Who remembers their first PC, or using one?

[Saturlight]

It was 18 years ago for me, 1988, and I was on the dole.

They sent me to a re-training place to learn about fax machines and computers. In those days a computer had no Internet, pictures, images, anything, it was basically a flash word processor.

I remember in 1988, sitting in front of one of these things in bewilderment and thinking I'd never get the hang of this.

It was just a black screen with a floppy disk, and a white flashing cursor to write letters, a bit like now when you go in dos.

Crap now, but then, it was technology at its highest!

Fax machines were another invention sweeping the nation. I remember thinking, what sending a whole letter through a telephone line. How do they get the words through the wire?! WOW.

 

[2cvbloke]

My own first computer wasn't too long back, it was a Olivetti P75 computer with (originally) Windows 95, then later 98SE, but, before that, the first computer I started "using" was one of them old Sinclairs with the flat keyboard, managed to get an old Sinclair thermal printer working on it too...

After that it's been a multitude of computers, including Commodore 64-MK2, Sinclair Spectrums, a few Amigas (still have 2 A600's), and PCs from 286's right up to the latest Athlon 64 AM2....

 

[sonic1]

Does a 28k spectum count, It seemed the bee's knees at the time

 

[T_G]

The first computers I used were in 1981 at school. We were learning Basic, and wrote little useless programs. There was some sort of dialup between the computers, I once forgot to log out and the teacher was pissed off with me (must have been the phone bill he worrried about). Haven't got an idea what spec puter it was though.
My own first computer was a 286 with windows 3.1. I got as a present from my landlord, must have been around 1994/5. It had a huge 50 meg hard drive, and had a Stacker program to increase capacity. Then I needed to use Autocad on it, so I got a "math co processor", a 650 meg Western Digital HD and (I might be wrong) some amazing 8 meg of additional memory. I used it for a couple of years, and then sold it to my work place for 250 or 300 quid, as I needed a computer there. Good business, and went towards my second one which was a 200 MH MMX (which I still have somewhere)....

 

[Saturlight]

My own first computer wasn't too long back, it was a Olivetti P75 computer with (originally) Windows 95, then later 98SE, but, before that, the first computer I started "using" was one of them old Sinclairs with the flat keyboard, managed to get an old Sinclair thermal printer working on it too...

After that it's been a multitude of computers, including Commodore 64-MK2, Sinclair Spectrums, a few Amigas (still have 2 A600's), and PCs from 286's right up to the latest Athlon 64 AM2....

Hey, mate, do you know where I can get the windows 98 first edtion installation download from? Of course I want it free...

It's just to do because one of the dnls is missing on the hard drive on one pc I have, and it needs reintsalled whilst keeping the data. Ta.

 

[Saturlight]

Does a 28k spectum count, It seemed the bee's knees at the time

When would that be?

 

[Saturlight]

The first computers I used were in 1981 at school. We were learning Basic, and wrote little useless programs. There was some sort of dialup between the computers, I once forgot to log out and the teacher was pissed off with me (must have been the phone bill he worrried about). Haven't got an idea what spec puter it was though.
My own first computer was a 286 with windows 3.1. I got as a present from my landlord, must have been around 1994/5. It had a huge 50 meg hard drive, and had a Stacker program to increase capacity. Then I needed to use Autocad on it, so I got a "math co processor", a 650 meg Western Digital HD and (I might be wrong) some amazing 8 meg of additional memory. I used it for a couple of years, and then sold it to my work place for 250 or 300 quid, as I needed a computer there. Good business, and went towards my second one which was a 200 MH MMX (which I still have somewhere)....

1981? A long time ago...and I thought 1988 was ages ago. Hey, didn't the US army invent Internet to communicate???

 

[2cvbloke]

Hey, mate, do you know where I can get the windows 98 first edtion installation download from? Of course I want it free...

It's just to do because one of the dnls is missing on the hard drive on one pc I have, and it needs reintsalled whilst keeping the data. Ta.

No idea unfortunately, 98SE kinda wiped the floor with 98FE with it's bug fixes, so I son't think anyone made any backups of their FE CDs, but you could try on P2P...

I do have a new and unused, although not well stored but the CD is unopened, Windows 95OSR2 (USB Support) pack though...

 

[rolfw]

My first new one was an Amstrad 1512, the first PC clone, about 20 years ago, as they first came out.

Spec:

NAME  	               PC 1512
MANUFACTURER  	Amstrad
TYPE  	               Professional Computer
ORIGIN  	       United Kingdom
YEAR  	                1986
KEYBOARD  	     Full-stroke professional keyabord, with function keys,                       numeric keypad and editing keys
CPU  	                 Intel 8086
SPEED  	                8 MHz
RAM  	                 512 KB (up to 640 KB)
ROM  	                16 KB
TEXT MODES  	    40 x 25 / 80 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES  	  CGA graphic modes : 320 x 200 / 640 x 200 + Amstrad specific mode :        640 x 200 / 16 colors
COLORS  	       4 (CGA colors) / 16 (Amstrad Mode)
SOUND  	                bipper
I/O PORTS  	      Centronics, RGB, RS232, Mouse (proprietary), Joystick, 8 bit ISA slots           (3)
BUILT IN MEDIA       One or two 5.25'' disk-drives
OS  	                  MS-DOS or DR-DOS
POWER SUPPLY  	    PSU built-in
PRICE  	Colour version  cost  £1090

Spent and extra £100 on a Hard drive and then £499 on an Epson Dot Matrix printer with sheet feeder.

Boy was it the Bee's knees.

Prior to that a friend had given me another unit, but I can't remember what it was called.

 

[mick32]

my first home computer was a sinclair zx80 was very usefull used to type a key and it would say out of memory outstanding,,especially space invaders with letters..rofl....

as for the internet it was invented by some uni in britain and brought to life by the americans,,sound familiar O-Ha

 

[PoloMint]

I first used an Amstrad CPC 464, it loaded and saved files from a tape drive, you could save things to regular audio tapes.

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=84

It could take 20 minutes to load a program from tape, but it had a word processor ROM card that loaded instantly.

After that I had/used a Amstrad PC1512 (sounds similar to Rolfw's, western digital 'hard card' and dot matrix printer).

I really like old computers and getting them to work again, I dream that one day I'll have a computer museum...

 

[whatsthis]

My first one was an ORIC 128. The company advertised an ORIC 64K for 99 pounds but it never saw the light of day. I went for the 128K for 129 pounds. That was back in the early 80s. Spent a few years writing 6502 progs and saving them onto the cassette recorder. Then came the BBC Master 128 with the I/O port. I vertually had the whole house electrics running from it.

I've still got both machines and would like to know if there is a place to send them to or sell them ? or are they just for the bin

Ah happy days.

 

[Johor]

My very first computer was a C64 with 1542 floppy diskdrive. That was around 1984.
My first PC was a 80386SX with 1MB RAM and a 40MB harddisk. OS was DR-DOS 5.0 but no Windows. Must be 1991 i think.
Best of all: my printer at that time was a laserprinter ) It has 2MB RAM installed. Twice as my PC...
I thought about sharing memory between printer and PC X)

 

[Topper]

As I have mentioned before mine was in 1983 (I think)an Acorn Electron and no that was not my first ever programming session, the first bit of programming I did was in 1973 on a development machine for producing a high speed multicoloured patterned tufted carpet.

 

[mhku]

h-t-tp://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/
h.t.t.p://isohunt.com/torrents/windows+98?ihs1=4&iho1=d&iht=5

zx81; bbc b; some black machine at school with a red light and rack mounted.

 

[Analoguesat]

Tandy TRS 80 I think it was 1983/4 sort of time when I was in 6th form Green screen, and you loaded the programmes off a cassete tape. IIRC it cost the parents association about 1500 quid...

 

[Channel Hopper]

Tandy TRS 80 I think it was 1983/4 sort of time when I was in 6th form Green screen, and you loaded the programmes off a cassete tape. IIRC it cost the parents association about 1500 quid...

Same here, though I recall being in the school's fifth form sometime late 1979 with one (shudder).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80

At Poly in the early 80s we were working with the Motorola 6800 and BBC 6512 units (more shudder).

First home PC was a Pentium 1 unit in late 1995, thankfully missing out on the much earlier offerings of the Sinclair Spectrums, Amstrads and Commodore/Vic 20s (having too much fun outdoors with internal combustion engines and working for a living).

 

[Saturlight]

Channel, there was a show on the TV last night about the very first portable pcs, and apparently you had to jump-start them with a tape, similar to VHS, or something.

I was tired last night, unless I was dreaming. ;)

 

[Channel Hopper]

Channel, there was a show on the TV last night about the very first portable pcs, and apparently you had to jump-start them with a tape, similar to VHS, or something.

I was tired last night, unless I was dreaming. ;)

Many computers would utilise a failsafe system of tape backup before you could use, or modify any data. It it quite possible that earlier machines would use a large tape, though the home pcs normally used dedicated microtapes (Amstrad) or audio cassette tapes (Commodore)

 

[dago]

spectrum was the first, then an aquarius, comadore 64, since then
all kind of computers, although after I bought a propper computer (compaq)
I whent for amd and still stick with amd except for my lap tops.

regards.