technology When did you get your first computer

[Guest]

Back in 2004-2005 I think.

[Kithop 19]

Does a Coleco Adam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleco_Adam) - circa 1983 count? I remember we had that when I was super young, like 3 or 4, and by then it was already discontinued. I typed in my own, really bad (all O's!) ASCII art and printed it out of the included dot-matrix printer for my mom to post on the fridge.

 

We had three other programs for it other than the built-in typewriter mode - a '2010' game on cartridge where you had to move a spark around various circuits of the spaceship to repair them before it crashed into the sun, 'Buck Rogers' on tape (yes, cassette tape, like the same you'd put in a Walkman), which I guess would be like a really really crude rear-view shooter akin to StarFox, but way simpler, and then BASIC on tape, where my older brother would spend hours retyping in sample programs from the included, huge manual, and it would draw shapes and such.

 

...saving? What saving? To what?

 

Our first PC was a 486/DX 33 with 4MB RAM (soon upgraded to 8MB), a 212MB hard drive, Diamond Stealth 32 VLB video card, DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1. Eventually we got a Multimedia Level 2 kit, I think it was, which was a 2x SCSI CD-ROM and Pro Audio Spectrum 16 sound card (with the SCSI interface on it for the CD-ROM to connect to).

 

The 486 was replaced by a Pentium Overdrive @ 83MHz in the same socket (what? A CPU with a FAN on it?! ZOMG must be so fast!!!), the PAS16 by a Sound Blaster AWE32, the Diamond Stealth by a Matrox Mystique & m3D PowerVR card... then a Voodoo Banshee (which was a Voodoo 2 + 2D card built-in! No more pass-thru cables!), a Pentium 133, then 200 with MMX (zomg), hard drives got bigger - 800-odd MB, then over a GB. A gigabyte!

 

Windows 3.1 gave way to Windows 95 (anyone else remember the ads with the Rolling Stones' 'Start Me Up'? The Hover game? Bragging that your computer was able to play the 'high res' versions of the random music videos, including one for Weezer's 'Buddy Holly' included in the 'GOODIES' folder on the install CD?), to 98, to ME (we don't talk about Windows ME), 2000, XP and so on.

 

In that journey, this was 'the family computer' that I got to spend the most time on, learning how to make boot disks with various AUTOEXEC.BAT & CONFIG.SYS incantations, and later a boot menu with options, for getting all my classic games to run (Aces of the Pacific & Aces Over Europe were BRUTAL for needing a ton of Conventional memory, while say, Star Wars: Rebel Assault of course needed CD & Sound drivers - 'TSR's for Terminate-and-Stay-Resident - loaded, and EMM386 to enable RAM above 1MB). But me? My first real computer that was purely mine and not a family computer or hand-me-down of the 'old' one?

 

An old iBook G3 @ 700MHz with some Radeon 7500(?) video card. And it had WiFi - AirPort, actually pre-WiFi; it came out before the spec was finalized, if I remember right, but it worked fine in the end. I did the last half of my high school on that thing; I was one of the few kids in school with a laptop - my friend had an external USB WiFi adapter thing for his laptop, and we'd learned how to set up the then-nascent chat programs (remember, school did not have WiFi, cell phones still had push-button numbers and were able to, at most, play Snake, let alone connect to some kind of internet) to be able to send each other secret messages despite being in different wings of the school, across the courtyard from each other.

 

Getting something that worked on his PC *and* my Mac was way hard back then.

 

I played a lot of Starcraft (Warcraft 3 ran like crap) on that laptop, and Quake 3. Sadly, however, the video card and its 'low-lead' solder decided to detach from the rest of the board, and despite being replaced once, the new board's done it again, so there's no working video on that thing at all - not even plugging in an external monitor, so it's dead.

 

Lots of machines have came and went since then - I started building my own gaming rigs, have had a couple laptops, dabbled in watercooling and had the typical 'blinged out with cold cathode lamps & LEDs' rig for LAN parties at one point, learned BSD UNIXes (stemming from the Mac) and Linux, and just kind of went that way and haven't looked back.

 

Still, having to work to get the most basic things going that we all just take for granted these days is what got me into computers in the first place, learning how they work, and getting me into a lifelong (so far) career with them.

 

Unless one of you's got experience with some fun old mainframes or punch cards or something, ahem, uh, 'get off my lawn, you young whippersnappers'?

Edited November 17, 2016 by Kithop

[Buttonmash1973 1,026]

I was a teen when I got my Amstrad CPC464 in 1984.

 

[VengefulStrudel 1,491]

I think I got my own first computer in...was it 2006, or 2007? Maybe a little earlier? Up until then, I always used my parents' computers. I remember looking forward to them being done with what they were doing so I could play games, use paint or write game ideas in Word/Excel.

 

I don't remember my first PC's specs (or rather, didn't ever know them to begin with), but it used Windows XP Service Pack 3, that much I remember. It also didn't have any internet connection, I got that later on.

[silvadel 1,393]

It was either Christmas of 1981 or 1982 when I got my TI 99/4A. 

[Quinch 1,120]

I'm... guessing around 1985? It was a then-new Commodore-64, and I'm going by the release date of the first game I played on it, Gridder.

[Stone Cold Steve Jobs 22,441]

It was a Windows 95. We had a bunch of floppy disks too. I'm getting old.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Someguyinablazer

[Splashee 28,565]

I got my first computer in 1996. It had Windows 95 (the first version) preinstalled on it, and was 120 MHz!

[Oblivion 20,267]

It was some old white box with windows 95 on it an no internet of course! I think I was about 5 or 6! My dad worked as a bench tech so he got all the old systems for free basically! 

[CypherHoof 26,483]

1983. It had 48K of ram (a LOT for the time) came with the "basic" programming language built in (as did the early ibm pcs) and used audio tape for persistent storage

[DixonTheAdversary 1,632]

I think I got my first laptop around 2012-ish.

[Cash In 22,418]

I got my first computer when I was five or six. It was a hand-me-down, which ran an early version of Windows XP. While it did have its issues, I have a lot of nostalgia for it, since it was my first experience with the online world.

Edited March 26, 2020 by Cash In

[Odyssey 5,716]

My family's owned PCs before, but when I got MY first computer? I got my first laptop at 2011 and my desktop 2013

[Sherem 4,807]

My parents had one since I was born, because my dad used to have a company based on computers...so I guess you could say since I was born, I learned to use it when I was around 6 or 7

[applesjck 5,601]

When I was seven my mom gave me her old clunky Windows 95 computer, so I guess that would be considered my first! I spent so much time on there playing the sims, although it ran terribly since the minimum requirements was Windows 98. 

[Early Sunsets 2,107]

I could argue that I got my first PC before I started elementary school, since I used the family computer more than anyone else. It wasn't really mine, though. It was old, the white plastic was yellowing, and it ran Windows 95. I remember playing MechWarrior 2 on it all the time, and it was so much fun.

The first computer I got that was actually mine was a $130 laptop during freshman year of high school. It ran fine for what I needed, until it took a tumble and broke. The screen was destroyed, it only turns on about 10% of the time when you press the power button, and the only way to turn it off is to take out the battery, but it does technically still function.

[Cagey 4,248]

I don’t remember. Besides, the line determining what counts as mine is blurry. 

[Samurai Equine 51,942]

My first computer was given to me in 1995. No, it was not a Windows 95 computer, which is what I really wanted. What I got was one of those old DOS computers, the kind where programs have to be loaded via floppy discs and command prompts, and it was mostly black and white but there were a few limited color options. It was horrible, but I made the most of it. It was fun when I figured out how to load Wheel of Fortune.

The next year, 1996, I finally got a computer with Windows 95 on it. I had dial up and I got to witness the internet in its infancy!  What an age... Technology is so much better now, though. Since the internet didn't really become popular for private use until 1995/Widows 95, then I'd say that makes the internet 25 years old! Still kind of young, but definitely old enough to vote, drive, get a job, and enlist in the military. 

[Pastel Heart 6,466]

I've been using family computers since I was really young, but I didn't get one for myself until '08. Good old Windows XP.

My dad also gave me his old ME laptop and it worked until summer of '11 if you can believe that. I have a deep affection for ME computers and want to give them all love 

[Stone Cold Steve Jobs 22,441]

My first computer was the Windows ‘95 and I think that was in 1996. I don’t remember. I just remember how cool the startup was!

[Emerald Heart 24,936]

When I was 12 or 13, something around that age. 

[Bastian 13,319]

I think it was when I was 3 but I started to use it when I was 5, it was a windows XP and god was it bad. Still, it represents a part of my childhood.

[Splashee 28,565]

20 minutes ago, Stone Cold Steve Tuna said:

My first computer was the Windows ‘95 and I think that was in 1996. I don’t remember. I just remember how cool the startup was!

Oh yeah!! The best start up in the world of computers. I am a nerd when it comes to the startup of Windows 95. I know every little internal thing that happens during that long wait, when you have no idea why the hard drive starts making music!

I'll tell you all about it.

 

Starting Windows 95...

(blinking cursor)

 

[Best and most complicated splash screen ever written for PC, awesome clouds!]

[Stone Cold Steve Jobs 22,441]

@Splashee I don’t know if this is a product of my 4 year old mind or not, but I remember at startup the background looked like a really fancy office or something. Ring any bells?

[Splashee 28,565]

1 minute ago, Stone Cold Steve Tuna said:

@Splashee I don’t know if this is a product of my 4 year old mind or not, but I remember at startup the background looked like a really fancy office or something. Ring any bells?

No, you have forgotten Windows 95 There are Youtube videos, lol.

 

Also I have a Windows 98 computer (which is basically Windows 95 with updated graphics and bug fixes..... Well, crashes are the life of Windows 9X so, that's the charm!)