Your first Computer - Page 3

Ransack · 11-11-2006, 12:07 PM

Atari 800 with a black Indus GT floppy disk drive. I still have it as my kids play it every so often. WICO Boss joystick. Played cartridge games like Space Shuttle, Miner 2049er, Star Raiders, etc. Also games on floppy like Jumpman. Those were the days.....

**Apophis** · 11-11-2006, 03:47 PM

My first was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

This was more or less my progression:

Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
Apple IIe
Amiga 1000
Amiga 2000
Compaq Proliant 486/66

After that I started building my own machines and other than buying a Dell XPS in the summer of 2000, I have continued to build my own machines ever since.

When I had the Amiga 2000 I bought one of the IBM Bridgeboards which gave me a 80286 CPU and allowed me to run IBM PC applications alongside my Amiga applications. I also upgraded that to a Motorola 68030 to compete with the Amiga 2000's and put in a 20MB MFM hard drive for mass storage. The MFM drive was a 5.25" full height drive that sounded much like a jet engine during a run-up when the drive powered on.

I still say that the Amiga 2000, temporally speaking, was the best machine I've ever had.

Bodofooko · 11-11-2006, 03:56 PM

Mine is in my avatar. 486 DX/2 66mhz. My dad picked up from radio shack for $2500. It was pretty top o' the line when we got it. It even had a full 1meg dedicated graphics memory!

**tau_neutrino** · 11-11-2006, 04:42 PM

When I was a kid, I used to play games on my dad's 286. We had that one until 1993 when we got a Pentium.

**El_Gringo_Grande** · 11-11-2006, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apophis

I still say that the Amiga 2000, temporally speaking, was the best machine I've ever had.

c=64
c=128
Amiga 500
Amiga 2000 (Edit actually it was the A2000HD)
After that purely utilitarian boxes.

I agree that the Amiga 2000 was the best computer ever released relative to the time. There are still some out their to this day with a Toaster card and software that do real work every day.

It was easier to use than the Mac but you could get into the guts like a PC.

Some of it's software was just way too ahead of it's time. It came with a multimedia development environment that could combine video, animation, audio, graphics and logic, this back around 1988. I had a 3d modeler and animator that I downloaded from a BBS that put some of the stuff I saw on Mac/PC to shame.

It had paint programs that could produce incredible results. I bought the EA's deluxe paint that allowed easy animation that allowed full use of color and onion skins.

I think mine even had a MIDI port.

And the OS was just amazing. Made every other OS seem simple, even the Macs. If I remember right it was the first commercial multitasking OS?

And for all this it wasn't all that expensive and down right cheap when compared to a Mac.

Yes that was a great machine.

Beatnik · 11-11-2006, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apophis

My first was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

Ahh... I stand corrected. That was my first computer as well (not the 9000 like I thought). I still remember playing Parsec on that thing. Great linkage too.

Tonk · 11-12-2006, 02:30 PM

Packard Bell Legend 66mhz 386sx 120MB hard drive... it had a 'turbo' button... 2mb ram
5" and 3.5" floppy drives... windows 3.1 no cd rom

EDIT: it had a 14400 baud modem

Acreo Aeneas · 11-12-2006, 03:01 PM

Customized Build w/:
P1 @ 233 mhz
32 Mb of PC-133 RAM (don't remember if this was the correct RAM speed)
2MB ATI Rage 128 Gfx
6GB Quantum Bigfoot HD (not a good drive)
Win95 SE
24x CD-ROM
3.5" Floppy
17" CRT

This was all the way back in 1996 (or was it '97?) and I remember the P1 266 had just come out and the average price for a PC was around $1400 for a decent one. And now that I think back on it, mines cost a whopping $2400 dollars. It came with the system tower, the monitor, generic ball mouse, generic keyboard, and no printer. Plus it was built in Silicon Valley by a never-heard-of-company, then shipped to our house. Oh and it came with 1 game: Thexder. It was great, we (bro and I) played it hours on end to see who would beat it first (I did :P).

And some 3 years later, I was sitting at home watching TV (Shopping Channel) and they were advertising a "home system that the kids will love" and it featured a AMD Athlon running at 500 mhz and it could play the latest games with a nv GeForce 256 card, and I thought: "Wow our computer really sucks."

And a year later, the Bigfoot crashed and burned. 60% of the actual disk went bad. Went out the following weekend and got a Sony VAIO (first gen) which later had to be repaired 7x in a matter of 6 months.

In the time we owned the machine, we've beaten Thexder 5 times, bought Battlesiege 2 (and beat it numorous times), and surfed the net with the beginnings of NetZero. Overall the experience was rewarding, and I learned a lot about computers in those early days.

**WhiskeySix** · 11-13-2006, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Apophis

My first was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

woah.. me too. Me and my little brother played WAY too much space-invaders on that thing

from there dad followed the intel train: 286-->386

Then I went to college and put together MY first computer: a 386 based setup with an orange-on-black monochrome 13" screen and 8MB HDD... though that only lasted for about a month before i couldn't take it any more and upgraded to a sweet VGA (256-color) 13" monitor

**Vulcan** · 11-13-2006, 10:41 AM

Apple IIc Plus was a christmas present for me! Oh the fun of oregon trail!

flux · 11-13-2006, 03:36 PM

I actually cut my teeth on one of the Atari Pong machines. From the pics I don't see a light gun but I swore mine had one. Nothing more than shooting a white dot popping up randomly on the screen, but I could imagine it was a duck flying around with a sneaky dog running after them in the bushes.

My first PC was the Atari 800, then Amiga 500 and on to IBM (8088,286,386...) Nice to see several TGers with the Amiga. Man I miss that machine.

"I smell a Wumpus"

**CingularDuality** · 11-14-2006, 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flux

I actually cut my teeth on one of the Atari Pong machines.

Ah, if you count that, then I would have to start with the Coleco Pong and then jump to the Atari 2600 before going to the VIC-20!

Greflin · 11-15-2006, 05:53 AM

Got my first computer in 98 from Gateway. Family was way to poor for such things, so once I got a job I bought one. Intel Celron 400mhz, 32mb of ram, 6gb hd, onboard vid 16mb memory non 3d lol, upgraded to a Voodooo 3 pci card. Soundblaster Live card, Basic Cd rom drive and a flopy Drive. The computer actualy just died earlier this year, my mom was useing it. The processor stopped working, was overheating. I rember staying up for days when I first got this thing heh.

**Apophis** · 11-15-2006, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chair

EDIT: it had a 14400 baud modem

14,400! Lucky dog.

My first modem was a Zoom Telephonics Modem ][e, 110/300 baud.

Icsist · 11-15-2006, 04:09 PM

Tandy 1000 SX when it first came out.. man it was awesome.

It must have been mid 80s