What Was The First Computer You Used? When?

[thaimite]

My first experience with a computer was NASCOM II , my older brother built it in 1976, I remember he wrote some simple programs , only using 11110000011101000

TWO Nascom users in Thailand! It just shows thatpeople of good taste end up in the ssame place

Did you check out this link http://www.nascomhomepage.com/

[Crossy]

My first experience with a computer was NASCOM II , my older brother built it in 1976, I remember he wrote some simple programs , only using 11110000011101000

TWO Nascom users in Thailand! It just shows thatpeople of good taste end up in the ssame place

Did you check out this link http://www.nascomhomepage.com/

Actually make that THREE

I had a Nascom-1 built it myself from the kit, a whole 2k of RAM (1k user + 1k video). Cut my teeth hand-assembling Z80 code until I could afford the extra RAM and the ROM assembler (BASIC came much later).

Later I had a Memotech and worked on DEC PDP-8 and VAX minicomputers.

[Crushdepth]

A VIC-20. It's 'facilities' consisted of an external tape drive. You could type in games from code printed in books. They sucked, but it's amazing that people could make a playable game in a few hundred lines of code.

TRS-80 with 4K

That's wasn't a computer, it was a shoe box with wires in it.

[Trickcyclist]

Amstrad-no hard drive, just floppies. Great for reports. Mickey Mouse printer.

[CosmicSurfer]

If you don't want to count an Original "PONG" machine.. it was a TI-99/4A by Texas Instruments.... What year was that... More than 30.. I can't remember that far back!

And I still have it, plus cartridges and a Voice Box packed away... Told my son in Canada it's his inheritance and not to open it for 50 Years!!!.

I choose TI over Commador, as I'd never heard of Commador, and everyone knew Texas Instruments... and TI was a huge electronics company that made chips and would never abandon the computer business...

which they did a year or 2 later!!!

I have never bought ANY TI product since!!

CS

[ThailandLovr]

I was commissioned by GM in the early 70s to evaluate the first minicomputers to offer a true multi-user, multi-language timesharing operating system. I evaluated HP 3000, DEC Vax, Data General and Prime (PR1ME). Prime was by far the best and had an extremely easy to use, versatile and intuitive operating system. I ended up personally buying a Prime 300 and setting up a little commercial timesharing service which was dirt cheap, directly competing with the local DEC PDP-10 service, and served a few GM departments. It was a great business over the next ten or so years. Prime unfortunately was not well managed and ended up failing.

Boggles the mind to know the huge, powerful GM I knew in those days would be destined to bankruptcy.

Edited October 19, 2009 by ThailandLovr

[Priceless]

Started out on an IBM/1130, 16kB memory and a 1MB hard disk! Data entry by punch cards, output on a line printer that did 80 lines/minute.

Went on to IBM/5100, probably the world's first "portable" computer (27 kgs if I remember correctly).

Then on to my first minicomputer experience, PR1ME 400. 384 kB memory, 80 + 20 MB of hard disk, 32 simultaneous users.

Languages: FORTRAN, Assembler, APL, BASIC, COBOL...

Since then too many makes and models to list.

/ Priceless

[webfact]

Sinclair ZX 81. That was the first one I bought for personal use.

Did my job in the company with an Apple Lisa...

[Phil Conners]

It might borderline what you can call a computer: TI59 programmable pocket calculator with the little magnetic stripe cards and a printer that could print text (after much work!). A good introduction to programming in assembler code. I think it must have been around 1978.

After that a C64 leading to a IBM PC with a whopping 96mb ram and two floppy disks, and the rest is history...

Edited October 20, 2009 by Phil Conners

[sibeymai]

First ever was a DEC PDP-11 in high school in 1979. Got banned from using it along with a couple of other guys after hacking the tutorial programs and installing a back door into the grading and admin files. Took the super-user their 2 week holiday to find us and set a trap which we fell into when we came back.

Since then worked with all sorts. IBM S/34, S/36 and S/38, AS/400, disks and tape drives, printers etc. My favourite ? S/36 and S/38. Last of the computers which could be fixed rather than just change boards.

Avoided owning a pc for ages but relented in 2004. Now they're multiplying like rabbits at home: 3 IBM ThinkPads (R50, R61, T43), SVOA desktop, Sony Vaio, Compaq SCSI server.

Had use of the original IBM portable in the early 80s (known as the "luggable"). Looked like a Singer sewing machine. Played a lot of golf on an early Toshiba laptop (orange screen, mains power only) as well.

Remember carting around one of the first mobile phones released as well about 1987. Came with a battery the size that could start a motorcycle.

[Cuban]

First ever was a DEC PDP-11 in high school in 1979....

...Played a lot of golf on an early Toshiba laptop (orange screen, mains power only) as well.

Not sure of the first computer, but we did play with 8080 chips to set up simple control devices, moved on to machine code programming for a while, looked at assembly language when the Z80 came out and was university trained on Fortran. My frist home made computer was 6502 based with 32k ram in a 19" rack mount case, I liked the fact that I turned it on with a key not a button. I wrote some industrial control software (with fancy graphics) in Basic before becoming a user rather than a programer.

As for the amber screened Toshiba luggable, screens like this became the default joke soon after the re-release of the Aliens movie with the Auto Sentries.

I still have a Compaq LTE in storage somewhere.

[Digitalbanana]

The first PC I ever owned was a Sharp PC-1500 along with its add on 4 color pen printer, tape drive and battery powered extended ram. I trashed it eventually when the ram batteries died after 5 years and the LCD screen damaged.

http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/comput...?c=965&st=1

[jasreeve17]

A VIC-20. It's 'facilities' consisted of an external tape drive. You could type in games from code printed in books. They sucked, but it's amazing that people could make a playable game in a few hundred lines of code.

TRS-80 with 4K

That's wasn't a computer, it was a shoe box with wires in it.

Me too, which means we're quite young compared to most of the folk on here...