What were the specs of your first computer?

[monkeydelmagico]

Early Zenith computer right round the time they bought Heathkit. God I'm old.

 

[ewdotson]

TRS-80 Model I *with* the 32K expansion interface and a cassette tape drive. Very sexy!

 

[klod]

Memorex/Telex Brand (IBM AT 80286 Clone)
10.5mhz / 12.0mhz Turbo
512k RAM
64k ROM I think
(2) 1.44M floppy drives
20M MFM hard drive
EGA 16k video card
PC Dos w/Dos Shell

 

[Oyeve]

My first computer was an atari 400 then an 800XL.still have it. My first pc I built was an amdek case and mobo, an 8088 processor and a 32 megabyte HD. Took two days to low level format that sucker. And an ega graphics card. Cost was 1100. Also 400 for an ega 12" monitor.

My most expensive purchase was a then unprecedented 200 meg HD for my Compaq 386/33 deskpro I bought in 87 or 88. 200 meg ESDI drive cost $2000. Still have it. That compaq system was my first experience with 256 color VGA. I was blown away.

 

[WiseUp216]

486 DX2-66
4MB RAM
Don't remember the storage size.

I think upgrading to 8MB RAM was the first PC upgrade that I remember doing. Netscape Navigator ran terrible with 4MB.

 

[Drako]

ZX81 - 1K of RAM. Ended up buying the 64K RAM pack and added an external keyboard. Then bought a TS100 so my brother and I did not have to share.

 

[mike8675309]

First computer I used, an apple II+ in 6th grade. First computer I paid money for, an Osborne 1 running cpm. 64kb of memory, Zilog Z80 @4.0 MHz was the cpu. when new it cost $1795. I paid $50 for it in 1987. I used it and it's internal 300baud modem (modified for 1200bps) to connect with bulletin board systems.

 

[BStorm]

First computer used, an Apple II GS in 1st grade. Tiny color screen and giant dot matrix printer.

First family computer was a Power Macintosh 6500 purchased in 1997. PowerPC 603e@225MHz, 32MB RAM, 3GB HD, 33.6K modem. Running Mac OS 7.6.1 on a 15' 1024x768 screen. I think my parents paid around $1700 for it (came with an Epson printer as well).

First computer I bought was a Bondi Blue iMac (rev B). Had a 233MHz G3 CPU, 32MB RAM and 4GB HD on Mac OS 8.6, Paid somewhere around $1300 for it in Dec 1998 using the proceeds from my first job. I almost immediately paid another $80 for a 64MB RAM upgrade to make it much more responsive.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

First computer used, an Apple II GS in 1st grade. Tiny color screen and giant dot matrix printer.

First family computer was a Power Macintosh 6500 purchased in 1997. PowerPC 603e@225MHz, 32MB RAM, 3GB HD, 33.6K modem. Running Mac OS 7.6.1 on a 15' 1024x768 screen. I think my parents paid around $1700 for it (came with an Epson printer as well).

First computer I bought was a Bondi Blue iMac (rev B). Had a 233MHz G3 CPU, 32MB RAM and 4GB HD on Mac OS 8.6, Paid somewhere around $1300 for it in Dec 1998 using the proceeds from my first job. I almost immediately paid another $80 for a 64MB RAM upgrade to make it much more responsive.

I remember using that model of an iMac in elementary school. I loved the way they looked. I still kind of like the form factor, especially with how aesthetically pleasing it is considering there's a CRT monitor in there.

 

[rkoenn]

Back around 1982 or so I built a Sinclair/Timex computer. It had a membrane keyboard so I found a large keyboard in a large plastic case and wired it in. I only used it for a 3 or 4 months before selling it. You had to load programs off a cassette tape machine.

Then I bought a TI-99 and added the expansion box which hung off the side. I had it for about 6 months and you used a small TV as the monitor.

My wife was working as a teacher around 1983 or so and the IBM PC came out. Teachers could get a discount so we ordered one and after about a 4 month wait, they were in high demand, ours arrived at the IBM store in Orlando so we drove over from the space coast and picked it up. I think it cost about $2K. I added a second 5.25" floppy drive ($225) and bought three more sets of 64K memory CHIPS which I put in the empty MB sockets. I bought a CGA monitor for about $400 as well. I also later added an AST memory multi-IO card and bought more of the memory chips from a local guy and populated it fully.

I worked for NASA and moved to CA from FL for two years in 1984. While there the clones were becoming available and I started building systems and selling them. Everything was still FDD based for storage. I drove down to LA 3 or 4 times and bought system parts from the importers. I also bought an EEPROM burner and burned IBM basic chips as there were empty EPROM sockets on the MBs for them.

My first HDD was a Seagate 5.25" 40MB in 1986 for about $400. Since then I've gone through the entire clone market development and what you can buy today for a fraction of that cost blows me away. I suppose over the years I've built at least 500 systems and probably somewhat more. What a long hard road it's been!

 

[ultimatebob]

My first computer was a Commodore 64 that I picked up for $10 at a yard sale. Didn't even have a floppy drive... you had to load applications from cartridge or cassette tape.

My first "real" computer was an IBM PS/2 Model 50Z. It had a 286 processor, 30 MB hard drive, and a whopping 8 MB of RAM. Back then, you needed a special expansion card and drivers that you loaded in CONFIG.SYS to access that much memory.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

My first computer was a Commodore 64 that I picked up for $10 at a yard sale. Didn't even have a floppy drive... you had to load applications from cartridge or cassette tape.

My first "real" computer was an IBM PS/2 Model 50Z. It had a 286 processor, 30 MB hard drive, and a whopping 8 MB of RAM. Back then, you needed a special expansion card and drivers that you loaded in CONFIG.SYS to access that much memory.

Noob question here, but what OS was that. 3.1?

 

[ultimatebob]

Noob question here, but what OS was that. 3.1?

I think that it had PC DOS 3.3 on there. The hard drive really wasn't big enough to store a copy of Windows without deleting half of my game collection, but if it did, it would have been running 3.0.

 

[KMFJD]

 

[wendellhill]

P1 was my first PC

Processor 133MHZ
Ram 64MB
CD Rom
Floppy Disk
Viewsonic Monitor.

 

[bononos]

IBM XT clone - 8088 4.77Mhz with a CGA card, color monitor, 640k ram, 2 5.25" floppy drives

 

[Markfothebeast]

Apple with b&w image. First PC I put together was a 66mhz Pentium with 8MB SIMM RAM, no soundcard and lots'o jumpers that required a thorough reading of the mobo manual. Saved up to buy that turd for a long time. I was so in to designing RPGs I was on it a lot.

Than suddenly one day out of the blue, a crazy drunken father storms in to my room, pulled it out of the wall with the monitor and all, still powered on, and threw it off the deck. The end.