What was your a) 1st PC and b) 1st PC you built?

[Reefer86]

I did have a spectrum sinclair for gaming back in the day and i cant remember the specs of my first real home pc but it ran windows 5.1 and i remember it only had a floppy drive.

Can you older guys remember getting games in the huge cardboard boxes with about 12 disc's to install a game. then have the 'play' floppy? I remember castle wolfenstein was like that or was it called something else? original doom era im talking.
Infact we were getting games like that with cd's right up untill about 98 weren't we?

My first home built PC that was built by my self was at the launch of windows xp so still a while ago, I remember it kinda sucked with only 256 ram and on-board graphics.

Its crazy how pc's have changed and the programs we can run is insane compared to what i used to play when i was 12 (about 10 years ago).

 

[lemode]

I did have a spectrum sinclair for gaming back in the day and i cant remember the specs of my first real home pc but it ran windows 5.1 and i remember it only had a floppy drive.

Can you older guys remember getting games in the huge cardboard boxes with about 12 disc's to install a game. then have the 'play' floppy?
Infact we were getting games like that with cd's right up untill about 98 weren't we?

My first home built PC that was built by my self was at the launch of windows xp so still a while ago, I remember it kinda sucked with only 256 ram and on-board graphics.

Its crazy how pc's have changed and the programs we can run is insane compared to what i used to play when i was 12 (about 10 years ago).

i think the last games i got like that was star wars xwing and tie fighter before the days of cds =( oh sweet nostalgia

 

[afw]

First pc ---> was a 486 ... which was bought during Pentium III times ... (actually bought by my brother)

First build ---> My current build ...

 

[TeXBill]

Reefer I think you mean win 3.1 not 5.1 and yes I remember wolfenstein, Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem all of them games were killer back then.

 

[Frick]

The familys first was an Amstrad CPC464 (it actually was my brothers). My dads first was a 286, something.

My own first computer had this:

Pentium II 233Mhz
96MB Ram
3.6GB Quantum Fireball
17" kickass Samsung monitor
Probably a Matrox Millenium graphic card.
Some random 250W PSU
Don't remember wich motherboard I had.. I did have an Abit BE6 for a while.
Windows 95 and later 98 and then SE.

And that computer was upgraded and messed with ALOT. The peak for that one (before I went Athlon XP) was a Pentium 3 400 Mhz (overclocked to 600mhz), 384MB Ram, some 20GB HDDs and a Radeon 9000.

 

[majestic12]

I did have a spectrum sinclair for gaming back in the day and i cant remember the specs of my first real home pc but it ran windows 5.1 and i remember it only had a floppy drive.

Can you older guys remember getting games in the huge cardboard boxes with about 12 disc's to install a game. then have the 'play' floppy? I remember castle wolfenstein was like that or was it called something else? original doom era im talking.
Infact we were getting games like that with cd's right up untill about 98 weren't we?

My first home built PC that was built by my self was at the launch of windows xp so still a while ago, I remember it kinda sucked with only 256 ram and on-board graphics.

Its crazy how pc's have changed and the programs we can run is insane compared to what i used to play when i was 12 (about 10 years ago).

I remember the 6 episodes of Wolfenstein being 5 or 6 disks -The full version of Doom was 5 or 6 as well. The best non FPS games from those days were the classic King's Quest series (several disks each), Leisure Suit Larry (2 disks for the VGA version and 1 for EGA-16 colors!!!), X-Com UFO defense (a boatload of disks), and Wing Commander. How about multiple CD games? Anyone remember Phantasmagoria? That beast filled up 7 CD's! I couldn't even run it until I got a Packard Bell POS running at 166MHz. Actually, that Packard Bell was respectable except in brand name. It had a tv tuner built in working through a 16bit ISA bus slot...

 

[FreedomEclipse]

My first pc was a Commodore - not sure which one it was but it ran tapes & the rest i was too young too remember - didnt do too much on it asside from play a few crap games.

but the first proper proper pc i had was a Intel Pentium SXII that my dad bought home from work. that was an amazing work of art, but I dont remember much of the spec but it was probably 50-75mhz 32mb EDO ram 500mb hdd or something with built in audio/graphics & windows 3.1. I must had that pc all the way until 1996/97 as my dad never wanted to buy a new pc, it was sufficient for doing homework & thats all that mattered until 97/98 when he finally gave in to me & my sisters nagging & payed £2000 for a PIII 500mhz, 128mb ram. 32mb Riva TNT2 Pro/Ultra, 20GB hdd which was the family computer till late 2001/02 - My sister had her own computer by then so not far back down the road, the family computer suddenly became my computer & I butchered the fuck out of it. I swapped so many parts out of that machine before I eventually scrapped it altogether not long ago (I was still running it a few months ago) its final spec was PIII 550Mhz, 40Gb HDD, 512mb PC133 & a ATi 9700 Pro that I got for free from a dads work mate.

the first computer i built was a AmD64 3500+, MSI Neo2 Platinum Nforce3 mobo, 1Gb PC3200, 2x80Gb Seagate barracuda harddrives. I re-used the 9700Pro since it was compatible with 8x AGP until later on when i bought a X850XT PE for £300+ & a Creative ZS II.

one of the hard drives broke not long after the rig was put together which prompted me to make a jump to maxtor drives which Ive always recommended until 2-3years ago - its been Samsung Spinpoints all the way for me.

so yeah - my brief history

 

[Hunt3r]

My 486 and K6 500

 

[Goodman]

First familly pc was Commodor VIC-20 (1985)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20

Not sure but i think my dad still got it in his basement? i'll have to check next time i go at his place.

My first PC i own & built was also my first overclock , Pentium1 75mhz OC@120mhz with Voodoo3 2000 (1999) , wich i did overclock the Voodoo3 later on but i didn't get far before artefacts because the card was already very hot at stock speed anyways.. i put an 486 fan on the HS & was able to get my 10mhz oc stable & not more artefacts
(I still have the Voodoo3 wich later change the HS for an cupper one anyhow the card still working great)

In 2000 that is when i bought my first new PC everything new Gigabyte board KT266 with Duron 1000 mhz wich later on change for a Athlon XP 1700+ & a Geforce2 mx 400 in 2001 & 256MB of RAM...

 

[Tatty_Two]

Commodore Vic 20, unless you count an abacus of course.

 

[Melcar]

First PC I ever used was my uncle's old laptop. Can't remember what model/make it was, but it was big, heavy, and with a monochrome display. Used to play Prince of Persia and some sort of flight sim on it.
The first PC I actually owned (well, it was technically the family PC) was not until years latter. A generic Compaq if I remember correctly (those with the Turbo button). PII 333MHz, 32MB of RAM, some form of Intel IGP with 4MB of shared memory, a 6GB HDD, a nifty 8x CD drive (CD-ROM), and big ass 15" CRT, and it was beige . It had Windows 95 on it and was a sick gaming machine.
The first PC I managed to built on my own? Lets see... ECS socket A board, AMD Athlon 1300, 128MB of RAM, 40GB HDD, 16x CDRW, Radeon Rage Pro 32MB. I recycled the old CRT and used the same OS from the old Compaq. First thing to go was the CPU, since I kind of fudged the heatsink installation (hey, it was my first built ); Got an AthlonXP 1500+ as replacement (I still have that little sucker with me).
Did not get into overclocking until my second build though. Marvelous times back then.