What was the first computer/PC you used?

[oxrufiioxo]

An Apple monitor II is the first computer I can remember using I was probably around 9 years old 92/93 ish.

 

[Belfaborac]

ZX Spectrum here, then Amstrad CPC464>CPC664>Amiga 500>Amiga 1200 before I built my first PC sometime in the 90s.

 

[P4-630]

An Apple monitor

Our first monitor was a about a 12" black/white TV...

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Our first monitor was a about a 12" black/white TV...

I honestly don't know what the specifications of the apple computer connected to it I just remember the stupid monitor that was pretty trash.

 

[JackOO7]

The Philips MSX Home computer was the first computer we played games on at home.
We had few games on cardridge, most on casette tapes. Monitor we used was a small black/white TV.

View attachment 289375




Casio Casiopeia E100 was my first own "computer". (Still have it somewhere in a box)

View attachment 289371

I bought a compact-flash modem for it and so I could use DialUp internet everywhere I went.

Cassiopeia E-100​

The first Palm-size PC model by Casio to have a color screen, the E-100 was outwardly identical to the E-15.

• Operating system: Microsoft Windows CE 2.11 Palm-size PC edition
• Size: 81.2 mm x 132 mm x 20.1 mm :: 255 g
• CPU: NEC VR4121 MIPS at 131 MHz
• Memory: RAM 16 MB and ROM 16 MB
• Display: HAST LCD, 240 x 320 Pixel, 65536 colors
• Interface: Serial and IrDA (ver. 1.0)
• Expansion slots: CompactFlash Type I and II
• Battery: Li-Ion rechargeable, up to 6 hours of running time; CR2032 for memory protection
• Input: Touch Screen, Microphone, 3 user-configurable buttons, a control pad.
• Extras: Speaker and Stereo 3.5 mm headphone jack

Finally someone who also started with a MSX compatible. My first was the Spectravideo 728: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SVI-728
We're talking about 40 years ago.......
After that several Atari ST/TT and finally jumped to IBM PC comp.

 

[80251]

@95Viper
Wow a bona-fide mainframer. I remember back when I was first in IT the mainframers never gave us microcomputer serfs accounts on their big iron, but the VAX guys did (for email).

Did you do any COBOL programming? Do modern IBM Z mainframes still use the same OS (MVS/ESA?) as your system/360?

 

[Beginner Macro Device]

In late 2004, my dad bought us a Willamette Celeron 1700 MHz fueled PC. This was my very first experience which didn't last long: I killed that PC under the influence of my curiosity in late '05 or early '06. Parents never bought or trusted me a thing after that with the only exception of a couple extremely cheap phones they bought me for me to be in touch. Since 2009 (14 y.o. then), all my PCs are built for what I earnt myself.

Don't regret a thing. Especially considering how shitty that first PC of mine was. Just imagine having a GF4MX440 in '05... Almost all modern games don't run.

 

[gffermari]

My father's 486. Most likely I used/played his previous 386 but I don't remember.
So I'll vote the 486.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

Dragon32 Motorola 6809E@0.89Mhz
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/1337/Dragon-32/
Remember this game-

 

[95Viper]

@95Viper
Wow a bona-fide mainframer. I remember back when I was first in IT the mainframers never gave us microcomputer serfs accounts on their big iron, but the VAX guys did (for email).

Did you do any COBOL programming? Do modern IBM Z mainframes still use the same OS (MVS/ESA?) as your system/360?

Yep, punch cards... Hollerith code, Cobol and Fortran. We had to use the mainframe at a college, as our school could not afford one, so we got time on theirs.
At our school we had punch card machine, collator, sorter, and printer.
Yes siree... those were the neolithic days.

Edit: the printer was the size of a very small car... and everything was setup using jumper boards.

 

[80251]

@95Viper
A friend of mine who had been out of the IBM mainframe world for over two decades got his career jump-started all over again in the early 2000's by COBOL Y2k bugs. He was making nearly $300/hr. and he got calls from headhunters constantly. Could you pretty much seamlessly get back into the mainframe world if you so desired right now?

Mainframers were the gods of computing at the hospital I worked at in the 1990's -- everything important ran on Big Iron: billing data, patient data, admissions data. It was hilarious how they looked down on my friend w/his newly minted UCLA CompSci degree - they laughed at him, UNIX, C, microcomputers (later called PC's), DEC, and object oriented programming. And why shouldn't they? They made the big money with Big Blue.

 

[AusWolf]

I voted Pentium II, but more specifically, it was a Celeron MMX 300 MHz with 32 MB RAM and a 4 MB S3 ViRGE graphics decelerator and 2 GB HDD.

My dad bought it on my own salary as a child actor. Good old times!

 

[Belfaborac]

Was there a Celeron MMX? I had two Celeron 300s myself (on the Abit BP6, overclocked to 550 and running Windows NT 4.0. Happy, but unstable days.), but I'm fairly sure only the Pentiums had MMX monikers.

 

[AusWolf]

Was there a Celeron MMX? I had two Celeron 300s myself (on the Abit BP6, overclocked to 550 and running Windows NT 4.0. Happy, but unstable days.), but I'm fairly sure only the Pentiums had MMX monikers.

It might not have been called "Celeron MMX", but it definitely did MMX instructions as it was based on the Pentium II.

 

[Regeneration]

Voted for 286 but in fact 8086 was the first. I'm getting old and my memory isn't what it used to be.

It looked very similar to this:

Brandless IBM clone without 3 1/2 inch floppy. 4 color CGA graphics.

And then my dad bought me 80286 with EGA:

The cover box if I remember correctly, was M1 Tank Platoon tank by MicroProse and it came with 200 page manual.

Luckily it also came with a keyboard map too I won't have to read the whole thing.

Afterwards I had 486DX2, P166 MMX, P3 866, Duron 1800, Athlon XP 2800+, Athlon 64 3500+, C2Q 6600, Nehalem, Westmere, Alder Lake.

 

[MSDOS Retro]

In this order:

1. C64 with tapes (at school)
2. 8086 desktop (first PC at home)
3. 8086 tower
4. 486 DX2-66
5. Pentium 200 MMX (still have that PC)
6. AMD Duron 800 (Still have that PC)
7. Athlon XP (around +2400)
8. Athlon 64 2800
9. Core2Duo 6750
10. Phenom X6 1100T
11. Intel 4670K

This is the order from my main bought PC's from around 1986/7 till 2014

Now i have some other PC's also in collection
286
2nd 486
Cyrix p166
Pentium 233mmx
Pentium 75
Pentium 3 733
Pentium 3 1000
Pentium 3 1400 Tualitin
Pentium 4 2.66
Pentium 4 3.06 HT
Athlon XP 2000
Athlon XP 2500
Athlon XP 3200
Core2Quad 9550
HP Z400 x5687
HP Z400 modded 2 2690v1's
HP Z210 i5 2400
HTPC with onboard AMD CPU

 

[80251]

I'm almost surprised no one has mentioned the aberration called the DEC Rainbow:
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_997667

We had one at the hospital I worked at, it was dedicated to OCR work, but I never once saw anyone use it. Some twenty years later I met a former DEC engineer who helped design the DEC Rainbow -- she wasn't happy to hear it was an embarrassment to the VAX guys at my work and soon shuffled off to computer heaven.