Old computers

[JPDeni]

There's the topic about current PC specs and someone mentioned previous computers they had. I thought it might be fun to share what older technology we've all had.

The first programming I ever did was with a programmable Texas Instrumentes calculator. (TI 98? Just going from memory here.) I was taking courses in statistics and it sure helped.

Then a "significant other" got a Sinclair -- pre-Timex. One K memory. Only did integer math and had touchpads for keys on the keyboard. I tried to program it to do statistics, but that wasn't going to happen. Not with only integers. So my first real program in BASIC was to generate D&D characters. (Who's a geek!?!    ) This was in 1981.

After that, I got a TI99/4A. I used to buy magazines with code in them that you would type in to create programs. A great learning tool because I began to figure out how the programs worked as I was typing. A bad thing I remember was that there was a key with the + sign, that you had to use the shift for, but it also had a "clear" function if you used it in conjunction with a key that was right next to the shift. I didn't save my work as often as I should have (cassette tape storage), so there were a lot of times when I was towards the end of a long program, hit the wrong key and wiped out everything. I said a lot of bad words.

Next up was a Commodore 128, which would run programs for the 64, so I figured it was worth the extra expense. I don't think I ever got any software specifically for the 128, though. This was the first time I had a printer and could actually produce something. I was taking a course in Russian at the local college and the instructor was mighty impressed when I programmed the dot-matrix printer to print out Cyrillic. My friends would come over and use my word processor (can't remember the name, but it had a "dongle" on the back to prevent using pirated copies).

In 1990, I got my Amiga. I loved that computer. I was going through a very tough time in my life and the Amiga is what saved me. I would spend hour upon hour playing Lemmings, just to fill up my brain. I found an authoring system called Helm that allowed me to do a lot of programming, so I branched out and started writing my own programs.

I had avoided getting what is generally called a PC, at least in part because I worked for Intel for a while and didn't want to buy anything made by them.  Eventually, though, I had to break down and get a Microsoftish computer (with an AMD chip), just because software and support for the Amiga was dwindling to nothing. There was quite a while that I had both computers connected to the same monitor. I was even able to use the same keyboard and mouse for each, so I had what looked like a cockpit with all sorts of switches to throw when I wanted to change from one to the other. I was rather sad when I realized that I was hardly going to the Amiga any more.

I still have the Amiga, although it hasn't been plugged in to anything for well over 5 years. I found an Amiga emulator for my current PC, so I can go back to my beloved Lemmings. (Windows Lemmings is just awful and they didn't port my favorite edition to the PC.) I've also found a way that I could connect my Amiga to my PC, although I don't know if I've even got the power cord any more. I must investigate that.

What about others? What's been your odyssey through computers?

[IchBin]

My first computer was when I was a kid around 5 or so if I remember right. It was a little box that only fit a 5 1/4" floppy. I don't know which DOS version it was but I remember I figured out how to type a few commands that would throw it into and endless loop and freeze the whole thing lol. I remember we had a DOS Game called Aztec or something like that, and that was the coolest thing in the world. After that computer broke, we didn't have another computer in my house until my Dad remarried when I was about 15. At the time I played a bit on my friends Amiga. Just shortly after that was the first time I seen the internet. That was probably around the late 1980's.

After I graduated from High School I decided it was time to get a computer again. I had a friend of mine who was really good at computers build me one for about $1000. It was a Celeron 233 with 32 meg of RAM. After watching him build it, I decided to build my own from then on, and I have ever since. I remember when I upgraded that celeron to 64 MB of RAM, I couldn't believe how much faster it was lol. Thats pretty much all I remember about my computers of the older days.

[eldacar]

I remember playing a game called Aztec on the Apple IIs at school

I didn't ever have any really ancient computers of my own.. but then nothing too new either
I'm running Ubuntu now, but a few months ago I was using Win98. I'd never install XP hehe..

I've also had some experience with atmel AVRs. they are fun.

[G6Cad]

The first computer we had in out family (bought for Kevin when he was about 6 years old then) was a Spectrum.
A very small black tg board with grey rubber buttons, and to that came a taperecording device to load the games from 
I remember it took ages to load in a small tennis game, and it only worked every 3rd time or some thing like that.

about 2 years later we bought him a Amiga 500 i think it was called, he learnd to program in that one. And then about 1 or 1,5 year after that, he bought himselfe the first pentium we had, a pentium 120 with 16mb ram (tower), so that was the first PC i started to play with then, mostly drew out things in paint and used it to play cardgames and Yatzy on.
Then we (me and my husband) bought a Pentium 200mmx with 64mb ram (still have that one in the garage)

Then it have just grown to what we have to day here, not often we buy new complete stations now when they have the HomePC from work, Kevin just buy one part at the time and upgrade his box from time to time.
Mostly graphic cards and powersupply, The last thing he said he wanted was a watercooler system to get better cooling and a more silent station, he have so many fans in his game box that the soundlevel in it over ride what a human can cope with     maby we have to help him with some money to Xmas or something so we can still live here 

[rbh]

never had computers when i was a kid, couldnt afford them. i remember making small games and apps on an apple in school, but the closest thing i had at home was my activision. computers never really interested me again till later in life so i never had the experiences of most of you. i bought my very first pc in early 98. it was smokin, top of the line and costed twice what pcs 4 times more powerful cost today. it was a micron millennia, 450 mhz p3, 64 megs of ram, 4 gig scsi hard drive, and one the first scsi cd burners, a teac cdr-55s. i dont know what the speeds were, wanting to say write 4x read 12x, but i remember it costed $500(the burner). it had windows 98, which i upgraded to the second edition when it came out but skipped windows me thankfully. that computer has been through hell and back and still runs to this day. i use it as a mirc and p2p server but it has been upgraded as much as it probably ever will be. it now has a 550mhz p3,  384 megs of ram, 80 gb and 120 gb hard drives, a geforce2 mx card, and a 48x 12x 48x cd burner. i have removed all the scsi awhile back, but still have it all in a box along with boxes of other pc parts. i have many computers now, but most have been pieced together by me over the years. i work on pcs for people, plus i build new ones as well. when someone gets a new one i most of the time get thier older ones. these i strip down, salvage whats usuable and make my frankenstiens. the best deal i have gotten so far is this hp pavilion. i hate hp pcs, but i got this p4 256 megs of ram, cd burner for free. the person brought it to my house, said it quit working so they bought a new one and they figured i could use it rather then throwing it away. turned out the 40 gig hdd was bad, so i threw in a new 250 gig and have a decent pc for the price of a 250 gig hdd. :up:

here is a pic of my current work station i built from 2x4s, 2x6s, and subfloor material. what do expect, i am a redneck for gods sake! you only see part of the whole desk but you see the busiest as well. it is a mess, but i am constantly moving stuff around when working on pcs. all these in the picture are mine right now, even the imac. i actually like os x and plan on getting a better mac soon but dont have any plans on dropping everything for just mac. i have a mac, 2 xp machines, and 1 linux boxe all of which gets used and i enjoy each one differently for different tasks.

[JPDeni]

costed twice what pcs 4 times more powerful cost today

Electronics will probably always be the one area where prices go down instead of up. Or, if they go up, it'll be because of more features.

It seems to me (although I could be mistaken) that the Sinclair cost several hundred dollars. The owner of it was one of those people who just had to have the latest thing, no matter how much it cost.

[akulion]

The earliest computer I remember in my house was the Apple II

The thing I remember most about is are the games on it like snack attack, cannon ball, typhon and pirates lol hose were the best

I also remember playing games at my cousins house on Commodore 64 using tapes we thought it was the coolest ever in those days lol

And then well I dont remember computers for a long time until much later on in my life cos well mainly I got so busy with school, friends and stuff...the next encounter I had was a 486 or something and used to play those games on it like Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry etc.

Then much later in college I started my systems engineering - at first in computers, but then switched over to business systems quality assurance (which has little to do with computers - its more related to business processes) but at that time I had a Toshiba Sattelite Pro Laptop. And then I had 2 of them lol cos my room mate got one too and decided to leave the UK so gave it to me lol.

Anyways thats my comp history

I am sure 10 years from now if we are still alive, we will lok back at these days and be thinking 'lol i used to use a dual core chip, how did i ever manage" lol

[Svaha]

Mu first 'pc' was an Acorn Atom, 6502 processor and lots of ram (about 16 Kb) lol.
The board was upside down mounted in the keyboard, that's why it could happen that a chip fell out of the board if the keys where hit hard.
Most of the time this pc was in pieces because I experimented with ram piggypacking, welling this to that, after two years all was packed on a small card with lots of eproms that could be switched by software.

When I recieved payment of an idea I had, I bought a sinclair QL and a microvitec color monitor, now that was a dream computer, 68008 processor, multitasking, network capable, build in wordprocessor spreadsheet database superbasic and and...
Up untill today I've seen no computer/software combination that easy to handle and with this features.

[eeek]

First computer I used...dont know what it was...it was just known as "the computer" it come to school for 1 month! It came in a truck and when assembled took up a corner of the class.  We spent weeks preparing for its arrival, calculating binary numbers and writing them in pencil on to the special cards. Once it had warmed up you got to feed all your cards in one end and it spat the answer out the other.

First computer I owned..a specky 48k, the one with real keys, still had a seprate tape drive and a silly little printer that used silver paper.

First PC.. 466dx2/66 8mb Ram, 240mb Harddrive cost a friggin fortune. couldnt afford the 8mb ram upgrade as it was an extra ÂÃ,£100 

First cdr..Sony 2x write speed. Scsi interface and loaded the ÂÃ,£3 each cdrs in to a caddy. cost ÂÃ,£379 plus ÂÃ,£40 for the scsi adapter card.  Bought as soon as it was discovered that Playstation games could be copied so it paid its self in the end I suppose.