Submitted by ReviewLinux on Thu, 10/04/2007 - 18:57.
Yes it was 1988... I purchased a Commodore Amiga 500 for over 1000.00 CAD and that didnt even have a hard drive. But it had 512k of RAM. Great computer for gaming and general word processing. It lasted till 1993 when I bought my first PC.
My first machine was a Commodore Vic 20 in 1980, then the Commodore 64 in 1982.
Then in 1985, I got the Apple II c with a 300 baud modem, but soon upgraded to a blistering fast 1200 baud modem... ahhh memories... we had Myspace then, it was just called a BBS. Anyone remember the Atlanta Penitentiary BBS?
I started with an Atari 400 with flat membrane keyboard and cassette tape drive which I quickly traded for an Atari 800 and later an Atari 800XL and a 810 diskdrive. Later I added a massive 10mb MFM BTL hard drive system and ran a bbs on it.
Oh the joys of having a 2 colour, no sound and only 1K of memory computer. For Christmas I had a 16K expansion pack for it and a new game based on the Alien movie, pure bliss
I then had a Commodore Vic20 (3.5K with 8 colours), a Commodore 64, then an Amiga A500, then an Amiga A1200 (had a SCSI internal hard drive and 1MB of memory), an Atari 520ST, then I sold both my Amiga's and ST and bought an Olivetti 486 DX2 66 which cost me £1300 and came with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 for playgroups All this so I could play Day of the Tenticle (which turned out to be an expensive game as the PC had no sound card or CD, which I had to purchase at a cost of £200).
It was 1980, A modified Wang Basic accounting software was installed on it, bought from radio shack for over $2,000.00 with 64k dram, floppy and lineprinter to cut checks.
Over the years, many accessories were added to the modular design. Struggled with digital double density on floppy until analog double density was used. Had to use vasoline to coat all the contacts to prevent contact resistance buildup from mechanical and electrical vibrations.
In those days, Data General used Ti99(16 bit) for cpu and cost $15,000 for a business entry level computer.
It was 1980 and throughout Toronto parts kits, pc boards and cases were available to put together Apple II clones. Down to the right keyboards. (Yes the power supply got too hot.)
I soldered mine together and it came up first time to the glories of Steve Woziak's Apple basic. Then I soldered the disk controller together and got Apple OS working and then a Microsoft CPM card was soldered together and got CP-M working.
Yes my wife of the time thought I was a geek soldering this thing together on the kitchen table and programing the Eprom's at my first engineering job.
My first PC experience was with my dad's Apple ][, which he bought to run VisiCalc. An Epson MX-80 dot-matrix printer and a 2nd floppy drive soon followed, as he got more software. But that was his baby. Business only.
(Amazingly enough, it included the computer's schematic diagram in the manual. No wonder there were clones.)
I didn't buy my own PC until 1992, right after Win3.1 came out. The thing about Win3.1 is that you were really supposed to run setup (including video driver setup) from the DOS level, but there was an applet that (supposedly) let you change video drivers from within Windows.
The day we got the thing home and set up, without knowing much of anything about it, I changed the video driver from within Windows and ended up with a black screen. Panic time! The wife's due back in 2 hours! What will she say? Time to reinstall! Uh-oh, that didn't work!
Some MS tech support guy named Ray stayed on the line with me for what seemed like an hour, and got it working just as my wife walked in the door.
That was the first and last time MS telephone support was any help to me -- but not the last time I borked a computer! Not long after that, my wife bought me a Mac.
This poll brought back memories
Yes it was 1988... I purchased a Commodore Amiga 500 for over 1000.00 CAD and that didnt even have a hard drive. But it had 512k of RAM. Great computer for gaming and general word processing. It lasted till 1993 when I bought my first PC.
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Don't remember what year it was
but my first was an Atari 800
1980
My first machine was a Commodore Vic 20 in 1980, then the Commodore 64 in 1982.
Then in 1985, I got the Apple II c with a 300 baud modem, but soon upgraded to a blistering fast 1200 baud modem... ahhh memories... we had Myspace then, it was just called a BBS. Anyone remember the Atlanta Penitentiary BBS?
good times, good times..
rel.
Atari 400
I started with an Atari 400 with flat membrane keyboard and cassette tape drive which I quickly traded for an Atari 800 and later an Atari 800XL and a 810 diskdrive. Later I added a massive 10mb MFM BTL hard drive system and ran a bbs on it.
1982 ish?
It was a speccy! My brother won it in a raffle at school IIRC.
ZX Specturm 128K
The first computer I laid my hands on was the fantastic ZX Spectrum -- with massive 128K RAM
and my first useful program was a sprite animation one.
Sinclair ZX81
Oh the joys of having a 2 colour, no sound and only 1K of memory computer. For Christmas I had a 16K expansion pack for it and a new game based on the Alien movie, pure bliss
I then had a Commodore Vic20 (3.5K with 8 colours), a Commodore 64, then an Amiga A500, then an Amiga A1200 (had a SCSI internal hard drive and 1MB of memory), an Atari 520ST, then I sold both my Amiga's and ST and bought an Olivetti 486 DX2 66 which cost me £1300 and came with DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 for playgroups
All this so I could play Day of the Tenticle (which turned out to be an expensive game as the PC had no sound card or CD, which I had to purchase at a cost of £200).
Trash TRS-80 was $2000, good for running business ?
It was 1980, A modified Wang Basic accounting software was installed on it, bought from radio shack for over $2,000.00 with 64k dram, floppy and lineprinter to cut checks.
Over the years, many accessories were added to the modular design. Struggled with digital double density on floppy until analog double density was used. Had to use vasoline to coat all the contacts to prevent contact resistance buildup from mechanical and electrical vibrations.
In those days, Data General used Ti99(16 bit) for cpu and cost $15,000 for a business entry level computer.
Apple II Clone Built on PC Boards in Toronto!
It was 1980 and throughout Toronto parts kits, pc boards and cases were available to put together Apple II clones. Down to the right keyboards. (Yes the power supply got too hot.)
I soldered mine together and it came up first time to the glories of Steve Woziak's Apple basic. Then I soldered the disk controller together and got Apple OS working and then a Microsoft CPM card was soldered together and got CP-M working.
Yes my wife of the time thought I was a geek soldering this thing together on the kitchen table and programing the Eprom's at my first engineering job.
Hasta Le Vista Baby!
You old-timers are impressive
My first PC experience was with my dad's Apple ][, which he bought to run VisiCalc. An Epson MX-80 dot-matrix printer and a 2nd floppy drive soon followed, as he got more software. But that was his baby. Business only.
(Amazingly enough, it included the computer's schematic diagram in the manual. No wonder there were clones.)
I didn't buy my own PC until 1992, right after Win3.1 came out. The thing about Win3.1 is that you were really supposed to run setup (including video driver setup) from the DOS level, but there was an applet that (supposedly) let you change video drivers from within Windows.
The day we got the thing home and set up, without knowing much of anything about it, I changed the video driver from within Windows and ended up with a black screen. Panic time! The wife's due back in 2 hours! What will she say? Time to reinstall! Uh-oh, that didn't work!
Some MS tech support guy named Ray stayed on the line with me for what seemed like an hour, and got it working just as my wife walked in the door.
That was the first and last time MS telephone support was any help to me -- but not the last time I borked a computer! Not long after that, my wife bought me a Mac.