What was your FIRST COMPUTER and how much did it cost?...we've come a long way.

[Jittles]

My first very own computer was a Cyrix 200. 64 MB RAM, the works.

First family computer was a Macintosh Classic. Not even color.

 

[Glock30]

Mine was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum+. Here's the spec:

3.54 MHz Zilog Z80A CPU
48K RAM
32 x 22 character text display, 256 x 192 pixel resolution, 8 colours
I/O: Z80 bus, tape recorder (later I bought a microdrive), RF television

I don't remember how much it was, my dad bought it for me.

 

[Infidelity]

My first computer was a calculator. It was pretty big.

 

[Atlantean]

The first one that I bought for myself or the first one my parents bought for me? The first one I bought myself was the one I am using now (see below) and that cost me $2100, and the first one my parents bought me was a 486, and that was $2000 I think...

 

[sp33dracer]

First Computer Ever?
Radio Shack TRS-80 complete with a daisy-wheel dot-matrix printer
Price: $2000 (guess)
Year: 1984

First Computer I bought myself?
Comtrade Pentium 166, 32mb SDRAM, Diamond MM 4mb Video Card, Hayes 33.6 modem
Price: $2000 (approx)
Year: 1996

 

[gbrux]

First computer was an Atari 400, circa 1979.

Someone else posted here that their first was an Atari 800, around 1975. That date can't be right.

Anyway, the Atari 400 was about $500, including cassette tape drive for data storage, and a floppy disk drive. The keyboard was a membrane type, although we upgraded it to a depression type. We hooked it to a 13" Sony Trinitron TV set. As I recall, there were no speakers because the sound came from the TV set.

I think it had a 4 MHz processor, and 16 KB memory, altough I could be wrong about that. The Atari 800 doubled whatever the 400 had.

Some software: Letter Perfect word processor, and a spread sheet applicatio that I forgot the name of.

Games were great. They came on cartridges, like today's console games. Of course, PacMan was there. My favorite was Star Raiders. Others included Submarine Commander, Missle Command, and Helicopter Rescue.

 

[rb56]

My first computer... Apple IIe, about $2200 as I recall. About 1982 or 83 I think.

 

[Blayze]

Packard Bell 423CDT (still have the case board and cpu, don't know if they work though )

Pentium 75
16 megs of RAM
1.2 Gig Harddrive (drive died and they replaced it with a 1.6 Gig)
Quad Speed CDROM
Floppy Drive
1 Meg Cirrus Logic Video Card
14.4 Modem/Sound Card
FM Radio Card
Packard Bell Remote (I actually use this on my main machine to control winamp )
15 inch monitor
and some more stuff...

Cost? I dont remember but over 3000... :Q

 

[indd]

generic XT - the one that was both 4.77 AND 10 Mhz.

640KB of RAM

$1000 back in the late 80's (probably 88 or 89?)

5.25" floppies and CGA graphics! I remember adding a HUGE Seagate 32MB RLL hard drive to this system. That was awesome. No more swapping floppies!

indd

 

[KBTibbs]

I don't know what it was, but it was from Radio Shack. It was a keyboard then about 7-8 more inches of case for the rest of the "computer". It took 3x5x1.25 inch cartridges. I used to play a "Joust" like game on it.

My first real "PC" was a Compaq Presario (With Monitor built in). It had a 486 with 8 megs of 72 pin EDO Ram. Built in video, sound, 14.4 modem. It was 640x480 256 colors max. It came with Windows 3.1 (The Compaq version "TabWorks" I believe it was called). About 1997 I upgraded to Win95b and I still had it up until about 6 months ago. I had long since had a new computer, but I still had it. No idea how much it cost, it was for Christmas, but thinking back it was prolly 3000+. Hmmm...looking at my parts shelf...I see I still have the 380 meg hard drive (with original data) and the 2x CD-ROM.

Edit: I *actually* found a webpage that has a pic and specs of my old Radio Shack computer!!! Here it is

In July 1980 Radio Shack introduces the TRS-80 Color Computer.
Motorola 6809E CPU
4KB RAM
16 colors display
Casette recorder
Cartridge slot
Plugs into any TV
Sells for US$400
Model no. 26-3004A

Here is a Link to a screenshot from a game I used to play called "Dinowar" on my Radio shack "Coco"

 

[RoninRXN]

386 20Mhz with massive 4MB RAM. Cost about $3000. Heh...it was about 1989 or 1990 and I was 7. I remember playing Battle Chess and stuff on that thing...and Commander Keen!

 

[Egrimm]

The first computer my family had (which I could use, don't know the price, it was costly):
386 with coprocessor and 4mb ram, 23mb hd. I remember when Windows took up half the harddisk space...
RoninRXN, BattleChess and Commander Keen, I remember those too, those were the days...

My first own computer (can't remember the exact price, think it was about 1500$):
K6 233, 32mb ram, 2,0gb hd

 

[aka1nas]

My dad gave me my first comp. It was a decommisioned company laptop. 386sx 25Mhz, 8MB ram, 120MB hard drive, running windows 3.1. Oh yeah, and no CD-ROM. I used to play doom on its monochrome monitor. Had to run it at the smallest screen size and I still got 15fps.

 

[kpxgq]

apple IIe... my uncle gave it to me.. i didnt even know how to turn it on.

first real computer.... AT&T (did u even know they made computers?) 486dx.. added the $600 Creative CDROM Blaster cdrom drive after a few months.

 

[DefRef]

Compaq Presario 4402 (was like an iMac before Apple stole the idea) w/P133/16MB/1.6GB HD/6X CD-ROM/15" monitor/33.6 modem/1 MB video (no 3D)/Win95a and a rather decent SW bundle (included CorelDraw 5 and some other cool stuff) AND a remote control for $1100. Not bad a deal at the time (Feb. '97). I upped it to 104 MB RAM (64MB of EDO=$320:Q) and put in a 5.1 GB HD in Jan. '98 for $225 and a used Voodoo 1 for $140 when the Voodoo 2s came out in Spring '98.

 

[LordUnum]

Tandy 1000SL w/EGA monitor (0wn4g3 hehe) bought in mid-'89.

God knows what my parents paid for the system then, but it was sold for chump change two years ago at a garage sale with these upgrades: RAM upgrade to 640k, and a 20MB "SmartDrive" hard drive. Space Quest 2, Ultima 5 (WOW, what a game!), Maniac Mansion, Obliterator, and Lakers vs. Celtics were among the first games I bought for it. The first three kept me busy for years, since my mind was a bit slow w/these sort of games, and I never bothered peeking at any strategy guide or the like.

Ahh... the days of DeskMate, when everything was so much simpler and crappier.

 

[cirrus1]

IBM PS/1 15 mhz (can't quite remember the frequency) 386 sx, with a 40 mb hd, 2 mb ram.

 

[brandonl]

Apple IIGS .... I forgot specs an price. All I know is Print Shop 1 rocked and so did Wheel of Fortune

 

[Levi]

It wasn't that long ago I bought my first one. A real crappy IBM Aptiva PII 400 MHz.
One of those you got by letting it come of your salary. At the time it was claimed to be worth about $4000 (though I seriously doubt it! )

 

[Strych9]

8086 @ 4.77MHz, 640k RAM, 20mb HDD, 5.25" Floppy, 14" EGA, $2000.

 

[TheWart]

Macintosh SE30, the first "portable" (like 30 lbs) computer with 3MB hd, 64k ram, and 5 inch screen i think. all for the low low price of $3000.

 

[dhslammer]

I had a Texas Instruments TI-99 4A

Dont have it any more (wish i did) and I dont know any of the specs. Probably about 16kb total memory and less than 1 MHz.

 

[NutBucket]

mid '92 I got a 386 DX-40 with 4 meg ram, 120 meg hd, 1 meg vid, 14" SVGA, 5.25" and 3.5" floppies. It didn't come with a soundcard or modem. Cost dad $1000. I think at the time the best thing out was a Pentium 60. I don't remember. It was like 5th grade and I knew nothing about computers.

 

[FLandivar]

Commodore 64,with the big floppy and cassete reader. No idea about the price.

 

[McPhreak]

<< Apple II GS

about 3 grand in 86 >>



Aha! Found another who must have suffered through the trauma like I did.

I had an Apple IIGS as well. Mine was even signed by Wozniak (Wow! You lucky dog!) right on the front. Don't know how much it cost, but it was the biggest POS. It had no hard drive and for some reason, it ran EVERYTHING at twice normal speed. However, I must give it credit for supplying me with fond Ultima memories. I loved that series.