1984 I decided to try again. Took a C programming class which was much more interesting than the RPGII class I had while in college. I ended up switching careers and have worked as a programmer/software engineer since then.
 
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First PC in the house was heathkit 8080 based unit or something similar. I don't remember what it was and my dad who was the owner doesn't remember either. I just remember the blinking lights and thinking "that's it?" and went back to helping him put together over the air descramblers.

He bought an Apple IIe after that then a TRS80 Model 100.
I really just played games on the Apple but the Model 100 is where I starting programming.

I received a C64 for HS graduation and used that for many years.

I didn't have a "Modern" PC till I was 27. My aunt, who was a proto-geek just like her siblings (2 programmers, an EE (dad), old school Air Force electronics guy Uncle) bought me as a wedding present the parts for a 486DX PC that I had to assemble myself.

since then I've had a new PC every 18 months.
 
I had an Amiga A500.

Then my first proper computer was a Viglen shop brand bought at Asda Walmart for over £1200 :o Back when I knew nothing, and a computer was a computer.

Pentium MMX 166Mhz
16MB RAM (Later upgraded to 48MB!)
Cirrus Logic 2mb Graphics Card (Later upgraded to an 8mb graphics blaster exxtreme!)
1.7GB Hard Drive
Windows 95 Second Edition
33.6K Dial Up Modem
CD-ROM Drive

That was the mutt's nuts at the time, I remember having it before christmas, I must have been about 10-11. My parents spent christmas eve and day on the phone to viglen tech support entering commands in to dos, I remember to this day them entering 'ren windows win.old'. Haha, oh the memories.

Don't know why that inspired me to learn more about them, but obviously did. I've been intrigued and learning more and more ever since to become what I am now.
 
SCS75 said:
I seem to remember poke commands being used to manipulate objects in memory (as opposed to peek, which just let you read them). Beyond that, I have no idea.
Click to expand...

As I remember that is the command to get into the bios on a IBM 8088 box. You had to run the poke command and poke address c300. :) I dont know why but I never forgot that. I remember at one time the only game we had on the thing was basic gorilla. LOL!

Good job on the guess! You got an A for that.:D
 
Somebody donated my mother a 486 with a 66mhz dx2 in it.
The CD-ROM didn't work because for some reason it was connected to the sound card with a connector that looked almost identical to an IDE connector.
this was around 2001.
It came loaded with windows 3.11, the tech who now works for me knew more about computers than me at this point and helped me to get it running windows 95 or 98 (can't remember which now)
I never did get the drivers to get that CD-ROM Working properly though.
It ran but couldn't play an mp3, then the company he worked for donated him a P120.
It was so much faster than the DX2 I went out immedietly and spent money on building my very first own pc

20GB 5400RPM HDD
256MB SDRAM
850Mhz Duron CPU
PCChips motherboard with onboard gfx.

And then I got bitten by the bug and spent all my spare time and cash upgrading and learning about computers.
I watercooled my main PC and killed a shuttle trying to watercool it (sprung a leak oops)

I remember one of the upgrades for the above system was when I bought an enermax PSU which shot a flame about a foot out of the back of it whilst I was plugging it in, that made me jump just a little. needless to say it had died.
 
The first computer I used regularly was my best friend's Commodor Vic20. When his family upgraded to a C64, it blew our little minds. Anyone else remember the game Impossible Mission? We'd start it loading, watch some TV, go get lunch, all the while checking to see if it was ready yet.

The first computer in my household was a suped up 286 IBM clone running at 20 megahertz with a 40 megabyte hard drive. It ran MS-DOS 3.3. My dad would proudly announce that a CAD drawing that took over half an hour to render on the 8088 at the fire hall could be rendered by our system in about 40 seconds. I'm not sure if that's true, though; my dad liked to exaggerate. :) Sometime later we installed a 2400 baud modem and I discovered BBSes.

Big Jim said:
Somebody donated my mother a 486 with a 66mhz dx2 in it.
The CD-ROM didn't work because for some reason it was connected to the sound card with a connector that looked almost identical to an IDE connector.
Click to expand...

CD-ROM drives of that vintage often needed an ISA sound/interface card, since motherboards typically had only one IDE port used by the hard drive. I actually have an old 486 on the bench with just such a set up. (I'm attempting to retrieve old family tree data.)
 
The CD-ROM didn't work because for some reason it was connected to the sound card with a connector that looked almost identical to an IDE connector.
this was around 2001
Click to expand...

I remember this, The cdrom had to be connected to the sound card to operate. That was the way it was done at the time. Creative sound came with a cdrom drive controller chip in it. Couldnt run it otherwise :D
 
TRS80 CoCo 2

First IBM compatible was a Leading Edge Model D i believe

Scary stuff. And now I feel old :p
 
ibm aptiva 486 dx2 66mhz
4mb ram which i upgraded to 8mb
540mb hard drive
2x cdrom
windows 3.1
i think it cost around $1500, was a present from my father. this is what got me started into computers
 
My first was Commodore 64, was a staggering machine considering how basic it the specs are.

My first PC was an IBM PS/1 386 with 2MB RAM and massive 80MB hard drive back in 1993.

My first multimedia PC was a 486 SX2 50 (rare) with 4MB RAM in 1996.
 
system360model40b.jpg
My first computer to work on was my dad's IBM 360 model 30 mainframe. My first PC to work on was also owned by my dad's computer service company. It was an original 1980 IBM PC, he also bought an XT and an AT as soon as they came out.

He gave me the IBM AT. It had a serial # < 1000 because he ordered it the day IBM announced them and waited for it to be delivered. I threw it in the dump back in the 90's :eek:
 
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