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What Was Your First Computer?

michaelmichael writes "News.com.com is running a special report, asking readers to tell everyone what their first computer was. This was prompted by another article commemorating the 60th anniversary of ENIAC." I started on a trash 80 in like 5th grade. And although I did a lot of programming and games on 8086s, it wasn't until I got a 286 in middle school that I really considered a machine "Mine".

4 of 1,485 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Commodore 64, baby! by Yer+Mom · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here you go (though if you were searching for "commadore" rather than "commodore", that would probably explain why you didn't find much :)

    --
    Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
  2. Re:Commodore 64, baby! by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Plus4 was a little after the Commodore 64... Around the same time they released the Commodore 16. Both flopped. Badly.

    Commodore didn't have another 'hit' until the Amiga.

  3. Re:Commodore 64, baby! by drakaan · · Score: 2, Informative
    Same rig for me as my first.

    For those of us who cut our teeth on PET/CBM/C-64/C-128/VIC-20 machines:

    10 POKE 144,88
    20 ?CHR((RND(1)*255)+1): GOTO 10

    used to do that to as many of the PET and CBM machines as I could in the computer lab right before the bell rang...

    --
    "Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
  4. Re:You made me a programmer by Liam+Slider · · Score: 2, Informative

    This was my first real home computer too. I had mine set up with permanent storage of course....tapes, lots and lots of tapes storing lots of lots of software. Most of it self written. I also had the little thermal printer. Didn't have the memory expansion pack, or the modem (they did have modems for them) though. I do remember how much I wanted them though, but it was hard to find the parts around here. I spend a lot of time programming my own simple video games, and text based games into it. Also wrote some more "practical" software such as a menu driven system (to pull software off a cassette), a simple database program, and checkbook balancing software...I tried to get my family into the "modern computer era" and help them computerize their business but that didn't really fly.

    After it exploded (long story), I picked up a used CBM 8032 for practically nothing. This was said to be the business version of the old Commodore PET....but really just a PET renamed. It had disk drives (they came in a big, bulky, seperate unit you could fit a PC in today), 32K RAM, and 1MHZ processor! And I also got two (enormous) printers with it!

    http://oldcomputers.net/pet4032.html