What was the first computer you owned? (Page 2)

Well we built an Altair in computer class in school back in 1975, back when we used teletypes to log into the mainframe and write programs in Pascal and BASIC.

First computer I owned was either a Trash-80 or Ti-99/4, not sure which. I had so many that I traded, bought, sold...

First time on the internet was 1985. BBN and Arpanet. First time on the web was 1993, working for the government (NIH) and built some web pages for internal use.

Aw snap, you kids make me laugh. Hunt the Wumpus on a PDP/11 with a TTY and paper tape was way cooler. Yeah, I really did this.

I remember my dad bringing home one of these, a Kaypro 4, back in the mid-80's.  Truly a first generation laptop, the keyboard attached to the CPU and it had a handle so you could carry it.  The bad thing, it weighed 30+ pounds!

Oh HELL yeah.

I didn't play the sequels as much, but I had them all on floppy. (real floppy kids. 5.25 inch, with the bootlegged double side I made with a paper punch)

I used to try to solve it all blind (no maps in front of me) in a certain amount of time once I had done it a few times.

You are about to be eaten by a grue.

Apple II Plus, baby.  It was probably in the fall of 1981.   I was one of the first two kids in the class to have a computer.  (No microwave or VCR, not til much later, but we had a computer!)

One of the first things I did was show my father how to play Asteroids.  He sat with the now-familiar stupefied expression of parents amazed at what their kids know how to do on that thing.

I remember hours of Eamon and Apple Panic, and what FELT like an equivalent number of hours attempting to evenly tear the edges off the paper from the dot matrix printer.

IBM PS/1 that I bought around 1990.

The rep told me at the time it was the most I would ever need for home use unless I wanted to run a business...

First game I remember was Tetris.  Used to play it for hours at a time.  I eventually upgraded the memory and added a joy stick so I could run Jet Fighter.

I actually started out as a math/computer science major in college.  That was back in the early 70's when we were transitioning from slide rules to pocket calculators.  All of the computer programming was by punch card.  You would submit your card deck at the computer center and they would do a batch run once an hour.  There were a limited number of online terminals around campus (really glorified teletype machines), but you had to sign up in advance for one hour sessions.  Faculty and grad students had priority, so most of the times available to undergrads were between midnight and 6AM.  Definitely different times.

Mark

Leisure Suit Larry!!! Hahahahahahahahh!  YES!!!!!

A DEC Rainbow 100 and a couple of years after that an apple IIc.

Before the Rainbow we had a dumb terminal and modem.

Dad brought home an Apple IIe when they came out in 83...remember playing the heck out of Apple Panic, Choplifter, and a sub game that I can't remember (maybe Depth Charge?). 

Been hooked on video games ever since!

Did you play the Moppets game or Lemonade Stand? Those were my favorites!

Ha, never heard of Moppets but I did play Lemonade Stand.

Here is a nice wikipedia list of Apple II games...flashback!

My first computer was a 286 clone. It was probably around 1985-87 based on my approximate age. It had 4mb ram and a 40mb hard drive with a 5" floppy drive. What I remember using most was the flight simulator game and chess.

I had a friend who must have been one of the earlier computer geeks and he helped me order it through the mail from some computer catalog outfit. It apparently was quite a deal compared to buying an IBM, but was still over $1,000. Amazing what 1K will buy you today.

Atari 400 with a massive 16k of memory.

My favorite cgames were Centipede, Asteroids, and Defender.  One tiem on Defender I got over 1 million points and ended up quitting.

It had a tape drive.  It was basically like a tape recorder that you plugged into the computer.

First Owned: 1978 XMAS I got the TRS-80. I programmed the entire break and made a game where a guy could throw a hatchet at a target and get points. I also recall playing a lot of asteroids. Cassette deck model, pre-floppy. 

First Used: Whatever mainframe that was running at the University of South Florida in 1977. Punchcard class. That right there was a hoot. 

I also started on a TI-99/4A.   I remember getting "Family Computing" magazine and sitting there hammering all of those programs into the computer by hand. 

Of course we had the speech processor and I spent hours playing "Parsec" "Alpiner" and "Tunnels of Doom"

A few years later we bought our first IBM clone:  The Leading Edge Model D.   My dad's company was based in Midland, MI and had a deal going with a computer store there to sell them at a discount.    I remember getting home from a swim meet on a Saturday afternoon and we had a message from the store that our computer was in.   My mom and dad had a quick conference and my dad decided that he was going to drive to MI (from Southern IN) to get the computer.   My sister and I went along....  We slept in the van at a truck stop and I had my first truck stop breakfast:  Steak and Eggs! 

I also remember my dad counting out the $100 bills when we paid for the computer.  I think it was $2000 total and I had never seen so much cash in my life!

I read the computer manuals all the way home.   You could get 12 whole MHz of computing power (with the turbo button on!) which made accessing the 640k of RAM and the 20 MB hard drive a breeze!

I still remember the hum of that 5.25" floppy drive on startup.

Good times!

Radioshack!  Me, too!!  i wrote a program that had too much code and it filled the tape and I had to trim the code.

Even though I was a C.S. minor, I didn't get a 'puter until the early '90s while working at Best Buy - the "top of the line" Dell with a 486 CPU and "the works" (most RAM, etc.)