What was your first computer

I update mine

 

My first one was a 3.1

 

First PC was the original IBM. Dual floppys I used to keep executables from creations. With a 300/1200 baud modem card I would emulate a dumb terminal and remotely connect to mainframes.

Before that, first cpu chip was 8085A. I learned every instruction by heart. I was fascinated with it.

Somewhere in there I got one of those radio shack computers that booted up to a prompt where you typed in Basic commands. You could record your programs on cassette via audio signal and recall them. I didn't do much with it though.

I was here for all the DOSs, OS2, the first windows, the infancy of the Internet... Heck I was designing circuit board layouts on a PC AT running DOS and PCAD before windows was introduced.

 

I still have my OS/2 in it's cardboard box!

 

Sweet!
I might, too. Finding it would be the challenge. I have "turbo tax" that ran on DOS. Word processors and spreadsheets that ran on DOS. Planning software. More floppy floppies and hard floppies than I can shake a stick at. Dozens of old cases and guts and CRT monitors, some big hi-rez ones. Speakers, mics, external drives including some configurable dual drive boxes, every kind of cable, printers, plotters including a big D or E size, ... It's kinda crazy...

 

Are you looking in my closets?
I might have to blow the cobwebs out of one of the old clunkers and load up OS/2 just for fun.

 

I always thought I'd do stuff like that too. But where's the time? I guess it was easier to shelf the stuff than to cart it off, plus thinking it could come in handy...

The closest I came is when a buddy who worked in a research lab asked me if I happened to have an original style ISA video card and original keyboard so he could reset the BIOS parameters on a lab machine that used a first gen PC motherboard after the settings memory battery died. He was successful and grateful, "if anyone would have had those I figured it'd be you".

 

Dell Latitude D610 review: Dell Latitude D610

I got one of these secondhand in 2009.

 

I don't know...some kinda PC. All I remember is that it had a whopping 3 gigs of hard drive space, and my head exploded at the time. "Who could ever use up three gigs of space????"

 

My first hard drive was 10MB
M, not G
At the time I thought that would take a massive amount of data. I mean that was almost 28 floppies worth for goodness sake.

 

My first computer was a DOS Based Clone constructed by an engineer at the High Tech Company where My wife worked. I still have the software for Word Perfect and Word Perfect Draw in the Dos based system, along with some games that I miss using today. One of them was Battle Chess with animated chess pieces. The engineer up graded the computer to Windows 3.1 about a year later.

 

When I finally got an IBM Compatible PC, Using PC DOS, I came across a shell program that streamline everything I wanted to do. Who remembers X-Tree Gold?

 

I do! Definitely remember xtree, the gold part I'm not sure.
Nice shortcut to all the CDs, +/-h and stuff. It made it a lot easier to organize and maintain directory structures.
I suppose it was a precursor to the windows file explorer yet to be developed.
And before we even imagined this internet thing!
Hard to believe how much has happened since then...

 

For a while, I collected Shell programs. played with them but always went back to Xtree.
When I first found Dial-Up BBS's I collected Terminal programs as well. Ended up with Telemate.

 

I don't remember what the terminal program I used was named. I do remember the reply text coming in about as fast as I could read it. I remember submitting programs to be run as text files and then capturing the output to local text files. I also remember a messaging system where you could send a message to another mainframe user at a node and notices would pop up reporting the intermediarios that handled it and passed it on until it reached the destination. That seemed so advanced at the time.

The BBS thing I remember that too, in the infancy or toddler stage of the Internet. Specifically the "alt" stuff where you could talk taboo and even hook up with people close enough. It's crazy to think back on.

 

I was a member on several adult only BBS's in the L.A. Area and attended meetups frequently. One of the board had weekly meets The Multi-Line DLX BBS's were a great innovation for the time. I met many wonderful people and did many morally questionable things But don't regret any of it.

 

A McIntosh with 128K memory, a floppy to boot up and a different floppy to save files. It was hokey but kind of entertaining. It had a program (Multiplan) - a crude version of a spreadsheet. I actually used it - it was primitive but useful.