Your first computer?

[helen]

At work today I was unpacking a Dell computer, it was one of those Ultra Small Form Factor computers that they make (it might be a SX-270 but I wasn't paying too much attention to the model number), which is kind of small and lightweight. One of the co-workers asked me what kind of classes I took to learn about computers (and of the Dell that I was holding).

My reaction was back in 1975, the computer was the desk! Twin 8 inch floppies for storage and a self standing printer off to one side.

Actually it was a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), PDP-8/A. I think it had about 12 or 24 Kilowords of memory (the PDP-8 used 12 bit word size instead of the 8 bit byte). The 8 inch floppy stored around 800 Kilobytes of storage. It's main terminal was DEC VT-50 which displayed 12 lines by 80 columns which ran at 600 baud, while the printer was a DECwriter II terminal running at 300 baud. It was mainly used for editing and running BASIC programs.

For myself the first computer I owned was an Atari 400 which I got around 1982 or so.

[Leimamo]

Re: Your first computer?

For myself the first computer I owned was an Atari 400 which I got around 1982 or so.

We also had an Atari, but I'm thinking some time in the late 70's because I was still in High School. It was one that came with a booklet that provided codes to type which did some sort of action on the T.V. screen. I remember thinking, "all that typing just to see a choo-choo train scroll across the screen?"

[mel]

Re: Your first computer?

The first time I used a computer, it was some kind of terminal that was hooked to a mainframe in another building at our school. We did some schoolwork on the thing at the computer lab and played a crude game of Star Trek on it during off hours (like late in the night). Later I did some schoolwork on a TRS 80 and an Apple II. Frankly I was not impressed with any of them mainly because the user interface was awkward but more so the printed output was just awful... dull dot matrix print. Yuck.

Being in the publishing and advertising field, for many years I used a computerized phototypesetting machine called the Quadritek made by Itek. It was more or less a computer dedicated to one task... typesetting copy for manual pasteup to publications. The machine had 2 tape drives, several Ks of memory (can't remember), 4 fonts online, a built in photo typesetting drive with photographic paper that you output to a black box and processed to a light-safe developing machine. Produced beautiful type galleys from 5 1/2 point type to 36 point type. Later models had floppy disc drives and output text to 72 point type. The whole thing was code driven with its own operating system, which I mastered. We had one of these things connected to an IBM Displaywriter computer which another person would type in the text for long classified ad copy and send it to the Quadritek from which I'd format and output the text.

This machine cost schools and businesses at least $17,000 each and were quite popular from their introduction in 1977 to about 1985.

After that the Macintosh came along and publishing pretty much changed forever. The first computer I actually bought was a Macintosh Plus that set me back $2200. Ouch. The thing came with only 1MB of RAM no hard drive but a nice GUI. I later bought a hard drive for it and used it for 5 years before I bought another Mac... and then another... and another.........

[pzarquon]

Re: Your first computer?

I only guess that mainframes were pretty much it when I was a kid, but I had no exposure to them. Funny thing is, I work with them now. And my coworkers remember punch-card programming!

The first computers I got to personally play with were the Atari 2600 (the game system), Apple ][ (in school, mostly to "program" with LOGO), and a Commodore 64 (with tape drive). The first PC I owned was a Commodore 128, the one where the PC and keyboard were integrated, and even today I still have the Commodore monitor.

In high school, I got to manage a room full of Mac SE/30s, and learned to use Aldus PageMaker 3.0 to help design the student newspaper. So, that's when I fell in love with computers, with Macs, and with journalism.

After that, our home PCs were a Mac LC, a Mac LC III, and a Mac IIsi (which I used the longest, and I got a second one when I started a dial-up Mac-based BBS). I then turned to portables with a PowerBook 130, a PowerBook 165c, and a PowerBook 1400c. That last one put me into debt, and after that, I started buying PCs... although I still had Macs in my heart.

Today I run a veritable PC lab at home - six Dell machines, one on outdated Linux, one Win98, one Win2K and three XP - and have a Sony Vaio and a HP Tablet PC on the side. Obviously, my next computer has to be a Mac... or I'm going to lose any Mac cred I have left.

[Linkmeister]

Re: Your first computer?

Back in 1972 I was in the Navy, and the telecomm system was based on paper tape coming in from an IBM 360/20 mainframe. It had a 500-card program deck which we had to run every day in order to change the system date.

In 1980 I became DP Mgr for Honolulu Club, using an IBM S/34 (64K RAM, 13MB disk) for all things Accounting/Membership. In 1983 or so we bought three IBM PCs (roughly $5K apiece for 10MB hard drive machines).

Home was a used MacPlus in about 1988 or so. We spent $400 on an external 40MB hard drive. When it died eight years later we bought a Packard Bell from Sears, and just replaced it last year.

[Albert]

Re: Your first computer?

I started with the Sinclair "black wedge", cost about $50, and it was a major miracle when they provided the 16k RAM add-on. Otherwise, storage was via a cassette recorder. And the "monitor" of course, was a tv set.

I did more things with that, using BASIC, that I've ever done with a computer since then. Not much software available, so you had to make your own.

[Karen]

Re: Your first computer?

What a fun subject! I remember in the seventies, in South Central Texas going to work with my dad to the plant he managed, and seeing him show off their new computer system that handled all of their business, it was a huge thing, and was so archaic compared to when I finally bought my first computer, just in 1997. Hubby works with computers and said we wouldn't buy one before then, for he said the technology was going to keep us buying, once we started, and of course he was right.

By 1997, our two home-schooled daughters were turning 10 and 13, and we felt we had to move them into the modern age, so we bought a then brand new 75speed (sorry if I didn't label that 75 right, just forget what to call it, but Pentium 1 barely, I guess it was) Wasn't long before the software had us buying a a 250, then 333, sure enough another yr. & software needs compelled us to buy an 833 or 850, next yr. a 1.2 whatever you call it, (sorry, lol) and though the technology flies by us, we are doing fine with the last two, and having them hooked up to Oceanic's Road runner service, I can honestly say I don't wish for faster, except the 833, I guess it is, can test me a tad since I can tell the difference between it and the 1.2.

I know we'll upgrade again someday, but that will be the last so far as internet, printers and copiers are concerned, I think and I hope! I can't believe that as these things get faster and faster, that we will even be able to tell the difference, except for software, I guess.

[mel]

Re: Your first computer?

.... technology was going to keep us buying, once we started, and of course he was right.

And that is the major downside of computers... the almost constant need to upgrade, whether it is hardware or software. What I can't stand is when the hardware or software upgrade is forced upon you by external forces... i.e. your printer will not take that Pagemaker 6.5 file that worked fine with them just last month! Ouch!

[adrian]

Re: Your first computer?

And that is the major downside of computers... the almost constant need to upgrade, whether it is hardware or software. What I can't stand is when the hardware or software upgrade is forced upon you by external forces... i.e. your printer will not take that Pagemaker 6.5 file that worked fine with them just last month! Ouch!

Well actually, my 1 year old system (Intel Pentium 4 2.8ghz, Asus P4S8X-X motherboard, ATI AIW 9700 128mb video card, 512mb DDRSDRAM, 120/60gb Hard drives, etc...) hasn't been upgrade (hardware and software wise) since I built it last year.

I've been using all software that are 1+ years old. And if your wondering, only last month my college upgrade their computer systems to the processor speed of mine.)

Like the saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". And if it does break after being fixed, then your tech support does a bad job.

[helen]

Re: Your first computer?

By 1997, our two home-schooled daughters were turning 10 and 13, and we felt we had to move them into the modern age, so we bought a then brand new 75speed (sorry if I didn't label that 75 right, just forget what to call it, but Pentium 1 barely, I guess it was) Wasn't long before the software had us buying a a 250, then 333, sure enough another yr. & software needs compelled us to buy an 833 or 850, next yr. a 1.2 whatever you call it, (sorry, lol) and though the technology flies by us, we are doing fine with the last two, and having them hooked up to Oceanic's Road runner service, I can honestly say I don't wish for faster, except the 833, I guess it is, can test me a tad since I can tell the difference between it and the 1.2.

Hertz (most times it's written as Hz) is the unit of measurement for the speed of the processor. The higher the number the faster it can process the instructions it needs to do. And then you have the standard metric multipliers like Kilo (K) (which is roughly 1000), Mega (M) (another 1000 to be multiplied) and Giga (G) (yet another 1000 to be multiplied).

The original IBM PC that was introduced in 1985 was a 4.33 MHz processor, between 1987 to about 1993 or so they started making processors that can go faster like 10 MHz to about 66 MHz. When the Pentium processors came out they were in the 75 MHz to 100 MHz range, so more than likey yours was the 75 MHz model.

The 1 GHz processors have been around at least 3 years or so and Dell right now is offering at least 2.8 GHz systems.

[Karen]

Re: Your first computer?

Hi!

yep, you got it, my first one was the 75MHz. believe it or not, I started to type those letters, but did a brain fart and thought I was writing something to do with radios if I typed "MHz" and wouldn't let myself put any label, lol.

I don't doubt I will be able to discern a difference between my 1.2 and a 2.4 or 2.8, but between those and a four. something? I just don't think it's going to matter. Seems once you get a computer that is just so fast, so far as internet and Road Runner are concerned, you are just there as fast as you can click most of the time, and don't wish for a faster computer. Now, should I finally become more computer literate in all ways, I probably then will be able to appreciate our next several upgrades, but as it is now, these things mostly to me are for internet, which as many services I appreciate, and they are for photographs/digital cameras, and the copy machine/printers.

I am, with this technology, a happy camper, and this is with my relative ignorance of the technology. Ignorance is bliss? with me and these things, I confess, it is, for now, anyway.

[Albert]

Re: Your first computer?

Well, now you can get one sanctioned by none other than Mickey Mouse:

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040805/D8496NF00.html

[808_m3]

Re: Your first computer?

I remember my first PC was an old IBM PC XT. Those were the fun days where once you powered on the box, you would have to wait a minute or so for the PC to start booting. Of course, everything was command line based, no pretty GUI to look at. Closest thing to use was XTree gold to manage all your files.

After that, worked on a 286, which was the same deal as the XT but just a little bit faster. Oh, and remember the 486 DX2-50....that's when Intel started using CPU clock multipliers for their processors.

I dabbled in Macs for awhile. My GF (now spouse) had a Mac IIsi which I loved using. I ended up getting a PowerBook 145B for myself, which I didn't like the B&W screen, so went up to a Quadra 660av. I remember PlainTalk voice recognition was which more hype than practical. I then got a Power Macintosh 7500/100 followed by a PowerBook G3.

Left the Mac platform 6 years ago. These days, just into building my own systems from parts at newegg. I, too, love Macs by heart but with the PCs becoming more of a commodity these days, you can build something pretty decent that is much cheaper than Macs. I really like Mac OS X though..maybe one of these days I'll jump back...

Got my own home grown computer lab...3 custom built PCs, one Dell work laptop, a compaq armada laptop, and a Sun Ultra 10 workstation running Solaris 9.

Macs are all gone now..all went to eBay..

[Albert]

Re: Your first computer?

"I remember my first PC was an old IBM PC XT."

That was my third one. And I got a very very early version of MS Windows so I could play their Flight Simulator, boxed with the game.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Your first computer?

My first bonafide computer was a Radio Shack with an 8086 processor. It's speed was something like 2.5Mhz. All it had was a single 5-1/4" floppy drive. No hard drive at all. To word process you insert the "Program Disk" then to save your data you put in the "Data Disk". Back then that was State of the Art electronics! Man my Palm M130 runs circles around that thing nowdays.

Then I upgraded in 1987 to power with a 486SX running at an astounding 25MHz. It had a much improved 3-1/2" DD floppy Ho man the amount of data you could store on that thing a whopping 1.44Mb!

I wanted more power so I plunked down $300 for an additional 3Mb of ram and another $300 for that "must have" single-speed CD-ROM drive.

Today I'm running a Compaq Presario laptop running at 2.4GHz Pentium 4 finally up to some decent level of obsolescence.

Anyone remember the Cosmac ELF? This was way back in the mid 70's about the time the Altair 8800 and the Ohio Scientific Challenger C4P became popular