In another thread a member recanted where he started in computers, so as a bit of a laugh what was the 1st real computer you owned (Amiga's etc don't count)
My 1st real PC was an IBM XT with 256k of RAM no Hard Drive and twin 360k 5 1/4 Floppy Disk Drives with a green phosphor screen.........which I added a 3.5" Floppy Drive and a bit later a 10Mb MFM Hard Drive and an EGA monitor.
How things have changed now
rockylizard said
08:13 AM Oct 31, 2014
Gday...
The first computer I used ...
and one of these -
.... both provided at work.
My first 'personal' computer was in 1996 - Pentium 100 but no idea what it all had now
cheers - John
GaryKelly said
08:44 AM Oct 31, 2014
Mine was an Amstrad I bought for $1100 in 1986 - floppy drive, dot matrix printer, monitor, keyboard - a basic word processor but it got me started. Next was an IBM compatible 286 in 1991 from Dick Smith's first shop at Greenwich. For many years, though, I pounded a Remington manual typewriter with an extra long carriage that weighed a ton.
03_troopy said
09:50 AM Oct 31, 2014
Gundog wrote:
In another thread a member recanted where he started in computers, so as a bit of a laugh what was the 1st real computer you owned (Amiga's etc don't count)
My 1st real PC was an IBM XT with 256k of RAM no Hard Drive and twin 360k 5 1/4 Floppy Disk Drives with a green phosphor screen.........which I added a 3.5" Floppy Drive and a bit later a 10Mb MFM Hard Drive and an EGA monitor.
How things have changed now
What with that? lol, my first computer was an Amiga 500 back in 1991. Originally only with 512KB RAM and an internal 3.5 inch 880KB floppy drive.
To this I added an extra 512KB RAM ($200 ?) which I modded so it was all fast RAM, with a bit of surgery to the motherboard, and an external FDD.
Piggy backed (physically soldered directly onto the original chip) the Amiga 2.1 OS eprom on top of the original Amiga 1.3 eprom with a switch between the chip select pins.
I added a SCSI interface (about $500) to which I also added another 4MB of RAM (about $480) which gave me a total of 5MB of RAM.
Added a SCSI 110MB external HDD ($560) which I had to build into a box with a power supply from a PC because the original power supply couldn't hack it with the extras.
Designed and built an automatic select box so that both the mouse and joystick could be connected at the same time and select between the two by pressing a button on either device.
Borrowed an audio digitiser and cloned it by completely drawing the component layout, photo copying the copper side of the board and etching my own board which I drew by hand, then assembling it. (worked first time too, and they were worth between $200 and $300 from memory).
Got a 4800 Baud modem and used to frequent dial up bulletin boards. (pre the dubya dubya dubya)
Used it for all the usual computer stuff like writing letters, report writing for work, spreadsheets, DTP, games, music using "trakkers" to build and edit sequences of digitised sounds to make music. I also used it for CAD design and learning programming in Amiga Basic and Assembly Language. Actually my son also used to program and wrote a program to solve simultaneous equations when his class were given about 50 to complete over a weekend as a punishment for some reason .
Oh yeah... eventually I bought a PC.... 386 with 4MB RAM 200 odd MB HDD... what a boring machine.
-- Edited by 03_troopy on Friday 31st of October 2014 09:54:20 AM
Santa said
10:27 AM Oct 31, 2014
Bought our first PC in 1982, was a Commodore 64, used as a business machine, taught us a lot and gave us heaps of aggro, not much has changed.
My first micro was a Motorola 6800 (1977?) and I remember having to write an assembly language program that operated a remotely controlled toy vehicle.
My first computer was a 16KB Microbee which I built from an Applied Technology kit that consisted of a bare PCB and all the components. That would have been in the late 1970s.
The first computer that I encountered in my work (1981?) was a Commodore PET with 4KB RAM and 8KB ROM BASIC. It had an audio cassette for storage. I interfaced it to an Instron tensile testing machine via the PET's IEEE488 interface plus a little bit of electronics that I designed. The software that I wrote for the job fit easily into the available 4KB. It monitored the force and displacement of the samples and plotted a stress-strain graph on a thermal printer.
In 1981 I went to work for a US CADCAM minicomputer manufacturer. Their machines were Data General Nova/Eclipse clones.
In the early 1990s my first PC was a 286 with 1MB RAM. My first modem was 300 baud, my first FDD was 360KB, my first HDD was 10MB, and my first monitor was monochrome.
All my babies are in there. All the DEC machines listed I've seen or worked with....
As for the Nova... well, what can I say we had the PDP11/70... which some say broke DG trying to better it.
I didn't really get into PC's had my own PDP 11 at home.... Eventually PC's caught up so I switched over to
UNIX on Intel and been with Mac a while now.
Yeah, fond memories.
Plendo said
08:54 PM Oct 31, 2014
On the other thread I mentioned the IBM PC leading on to the XT, then AT. But by the time the IPM PC came along I had 8 years of experience.
I started operating a GE 225, it had a 19 switch console, and a you boot loaded it through a card reader (paper cards), that gave it enough smarts to read the real program from tape. It had two banks of four tape drives, a printer, a cheque reader (it was in a bank), and it did all the processing for a major bank in NSW. I remember how much faster it went when the memory was upgraded from 8K to 16K, and that 16K was a cabinet 1m square, and 2m high. It was a great old machine in 1974.
The first computer I owned was an Ohio Superboard, with a 6502 processor, I built that in October 1978, used an audio cassette as a tape drive, monochrome screen, and 64k of memory, then I learned basic.
I have been VERY lucky, I stumbled into the world of computers, and I have lived through a very exciting time.
I used to think the growth had to stop, but now I know the systems are just going to get smaller, and faster.
If anyone wants a glimpse of the future, just research Graphene.
Sorry to bore everyone with my memories.
Collo said
09:42 PM Oct 31, 2014
Very interesting reading. A lot of very smart people out there. I have no idea what you are talking about, but it sounds impressive. We got a computor in the mid 90's. Second hand from local primary school. No idea of what it was, but my wife printed receipes and the kids played a game I think was called "Jill of the Jungle". I couldnt quite get Jill of the Jungle...so my frustrated seven year old son got a long piece of paper and made diagrams of what I could expect. Nowadays, we have a black box that sits by my leg. It has HP printed on it and it works most of the time. When it doesn't....I have a guy come round....his name is David and charges $60 to fix it. It usually takes him twenty minutes. Although....the last time it took an good hour.(bloody itunes!)
Seriously though.....we coped pre computors.......but the access to infomation and communication nowadays, makes me wonder how we did!!
Collo.
Baz421 said
09:54 PM Oct 31, 2014
1st one was a 486SX I think , in 1993,,, anyway took to home and POURED OVER MANUAL as to how to use it. Fairly slowwwwwwwwww. Spent hours setting things up and started a spreadsheet or whatever it was called then???? with all my business customers, names etc (the reason for the purchase).
Anyway the next day the shop that sold it rang. Have you got a DX?
Me: a what?
Shop: a DX.
Me: what's a DX???
Shop: A computer.
Me: Yeh I bought one yesterday.
Shop: Well it's not yours.
Me: I paid in full for it.
Shop: Yes but it's not yours.
Me: Oh yes it is.
So you can see we were going nowhere at all and something had to change before I hung up.
So I repeated the above and said it's mine.
Shop: AT LAST SOME CLARITY - I think you have the wrong model.
Me: Oh
Shop: yes you purchased a SX and we think we gave you a DX.
Me: Is that a problem???????
Shop: Yes the DX runs faster and costs more and the customer is here for it.
Me: OK so you want to do a swap eh. But I have files on mine (or someone elses) so what do I do.
Shop: How big is it maybe we can put it on a floppy and copy it.
Me: I'll bring it back ASAP, it's a pain in the bum already.
WHAT'S CHANGED - had a windows Trojan fixed today, froze my screen, etc etc $125 to get fixed by great computer guy,, now reloading software etc etc. Pain in the bum.
-- Edited by Baz421 on Friday 31st of October 2014 10:06:18 PM
NeilandRaine said
11:29 AM Nov 1, 2014
My first comp I got in late 80's. Plugged it in and pushed start button. Have no idea what everyone above me is talking about
In another thread a member recanted where he started in computers, so as a bit of a laugh what was the 1st real computer you owned (Amiga's etc don't count)
My 1st real PC was an IBM XT with 256k of RAM no Hard Drive and twin 360k 5 1/4 Floppy Disk Drives with a green phosphor screen.........which I added a 3.5" Floppy Drive and a bit later a 10Mb MFM Hard Drive and an EGA monitor.
How things have changed now
Gday...
The first computer I used ...
and one of these -
.... both provided at work.
My first 'personal' computer was in 1996 - Pentium 100 but no idea what it all had now
cheers - John
What with that? lol, my first computer was an Amiga 500 back in 1991. Originally only with 512KB RAM and an internal 3.5 inch 880KB floppy drive.
To this I added an extra 512KB RAM ($200 ?) which I modded so it was all fast RAM, with a bit of surgery to the motherboard, and an external FDD.
Piggy backed (physically soldered directly onto the original chip) the Amiga 2.1 OS eprom on top of the original Amiga 1.3 eprom with a switch between the chip select pins.
I added a SCSI interface (about $500) to which I also added another 4MB of RAM (about $480) which gave me a total of 5MB of RAM.
Added a SCSI 110MB external HDD ($560) which I had to build into a box with a power supply from a PC because the original power supply couldn't hack it with the extras.
Designed and built an automatic select box so that both the mouse and joystick could be connected at the same time and select between the two by pressing a button on either device.
Borrowed an audio digitiser and cloned it by completely drawing the component layout, photo copying the copper side of the board and etching my own board which I drew by hand, then assembling it. (worked first time too, and they were worth between $200 and $300 from memory).
Got a 4800 Baud modem and used to frequent dial up bulletin boards. (pre the dubya dubya dubya)
Used it for all the usual computer stuff like writing letters, report writing for work, spreadsheets, DTP, games, music using "trakkers" to build and edit sequences of digitised sounds to make music. I also used it for CAD design and learning programming in Amiga Basic and Assembly Language. Actually my son also used to program and wrote a program to solve simultaneous equations when his class were given about 50 to complete over a weekend as a punishment for some reason
.
Oh yeah... eventually I bought a PC.... 386 with 4MB RAM 200 odd MB HDD... what a boring machine.
-- Edited by 03_troopy on Friday 31st of October 2014 09:54:20 AM
Bought our first PC in 1982, was a Commodore 64, used as a business machine, taught us a lot and gave us heaps of aggro, not much has changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64
Back on 79 I made my own based on a Motorola 6800 MPU.
Then went on to one of these..
Dec System 20
From there on to MMBW, Melbourne Uni Coles Myer etc.
The MMBW posting was interesting because my Room full of mainframes could handle 25,000 users. Plus I had my own spare machine to run games on.
My first computer was a 16KB Microbee which I built from an Applied Technology kit that consisted of a bare PCB and all the components. That would have been in the late 1970s.
The first computer that I encountered in my work (1981?) was a Commodore PET with 4KB RAM and 8KB ROM BASIC. It had an audio cassette for storage. I interfaced it to an Instron tensile testing machine via the PET's IEEE488 interface plus a little bit of electronics that I designed. The software that I wrote for the job fit easily into the available 4KB. It monitored the force and displacement of the samples and plotted a stress-strain graph on a thermal printer.
In 1981 I went to work for a US CADCAM minicomputer manufacturer. Their machines were Data General Nova/Eclipse clones.
In the early 1990s my first PC was a 286 with 1MB RAM. My first modem was 300 baud, my first FDD was 360KB, my first HDD was 10MB, and my first monitor was monochrome.
BTW, if you want a nostalgia hit ...
bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf
All my babies are in there. All the DEC machines listed I've seen or worked with....
As for the Nova... well, what can I say we had the PDP11/70... which some say broke DG trying to better it.
I didn't really get into PC's had my own PDP 11 at home.... Eventually PC's caught up so I switched over to
UNIX on Intel and been with Mac a while now.
Yeah, fond memories.
On the other thread I mentioned the IBM PC leading on to the XT, then AT. But by the time the IPM PC came along I had 8 years of experience.
I started operating a GE 225, it had a 19 switch console, and a you boot loaded it through a card reader (paper cards), that gave it enough smarts to read the real program from tape. It had two banks of four tape drives, a printer, a cheque reader (it was in a bank), and it did all the processing for a major bank in NSW. I remember how much faster it went when the memory was upgraded from 8K to 16K, and that 16K was a cabinet 1m square, and 2m high. It was a great old machine in 1974.
The first computer I owned was an Ohio Superboard, with a 6502 processor, I built that in October 1978, used an audio cassette as a tape drive, monochrome screen, and 64k of memory, then I learned basic.
I have been VERY lucky, I stumbled into the world of computers, and I have lived through a very exciting time.
I used to think the growth had to stop, but now I know the systems are just going to get smaller, and faster.
If anyone wants a glimpse of the future, just research Graphene.
Sorry to bore everyone with my memories.
Very interesting reading. A lot of very smart people out there. I have no idea what you are talking about, but it sounds impressive. We got a computor in the mid 90's. Second hand from local primary school. No idea of what it was, but my wife printed receipes and the kids played a game I think was called "Jill of the Jungle". I couldnt quite get Jill of the Jungle...so my frustrated seven year old son got a long piece of paper and made diagrams of what I could expect. Nowadays, we have a black box that sits by my leg. It has HP printed on it and it works most of the time. When it doesn't....I have a guy come round....his name is David and charges $60 to fix it. It usually takes him twenty minutes. Although....the last time it took an good hour.(bloody itunes!)
Seriously though.....we coped pre computors.......but the access to infomation and communication nowadays, makes me wonder how we did!!
Collo.
1st one was a 486SX I think , in 1993,,, anyway took to home and POURED OVER MANUAL as to how to use it. Fairly slowwwwwwwwww. Spent hours setting things up and started a spreadsheet or whatever it was called then???? with all my business customers, names etc (the reason for the purchase).
Anyway the next day the shop that sold it rang. Have you got a DX?
Me: a what?
Shop: a DX.
Me: what's a DX???
Shop: A computer.
Me: Yeh I bought one yesterday.
Shop: Well it's not yours.
Me: I paid in full for it.
Shop: Yes but it's not yours.
Me: Oh yes it is.
So you can see we were going nowhere at all and something had to change before I hung up.
So I repeated the above and said it's mine.
Shop: AT LAST SOME CLARITY - I think you have the wrong model.
Me: Oh
Shop: yes you purchased a SX and we think we gave you a DX.
Me: Is that a problem???????
Shop: Yes the DX runs faster and costs more and the customer is here for it.
Me: OK so you want to do a swap eh. But I have files on mine (or someone elses) so what do I do.
Shop: How big is it maybe we can put it on a floppy and copy it.
Me: I'll bring it back ASAP, it's a pain in the bum already.
WHAT'S CHANGED - had a windows Trojan fixed today, froze my screen, etc etc $125 to get fixed by great computer guy,, now reloading software etc etc. Pain in the bum.
-- Edited by Baz421 on Friday 31st of October 2014 10:06:18 PM