What was your first computer

Commodore Vic 20 followed by C64 a couple years later. Still play with both systems on emulation today.

C64 still rocks hard as ever...

 

C64s are awesome!!!!!

 

Apple IIGS

 

My first computer was a TRS80 Pocket Computer that I bought for my printing business in 1979. It saved programs on cassette tape and had an attached printer that used a roll of 2.25” wide paper. I wrote a pricing program where I could input the requested parameters of the job and quickly get pricing for three different quantities.

My next computer was an Osborne which I would lug to work and back on the bus and train. It was a heavy beast with a 52 line screen and dual floppy using 90k disks.

Eventually I upgraded to a PC Compatible with a 10mb hard drive and no use a Windows desktop with 2TB of internal storage.

I’ve seen a lot of technological change over the years.

 

486, was like 1800 dollars

 

Mac SE30.

I think. I’m actually really confused as to what it was. It definitely had the SE form factor, but it was never sold with a color monitor which ours had. While I grew up in Silicon Valley and my parents were both in the tech industry, none of us were computer geeks in the least. There’s no way this was some deliberate, custom build.

 

TRS-80 Model 1 way back in 1978. Used to spend hours writing code for it (Basic). Came with the cassette player and 12" monitor. I knew this marvelous machine was bringing us closer to the world of Star Trek.....

Found this picture online....mine is long gone.

 

I had a friend I used to talk to on CB radio in the 80s and he used to call his TRS-80 '"Trash 80"

Are they really bad?

I havent had ever had one........

 

I got interested in computers in the 1970s and decided I wanted to have a play with one. I found a guy near me who had a business hiring out Commodore PETs. These were a monitor, keyboard and integrated cassette recorder clad in a sheet metal case. I struggled to get this thing on the back seat of my car to get it home.

Had it for about a week learning to programme using BASIC.

After that it was Sinclair stuff and BBC Micro model B.

Fun times.

Steve.

 

The first computer I ever used was one of those old box sized ones from the early 2000's. A few schools I went to as a kid had the old box computers in their labs when I was older though, but that was still at least 15 years ago. The first computer that I had all for myself was one of those early bulky thick laptops around the mid 2000's. I remember I had so much fun personalizing it.

 

I used a piece of shit called a Timex Sinclair which used a TV screen. It was plain awful. It had to be the early to mid 80s.

 

I started with a Timex SInclair 1000, then upgraded toa TRSS-80 Model III

 

Trs80 coco

still have it

 

a 386 with a math coprocessor with 4 mb ram with a 4 mb riser card and a 200mb hdd

 

Ha yeah I know

 

My Brain

 

286 processer cpu proudly 1 mb ram and 40 mb harddisk.

 

MOS Technology KIM-1. Hex keypad, 6 digit display, and a whopping 1K of memory.

My father was an engineer at Chrysler at the time they were developing electronic dashboard technology. For an entire summer they were sending his group to various workshops, and he'd come home with the processor evaluation board du jour. We'd spend the weekend playing with them. I got to play with the Motorola 6800, RCA 1802 COSMAC, Intel 8080, National Semiconductor SC/MP, and the MOS 6502. I got very good at binary-Hex conversion, and toggling in programs one byte at a time. They finally settled on the MOS 6502, and bought each engineer a KIM-1 evaluation board. In the prototype vehicle, the KIM-1 was housed in the glove compartment, and memory was backed by 4 D cells. The dash had every form of display technology available at the time, including LCD, vacuum fluorescent, LED, and Plasma (neon). Bargraphs, numeric, aphanumeric, and crude pixel graphics, the dash looked like the shuttle cockpit! Ultra cool to a kid in High school at the time.

I had a co-op job at a local R&D lab at the time. They were using the KIM-1 there as well. I decided it was time to learn what this thing was all about, so one night I took the KIM-1 and the stack of books (there were three 1/2-3/4" thick manuals) up to my room one night and started reading. By morning, I had learned enough to hand assemble, convert to binary, and debug my first program. In the morning, my dad came into my room to wake me for school, and discovered me with the machine. When I showed him what I had done, he gave it to me. I still have it.

I should mention this was about the time the Altair was still available as a kit, and Commodore had yet to introduce the PET.