I just recall my first cpu it was 33 MHz and 4 megs of ram and a cd rom. to me it was the most amazing thing ever
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what was the specs of your first computer/?
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I'm going to win this contest!
When I was young, my dad gave me his original computer to play with. It was made by Tandy/Radio Shack.
I did word processing, BASIC language programming, Machine language programming, and used it as a terminal.
When I was young, my dad gave me his original computer to play with. It was made by Tandy/Radio Shack.
| Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III | ||||||||||||||||||
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I did word processing, BASIC language programming, Machine language programming, and used it as a terminal.
Fun thread. It was a ZX81 (with a printer, and added 16 KB RAM) I think it was in 1982 or 1983. Then the Commadore area began shortly after that and I got me a VIC 20, my neighbour got a VIC 64 and it was amazing times. Learned som basic BASIC. Later on i got my self a Atari 1040 and perhaps a Amiga 500. Those were the days.
Mine was an IBM PC, Model 5150, with an 8088 CPU running at 4.77 MHz, 640 KB of RAM and a single double-sided floppy drive of 320KB. I bought a third party board to add serial and parallel ports. I think this was about 1982...Pretty damned good keyboard.
its crazy how far we have come lol for 80 bucks we can buy a tablet with a 1o inch screen lol
My early computer journey:
'81-'89 IBM 5150 (dual floppies)
'84-'87 TRS80 Color Computer (Computer Science classes)
'85-'87 IBM PC Jr. (yea, I know. I asked for an Amiga)
'92 - 486/50 DX2 8MB RAM | 120MB HD | Sound Blaster | 17" NEC monitor
'93 - Quadra 800 72MB RAM | 250MB HD | CD-ROM | SuperMac Thunder II Video Card | SuperMac 20" Monitor
'81-'89 IBM 5150 (dual floppies)
'84-'87 TRS80 Color Computer (Computer Science classes)
'85-'87 IBM PC Jr. (yea, I know. I asked for an Amiga
)'92 - 486/50 DX2 8MB RAM | 120MB HD | Sound Blaster | 17" NEC monitor
'93 - Quadra 800 72MB RAM | 250MB HD | CD-ROM | SuperMac Thunder II Video Card | SuperMac 20" Monitor
For the first computer I worked on, no clue on the clock, but it had 4K of RAM, Some kind of very small disk, paper tape reader, teletype. It was a DEC PDP8E, around 1973.
The first computer I owned, a TRS-80, Model 1, Level 1. 4K of RAM, a black and white monitor, and a cassette recorder for storage.
The first computer I owned, a TRS-80, Model 1, Level 1. 4K of RAM, a black and white monitor, and a cassette recorder for storage.
I had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum first, but my first proper PC in 1994 was a Viglen (part of Amstrad) 486 SX33 with (I think) 210MB hard disk & 4MB RAM. I was a student and couldn’t afford the additional cash to upgrade the CPU to a DX33 (with a maths co-processor). I later bought an extra 4MB RAM chip for about £100.
I was a relatively new IBM employee in 1981 and obtained the following original IBM PC 5150 at the fantastic employee price of about $1500. Or well over $7000 in today’s dollars. I now have to laugh as I see people with their hair on fire over relatively minor issues in the $700 Mac Mini’s that are tens of thousands of times more powerful than that original IBM PC.
| CPU | Intel 8088 @ 4.77 MHz |
| RAM | 16kB |
| Video | IBM Monochrome display adapter |
| Display | IBM Monochrome display |
| Input | IBM 83-key keyboard |
| Sound | Single programmable-frequency square wave with built-in speaker |
| Storage | One 5.25", 160kB single sided, dual density floppy drive Port for attaching to cassette tape recorder |
| Expansion | Five 62-pin expansion slots to 8-bit CPU I/O bus |
| Communication | One parallel port |
Operating system was IBM PC DOS 1.0.
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First one I owned was a 48K Apple II+.
But I had two 5.25" floppy drives!
But prior to that, I made good use of my school's teletype machine to remote into their mainframe. After that we got an Apple ][ with integer BASIC and a cassette recorder for storage.
But I had two 5.25" floppy drives!
But prior to that, I made good use of my school's teletype machine to remote into their mainframe. After that we got an Apple ][ with integer BASIC and a cassette recorder for storage.
YES! Actually, my dad drove from Boston to NYC to attend a computer show so he could buy it at a deep discount. He paid $2,000 for the $2,500 machine, which was still (as indicated around) about $7,000 in today's money!
First computer I used was a timeshare HP2000 minicomputer with HP Basic on a Decwriter terminal connected over a fancy modem the size of a dorm refrigerator. First microcomputer I used was a 2 MHz Z80 Northstar Computer with dual 5.25" floppies running Northstar DOS (a CPM-80 clone). If I remember correctly it came maxed out with 48KB of RAM.
First computer I owned was a Mac 512K with a single 400K 3.5" floppy. I upgraded it to a 512 KE when Apple released an update kit 6 months later. Then I added an additional 2 MB of RAM with a clever board that plugged onto the motherboard via the PAL chips (cool hack and never a single issue with it.) Finally I added a 30 MB HDD. All this was on a 8 MHz 68000. Once I had a HDD and the 2 MB RAM, it was better than some workstation class machines of its day that cost $40,000 (except for no floating point hardware and it still had to boot from the floppy.)
First computer I owned was a Mac 512K with a single 400K 3.5" floppy. I upgraded it to a 512 KE when Apple released an update kit 6 months later. Then I added an additional 2 MB of RAM with a clever board that plugged onto the motherboard via the PAL chips (cool hack and never a single issue with it.) Finally I added a 30 MB HDD. All this was on a 8 MHz 68000. Once I had a HDD and the 2 MB RAM, it was better than some workstation class machines of its day that cost $40,000 (except for no floating point hardware and it still had to boot from the floppy.)
Or about $
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Didn't see this. Depends on what part of 1980. Inflation was absolutely brutal at the time. $2500 was $7980 vs $7220 between 1980 and 1981 for instance.
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I got a TI-99/4A for Xmas on year, inherited an Atari 800 (with tape drive), and later got a Tandy 1000 TL/2. We had Apple ][e and ][c machines at school, along with Commodore 64s.
Alas, I wasn't able to purchase my first Mac until the very first iMac. I pimped it out with 48MB of RAM, 6MB of VRAM, and later the unofficial 3Dfx card.
Alas, I wasn't able to purchase my first Mac until the very first iMac. I pimped it out with 48MB of RAM, 6MB of VRAM, and later the unofficial 3Dfx card.
The first computer I used was a ZX81 with the 16 KB RAM pack but it was a school computer soon superseded by thel BBC Model B which I used for my computer science O and A levels. First computer my family owned was a Commodore 64, mostly used by me. I was quite annoyed that my father didn't buy the BBC B, a much better computer designed by the same people who designed the first ARM CPUs. In fact the first ARM computer was a co-processor add-in for the BBC Micro.
I was a dealer that sold IBM PC peripherals in the early 80's. At one point I was selling an external hard disc drive subsystem. It was an adapter card that ran a ribbon cable to an external enclosure the size of a lunch box with ... get ready .... A 5MB HARD DRIVE!!! Nobody could believe they could ever use up that much storage. I couldn't keep them in stock, sold as many as I could get shipped to me.
And it was $2500, which was a rock bottom low price.
And it was $2500, which was a rock bottom low price.
1990 Mac Classic...bought when starting university. An 8 MHz Beast!
The slowest, cheapest Mac one could lay hands on, but I doubled the RAM. From 1 MB, to 2MB!
I fondly remember upgrading from System 6 to System 7. So modern and advanced.
Created work for several years on it, never an issue the 40MB hard drive never got more than about 50% full, with the OS (MS Office and games too), all software, all projects, still on the drive.
Printed on the new-fangled Style Writer II. Most of my peers were printing on campus on impact printers with horrid quality, no fonts, on "computer" paper (gear fed). I printed on everything I could find, including line notebook paper...because I could.
Everybody was shocked at the crisp text, different fonts, sizes, bold, underline, and italicized text. All of that got way, way over-used!!
The slowest, cheapest Mac one could lay hands on, but I doubled the RAM. From 1 MB, to 2MB!
I fondly remember upgrading from System 6 to System 7. So modern and advanced.
Created work for several years on it, never an issue the 40MB hard drive never got more than about 50% full, with the OS (MS Office and games too), all software, all projects, still on the drive.
Printed on the new-fangled Style Writer II. Most of my peers were printing on campus on impact printers with horrid quality, no fonts, on "computer" paper (gear fed). I printed on everything I could find, including line notebook paper...because I could.
Everybody was shocked at the crisp text, different fonts, sizes, bold, underline, and italicized text. All of that got way, way over-used!!
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