Your first PC

[Komshija]

Do you remember your first PC?
When you bought it?
What hardware and which operating system it had?
Did you build it by yourself or ordered specific components and asked seller to assemble them or bought already assembled PC?


I'll start with mine.
It was in June 2002 when I ordered specific components via a phone call and arranged meeting/pick-up since the store was in another city. I remember that its price was around 8150 kn (1100 € or 1280 $) and I still have the invoice somewhere. I didn't pay for it because as a teenager I had very little money.

These were the specs:
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1600 MHz Northwood
MOBO: MSI 645 Ultra
RAM: 1 stick 256 MB Samsung DDR 333
GPU: Innovision Tornado GeForce 2 Ti 64 MB with TV-out (I never used that feature )
HDD: WD 400 BB, 40 GB 7200 RPM
Case: some unknown with 400W PSU
Optical drive: NEC DVD reader
Floppy drive: some 3.5"
Monitor: Samsung SM551s, 15"
Keyboard: Chicony PS2
Mouse: Genius ball mouse PS2
Operating system: Windows 98 SE

I upgraded this PC in August 2004 to AMD 3000+ Barton, A7N8X-E Deluxe, 512 MB DDR 400, Sapphire 9600XT 128 MB, Windows XP Professional and later further upgraded RAM, GPU, PSU and HDD before replacing it with the new system.

 

[micropage7]

me?
actually my parents bought me
pentium 166 mmx with 32mb ram and 10gb hdd with cd rom with 14 inch crt monitor with windows 98

i built phenom x4, with pc partner motherboard, 512 ddr3 and 40 gb hdd

its been a while

 

[jboydgolfer]

my first PC, or computer....id say depending on your definition, one of the following.

Spoiler: first pc's

sadly i dont recall their "specs"

Intellivision 1970's

Apples 2 or 2e

i had others, but if im being honest , they werent really used by me too much, as im the youngest of 4

 

[Norton]

Used Packard Bell 286 with DOS 3.3.... 1995. Moved from that one to a 386 then a 486.

The first PC I built with new parts wasn't until a couple of years after that. Iirc it was a Cyrix 6x86 with Windows 95

 

[EarthDog]

Pretty sure there is an existing thread on this...

To answer again, a Tandy trs-80 64k was mine.

 

[r9]

386 40/80MHz 4MB RAM 256MB HDD.
At one point had Winodws 95 on it .

 

[BiggieShady]

AMD 486 DX 40MHz 4 MB RAM 210 MB HDD ...

It had a Cirrus Logic graphics card for SVGA mode 1024x768 using 16 bit color on a 14 inch CRT that did 75Hz max at that res ...

... had to upgrade to 8 MB to be able to install Windows 95 (probably similar story as in the post above)

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Do you remember your first PC?
When you bought it?
What hardware and which operating system it had?
Did you build it by yourself or ordered specific components and asked seller to assemble them or bought already assembled PC?

When:1983
Commodore 64 and cassette recorder.
no assembly required.

 

[r9]

AMD 486 DX 40MHz 4 MB RAM 210 MB HDD ...
It had a Cirrus Logic graphics card for SVGA mode 1024x768 using 16 bit color on a 14 inch CRT that did 75Hz max at that res ...
... had to upgrade to 8 MB to be able to install Windows 95 (probably similar story as in the post above)

Had Amiga 500 before it, it felt like a downgrade.
Amiga had some bad ass games at the time.

 

[Jetster]

IBM PC 8088 ( given to me by a friend of the family after replacing his business PC)
20 Mb hard drive
256K ram
16 color monitor
DOS OS
California Games
Falcon 3.0

I still have the some of the software for it

 

[BiggieShady]

Had Amiga 500 before it, it felt like a downgrade.
Amiga had some bad ass games at the time.

I know what you mean, a friend had Amiga 500 back then ... things started to change graphics wise a year later in 1994 with transition from Vesa Local Bus to PCI

 

[Totally]

Hewlett-Packard forgot the model and forgot all the other specs other than it had an AMD chip clocked at 800Mhz. I only remember that because that it was a very big deal when my parents got it that summer, then a few months later 900Mhz, and the Ghz barrier very quickly after that.

 

[BiggieShady]

When:1983
Commodore 64 and cassette recorder.
no assembly required.

Somehow I assumed we were talking about IBM PC AT/XT and clones at earliest ... if not, I'd change my answer to Amstrad (Schneider) CPC in 1987.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

IBM 386

i still use the keyboard everyday.

First console 1977 Sportsvision 1000

 

[Liviu Cojocaru]

My first computer was a laptop gave to me as a present when I was 13. It was a gift from my sister who was living in Japan at that time and this was her laptop. I can't remember the name but I remember the specs:

CPU: Pentium III 500mhz
RAM:128MB SDR (I've upgraded to 192 in less than 3 months)
GPU: S3 Savage 8MB
HDD: Hitachi 10GB
Screen:15.6inch (I think)

In 1 year I became obsessed with computers and when I was 15 I got the budget (from my brother) to build my first desktop PC:

CPU:AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (Palomino)
CPU Cooler: Spire
MB:ECS K7VTA3 (KT333)
RAM:256 MB DDR 333Mhz
GPU: Xelo GeForce 2 MX 64MB 128Bit

HDD:Maxtor 20GB
Monitor CRT 15 inch

 

[dorsetknob]

Pretty sure there is an existing thread on this

There is /Was somewhere

To answer again, a Tandy trs-80 64k was mine.

me again with Tandon (80)286 DOS 3.3 Windows 3
Bought it cheap for the time because Twat Owner damaged the Extended mem Slot ( i soldered the 32 pin simm direct to mother board my 1st PC Ghetto fix)
Ah the joys of writing Menu's to run multi config sys and Autoexec.bat at Boot to get the best out of it

 

[blobster21]

1992/1993 : For me it was a compaq Presario. It came pre-equiped with windows 3.11 + a vouncher for a free upgrade to windows 95

I can't remember all the specifics, but i'm sure it was a Pentium 75 + a 820MB harddrive. I think it came with a 8MB EDO ram stick.

At that time i was litteraly drooling over the Gateway line of products, to me they looked so cool, powerfull and built "à la carte"

 

[P4-630]

My first own desktop PC was an Acer OEM PC, bought it in 2006.

It came with:

• Pentium 4 630 3GHz
• 1GB DDR2
• DVD DL writer
• Floppy drive
• Multi cardreader
• ATi X300 passively cooled (OC'd it to get better fps in Far Cry)
• FSP PSU (Not bad)
• ECS Motherboard
• Some Seagate HDD

My first own computer was a Casio Cassiopeia E-100 palmtop PC with Windows CE, I bought a compact flash (dial-up) modem for internet connection.

 

[cornemuse]

Timex-Sinclair TS1000, still have it, somewheres. Bought 32k ram (32 'K' ram!) extra, & used my kids 'Fisher-Price' (shaped like a log cabin!) cassette player/recorder to save programs with.
-c-

 

[qubit]

This sounds like My First Sony.

Well, where do I start? I've been using computers since 1980 (yes, I'm an old fart) and had my first one in 1983, an Oric Atmos, a cute, but rubbish computer. I then had various BBC computers including the 32-bit ARM2-based A3000. I also had a couple of 386 and 486 computers given away to me. However, my "proper" x86 PC was back in 1999 that I paid full price for to build. I don't remember all the specs now, but it had a "Pentium class" Cyrix 333MHz CPU, 64MB RAM, PC Shits Chips motherboard* with IGP, 8GB Samsung HDD and CD writer. I've learned a few things since then and would never buy hardware like that now.
That Samsung HDD was built like a tank I tell you and wish I still had it. I no longer do because of some burglars a few years ago. Oh and it started off with Windows 98 SE with a later upgrade to Windows XP and then 128MB and 256MB RAM. Yes, megabytes!

*It was truly awful and I think the company went bust a few years ago.

 

[Komshija]

AMD 486 DX 40MHz 4 MB RAM 210 MB HDD ...
It had a Cirrus Logic graphics card for SVGA mode 1024x768 using 16 bit color on a 14 inch CRT that did 75Hz max at that res ...
... had to upgrade to 8 MB to be able to install Windows 95 (probably similar story as in the post above)

I remember that in the 90's very few people owned PC's; at least that was the case here in Croatia. Few of us had consoles, but hardly anyone had a PC. As I recall, only one or two people in my neighborhood had a PC's during the mid 90's. At the same time, in my classroom in primary school, only three people had them - two girls and one guy. My father bought a new PC somewhere in 1999 (Intel P3 450 MHz, Riva TNT 2, 32 MB RAM, AOC 15", Windows 98) and put a login password (BIOS and OS) to prevent me from the "excessive" gaming and thus possibly underperform at school. Its main purpose was mostly for his business activities. I was slightly sad because my others classmates who had a PC could play as much as the want.

 

[Jhelms]

My very first was a Texas Instruments TI-994A. It took a cassette tape for the program! Had to press play and all to load it. Good times!

 

[P4-630]

Well if you talk about the first computer at home, it was a Philips MSX home computer, we had games on cassette tapes, somewhere end of the 80s or begin 90s.

 

[Komshija]

Well if you talk about the first computer at home, it was a Philips MSX home computer, we had games on cassette tapes, somewhere end of the 80s or begin 90s.

I was thinking your/other commentators first PC, or the PC that you/other commentators had the most "usage rights".

 

[P4-630]

I was thinking your/other commentators first PC, or the PC that you/other commentators had the most "usage rights".

My own first computer was a Casio Cassiopeia E-100 palmtop PC with Windows CE, bought it in 1999 IIRC.

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 @ 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