Whats the first thing that really got you hooked on computers?

[Electric Amish]

Yes, the devil made me do it.... 😱

amish

 

[BoberFett]

Amish

Newbie. 😉

I remember when there wasn't any internet porn. If you wanted porn you had to find a BBS with a porn gateway. 🙂

 

[Mem]

1982 I think, was playing with a friends ZX81,anyway moved up to Commodore 64,loved playing Manic miner,Hunchback,then came Atari ST,Amiga A500,by this time I loved playing games & jumped on the PC bandwagon 486-66DX was my real first PC,anyway the rest is history.

🙂

 

[TravisBickle]

A ZX spectrum! Christmas 1984 my father bought me one 48K rubber keyed Sir Sinclair machine. Before that, I had been messing around with the computers like the BBC B, Amstrad 464 and the Commodore 64 in shop display.
The first game I remember playing was Jet Set Willy (yes, the title is correct). For several months I typed in programs from magazines but game technology was improving and programming in basic became too sad.
The computer I really began to like was the Atari ST I think. I had several pirated games and all this stuff off coverdisks. I still think it's funny how expensive hard drives were for that machine in 1993, like £400 for 40Mb or something stupid like that.

 

[cyclistca]

Took me a long time to warm up to computers. My first exposure to computers was way back in high school. Some how managed to get into the first "computer class" that they offered. We were using state of the art TSR-80s by Radio Shack 🙂. The course was so easy that we would do the assignments in a few minutes then spend the rest of the time playing games. My next experience was when my dad bought an Apple II. Played a few games but mainly used it for word processing.

I continued using computers throughout university but I was not really interested in them as more then a tool. Finished University then started looking for a job. Could no find a job that interested me so I went back to school to study computer programming. Had never considered it as a career (Who want to sit in front of a computer all day) but I had several friends doing it. There was also a big demand for programmers at the time. Anyhoo I ended up loving it. Finish near the top of my class. Went out and bought my first computer, 486 DX2 66 soon after and have been into them ever since.

 

[bluemax]

I used to tinker with the three-voice music capabilities of both my TI99 4/a and later my Tandy 1000SX (thank heavens I didn't get a clone PC! I had better graphics and sound than all my friends for years!) Then I dropped into a store one day on a whim, and there it was...
The Adlib Personal Computer Music System.

It was amazing! I had to have it! I was too young then to afford it myself, and my dad refused to purchase it for the $450 Canadian they were asking for it. So I went to my local Radio Shack in the mall, got the address of Head Office, told them about this AMAZING product- they decided to test the market out... they shipped that store some units and I got to show it off to people when they came into the store. (I guess I could say I was responsible for Radio Shack carrying the product.) 🙂 I don't know how many I sold directly, since I didn't officially "work" there... but they did sell me one at a nice discount. I was ecstatic...

I've been a PC music writer since.
Up until that Creative Labs Open MIDI Competition fiasco.... gah. "Bloodwar" Bah! Lost my entry! BAH! THPPT! :|
There's another big contest to enter in January... it's time to break out the keyboard and see how my synthesis can compare to the big boys. Anyone have any samples and a copy of Gigasampler to lend me? 🙂

 

[merlocka]

Gorf on a Vic 20 with tape drive.

 

[Mule]

I remember I really got into computers when we bought a crappy Packard Bell computer. That sucker had 512k of video memeory and no VESA support. I couldn't play Sim City 2000 and I wanted to cry. Well it was actually fixing that crappy computer because it always broke down that got me interested in computers.

I was also very interested in MS DOS 6.0 and how doublespace worked. It amazed me that you could virtually double your hard disk space and that was amazing. And trying to maximize my coventional memory that doublespace hogged so I can play Wing Commander also brought alot of interest.

I never really liked Win 3.1 and never really used it, I would always prefer DOS over it.....well until Win95 rolled through.

 

[sandorski]

Whoa! This thread makes me feel old!

My first exposure was when my dad bought a Super Pong back in 76/77. My first exposure to a real computer was in 78 when a teacher offered a computing course with his TRS 80. There was no software to use, we had to make it ourselves! Nothing special, just little basic programs that would ask you your name, sex, and age then spit out some pre-determined response based on the users input. Even though my family moved away 1.5 months into the course, I was hooked! It wasn't until 83/84 when I saw a VIC20 on sale that I had any exposure to a computer again.

 

[timco]

My dad is a teacher and he bought a computer home from school during the holidays. I think this was about 1983 (I was 7). I used to watch him typing in programs from magazines and the main thing I used to do was remind him that caps lock wasn't turned on (keywords such as RUN were all upper case). "Caps", I'd say... God, this takes me back. My parents then bought a computer (an Acorn Electron - British "classic&quot😉 for my and my brethren. It cost 199UKP (about $320) and featured 32K ram, 8Mhz CPU, 16 colors max (you had a choice - higher resolution (up to 640x256) or more colors). 16 colors at 160x256 took up 20K of the RAM which left programmers with less than 12K to play with. The OS was in ROM so that didn't take up any room. It didn't come with a tape recorder (you could use a standard one), a monitor or anything. It didn't even have an off switch. All it had was a power socket, a TV port, a mono video port (amber or green were the "in" colors (!)), a tape socket and a RGB monitor socket. It also had an expansion port but we never used that. I still have it somewhere, along with most of the games. I then graduated to an Atari ST - wow! 512K RAM, floppy drive, decent games, etc... The rest is history (and not too interesting). Now I have a flashy PC with a 900Mhz CPU (o/ced from 800), 60Gb of storage and all kinds of goodies!