What was your first computer?

[slaeshjag]

I got a "portable" 386SX with 4 MB of RAM from a friend, it was trash at the time. Before that one, I used the family computer, which was a Pentium-box. It wasn't until I got it for myself sometime around 2003 that I started attempting programming for real (I had messed around with game maker on the family computer for a while before that, and I wasn't very motivated, so it took a while before I got any good at it...) Yes, I'm young :x

 

[elwing]

Commodore PET 3032 => http://www.computing...odore-PET-3032/

 

[relliker]

Amstrad CPC464 with built-in cassette tape loader. Later added 3" floppy drive and managed to do my first "hack" by transferring the game "Saboteur" from tape to floppy. I started a bit late on computing (I was 16) but never gave up on it. Today I look at my Amiga 500 (my 2nd computer) and then at the Pandora (emulating it!) and I can't stop thinking how lucky I am to have been able to watch the tech go from there to here and from then to now.

 

[Fzero]

Atari 2600 - if consoles count


Sinclair Spectrum ZX 48k - if we're not


ahh the good ol' days

 

[Asmo]

If you exclude the Apple II my school had acquired, and for which I became the go-to guru on how to make it load "Lemonade" (all the teachers avoided it like the plague, regarding it as a potential source of humiliation), the first one I actually owned was a Sinclair ZX81. 1k - no cash for a Ram Pack initially. It was like discovering the matrix. 1K games compilations bought from adverts in ZX Computing magazine arrived swiftly afterwards, all on brand name cassettes with photocopied inlays (if they bothered).


Sinclair's official software releases always came with sci-fi artwork inlays that set the tone for the required suspension of critical faculties to enjoy the programs contained within.


Less than a year after getting the black wedge, a friend came round gibbering with excitement and clutching his new ZX Spectrum, with Arcadia and Flight Simulation. Literally, I could not believe my eyes. Adverts for Spectrum stuff like Quicksilva's "Timegate" became more than my brain could bear. A Summer of mowing lawns and painting walls began, to fund the upgrade.


I did eventually get a 16k Ram Pack, there was much unfinished business with 16k ZX81 games left to go.... still have a bunch of 81s. They seem to shrink every time I dig them up.

 

[stratego]

Amstrad CPC 464, though I had a console when I was about 6 years old. I don't remember much (short memory), but it had Pong.

 

[Caine]

The first personal computer I used was a classic Macintosh when I was about five years old. My first console was the atari 2600 Jr.

 

[mindlord]

The first computer I ever laid hands on: Timex Sinclair. My brother brought one home one day and I remember some sort of Yar's Revenge clone, and a city bombing game. That's about it. I was four at the time.


Not long after that I inherited his TI 99/4A, which was mine! ALL MINE! I was five or six. I distinctly remember copying basic code out of a book and teaching myself letters and numbers. I knew what the word PRINT meant before I could properly spell my own name. That TI served me well for quite awhile. I quickly graduated to modifying games from that book and changing to graphics. I understood the debug cycle before I could ride a bike. When all my friends were raving about the NES, I was making my own games and drawing tools in basic. I remember making crude platformers and a Zelda like game. I have fond memories of the TI, but I never got to experience the cooler features, like disk drives, but I did have the speech pak.


From there I went to the Color computer 2, and then a 3. I never got the hang of game writing for the CoCo. The Basic wasn't that strong and machine language was way beyond my grade school capabilities.


Finally, in Junior High I got a Tandy 1000HX in trade for mowing a friends lawn for a summer. I wrote BBS door programs, a few games, and dozens of utilities to make my life easier. From there it was a slow but steady increase in horsepower until I finally built a bleeding edge gaming rig last year. Interest in programming has waxed and waned through the years, and I never really got good at it. Within the past couple years I've taught myself C, and the programming cycle begins again.

 

[TrashyMG]

Wow funny I went almost the same route:


Timex Sinclair 1000 -> Tandy Color Computer 2 -> Tandy 1000 HX

 

[Ian J]

Commodore Vic 20

 

[fusion_power]

386DX 40Mhz, 4MB RAM, Dos, Windows 3.1 and no Sound Card. Yes, I've played X-Wing and other Games without sound or only Speaker Sound at this time. ^^"

 

[TrashyMG]

And a 386DX 40mhz IBM clone was my fourth computer... I believe It was actually was an AMD processor, because I don't think Intel actually had a 40mhz speed 386 processor.. I spent almost an entire year buying each peace individually to piece it together.. First computer I built myself, I still have the motherboard.

 

[Mr_Loon]

My first computer was a Dragon 32 (near identical to the TRS 80 CoCo), got it in 1982, I only knew 1 or 2 other people with Dragons, all my friends were Speccy/BBC/C64 users. It boggles the mind to think that we used to have so many computer manufacturers in the UK in the early 80's.


I'd love to see a Dragon 32 emulator on Pandora, just to relive all those old classics like time bandit, cashman, beanstalker & all the rest.


Not sure of the make / model of the first computer I ever used but my Dad brought it home from work in the mid 70's, still remember playing tanks & star trek on it, ASCII graphics et al. The other thing that I remember is that the monitor was so big & heavy I could not even move it when it was placed on the carpet.


The first computer I was ever able to use on my own was an Apple 2, that my dad brought home from work in 1980, it had a near arcade perfect version of space invaders which was inspiration enough for me to learn how to operate the thing.


EDIT : I know it's been posted before but this neatly sums up my early computing experience :

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ts96J7HhO28?feature=oembed

 

[Neelix]

First computer I ever used was a 286 that dad would bring home from work occasionally. 20mb hard drive running DOS and windows 2.x


first computer I ever owned was an Amstrad PPC640D a 'portable' XT clone with no hard drive which booted DOS 3.3 from a 3.5" 720k floppy disk...


-Neelix

 

[TrashyMG]

First computer I ever used was a 286 that dad would bring home from work occasionally. 20mb hard drive running DOS and windows 2.x


first computer I ever owned was an Amstrad PPC640D a 'portable' XT clone with no hard drive which booted DOS 3.3 from a 3.5" 720k floppy disk...


-Neelix

My Dad had that Amstrad as well that thing was a beast!

 

[mindlord]

I'd love to see a Dragon 32 emulator on Pandora, just to relive all those old classics like time bandit, cashman, beanstalker & all the rest.

I compiled M.E.S.S. for the Pandora awhile back, but can't seem to come up with a suitable front end for it. I guess I could PND up a picklelauncher around a Dragon specific setup. there's also XROAR which, as I recall didn't work right for me. I'll see what I can do.

 

[gunrock]

Commodore Vic-20 Christmas 1982 - given to me with the proviso that "you don't just play games on it, you learn to program". Of course I played games on it non-stop especially after i saved up for a 16k switchable ram-pack. I tried to learn basic and typed in many programs but most good games were machine code, encoded as DATA statements in basic, thus one wrong number say 68 instead of 69 and the whole program might crash. Frustrating and hard to fix.


I got the very basics of Commodore Basic but it was a crude tool on a crude display of 22x23 characters.When I upgraded to the C64 in 1984 I played even more games, but got better at programming, using sprites and such. When a relative died and I was bought a 1541 disc drive with some inheritance cash, more gaming ensued, but with a fortuitous gift of a MIKRO assembler cartridge (very expensive for a schoolboy in 1985), that was when I learned to program 6502 assembly language.


A number of Amigas followed, then PC's and then in April 1997 I became a Playstation programmer (with some Saturn, N64 and PC exposure).


Now, I'm just an old, fat-git, with a wife, 3 kids, a middle-management job in software development in the financial sector and a lovely Pandora.

 

[ikreos]

Mine was a Commodore 128DCR (the metal box version), that my dad picked up at a garage sale for $15 in the late 80's early 90's. For some reason I couldn't get it to boot into it's native 128 mode. It would always boot into 64 mode by default. I spent hours playing "Card Sharks". It didn't come with a manual so I never learned to program on it.

 

[NoeleyC]

First computer we had in the family was an Atari 800, my cousin's down the road had one as well, and my cousin Michael won a competition, the prize being every game published by a software company called English Software for a year! Most of these games never appeared on any format other than the Atari. One of the first emulators I'll always load up on a new system will be an Atari one, just to play these games again!


As for myself, the first computer I bought was an Amiga 1200 (we had an A500 previously), have gotten great use out of UAE4ALL on my Pandora, hoping someone will get a fullspeed harddrive or AGA version running someday!

 

[gunni]

Amstrad CPC 464 with the green monochrome monitor. Some games actually looked better with the green screen I think. Had a 464Plus after that before moving to the Amiga.