Registered: May 2000
Location: Cleveland, Ohio 44067
Posts: 242

What was your first computer?

I am 33 years old and I can remember my first video game was Telex Pong, it had two dials on a small console and you hooked it up to the TV. By the time I was in about 6'th grade, my dad had upgraded me to the Magnavox Odyssey2 (bought from Crazy Eddie's in NY. Everyone else had an Atari 2600 but I loved (and so did my friends) the O2! KC Munchkin, Out of this World, Pick Axe Pete, Conquest of the World, Quest for the Rings, Spinout, and Take the Money and Run just to name a few.

Then came my first computer, an Atari 800. I don't remember the specs on it but I had a BASIC cartridge for programming, 2 ROM slots, a 5 1/4" floppy, and I used an old TV for the monitor! I had a states and capitals and European countries and capitals disk for learning my geography.

I didn't own another computer until my senior year in college when my grandmother bought me a Zeos 386SX 8 Mhz with a 20MB hard drive and a 13" monitor.

Ah yes, the good old days!!!

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Last edited by Doggy on 10-18-2001 at 03:41 PM

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Richmond, VA, USA
Posts: 151

Epson

Epson Equity II+
dual 360K floppy drives
4.77 MHz and "turbo" 7.16 MHz
14" CGA monitor
300 bps modem
Epson FX-85 dot-matrix printer

Starflight, Ultima II, and King's Quest were my favorite games. Those were the days...

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Irving, TX
Posts: 21

I think the first game console we had was also a Magnavox Odessey. But my first computer VIC-20 with the tape deck. Next one after that was a 286 sometime in high school.

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Dan Sanchez
<A HREF="http://www.dca-services.com">DCA Services</A>

Registered: Oct 2000
Location:
Posts: 61

Good ol' C64. Still have the thing. Ahhh the memories....

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan USA
Posts: 790

The first computer of my own was a Bell and Howell (black) Apple II+ with no lower case. You had to provide your own casette tape player/recorder and cable to save and load programs.

But the first machine I remember using was a Commodore PET. It had a green CRT screen and character graphics.

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Jeff

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 239

Atari 2600. Ah, the good 'ole days of bomber v. figthers in "Combat", naval action in "Air/Sea Battle". There was even a Space Shuttle flight sim. Man, I miss that...

Of course, that was a console. My first "real" computer was an Atari 800XL. I still pull it out every once in a while:

code:

10 Print "Hello World!"
20 Goto 10

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Soul Raven - "Sm� hjerne, stor gl�de"
Wherever you go, there you are.

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

My brain. ;�

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1062

Re: What was your first computer?

quote:

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Originally posted by maddog
Then came my first computer, an Atari 800. I don't remember the specs on it but I had a BASIC cartridge for programming, 2 ROM slots, a 5 1/4" floppy, and I used an old TV for the monitor! I had a states and capitals and European countries and capitals disk for learning my geography.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1062

more about me and my nerd childhood

and i came in 2nd in 7th grade science fair with a quite lovely BASIC program that showed off the graphics and music abilities of my Zenith b&w 12 inch.

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

Apple II

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Registered: May 2000
Location: St. Paul, MN
Posts: 1429

hmm - a 386, MS DOS 5.2, a most likely 100 MB HD, and a dot matrix printer. I really don't know totally all the specs, saying I was 5 at the time!

I wasn't born for some of the comps you all are talkign about!

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-miradu

Registered: May 2000
Location: Chicago
Posts: 15

Timex Sinclair 1000.

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1062

quote:

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Originally posted by chitown
Timex Sinclair 1000.

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Registered: May 2000
Location: Cleveland, Ohio 44067
Posts: 242

I had a buddy who had an Apple and I have two words for you...Castle Wolfenstein!!! Not the 3D junk they released for the PC later on.

K Cannon, I had a friend who had the archaic 400, I thought I was so cool with my hyped up 800! Hated his membrane keyboard but I seem to remember having a tape player also. I had the ROM cartridges for Frogger, Missle Command, and I think Space Invaders.

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What does it look like I am doing...I am kickin' my @ss!!!

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 152

I had a Commador 64 with a tape deck and I connected it to a TV for a monitor.

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Howard

Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Baltimore, MD
Posts: 260

Did someone say ATARI!

Another Atari dude here... had a 400 and upgraded the keyboard and RAM too. Bought an Indus GT Disk Drive, and boy was it sweet. It held 90K per side. And don't forget I was cruising the bulletin boards at 300 baud! Yowza! Bumped up to a 130XE and even took it to college for word processing my freshman year! And to think the Palms are more powerful nowadays.


YEAH, I remember Preppie! I was hoping to find it out there in some emulator archives, but so far no luck. My buddies programmed an awesome game in machine code but APX disappeared before they could market it to the public. Shame.

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

quote:

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Originally posted by maddog
I had a buddy who had an Apple and I have two words for you...Castle Wolfenstein!!! Not the 3D junk they released for the PC later on.

---

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Baltimore, MD
Posts: 260

You do know you can get all the infocom stuff onto your Palm with the Frotz interpreter for all those old text games. I played Zork I just yesterday while in the doctor's waiting room...

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: San Diego, California
Posts: 441

386 DX 33
1 MB Ram
126 MB HD
14in Display
16 Color VGA Video card
Dos 5.0 (We upgraded to this, I don't remeber what it came with)
Windows 2.0

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Chandler, AZ
Posts: 289

first system was an Intellivision 2 w/qwerty & music keyboards .. granted, its probably first and foremost a game console, but it did allow some rudimentary basic-like programming and had some non-game apps ...

after that, an Apple IIe w/two 5 1/4" floppy drives

then a 386sx/16 2MB RAM and a 80MB Hard Drive (the 80mb drive was twice as large as what i would EVER need according to the sales rep) -- of course, this was a power-machine as it included Windows 3.0 and Dos 4.11 ..

From there it was a 486SLC2/66 (IBM chip), P133, Celeron/333, Apple 603/604/G3/G4, Athlon 1.33ghz (current system) -- ahh the joys of computers ..