First Computers ...

[zaphodeist]

... as posted by TechRepublic folk - 16k expansion etc

[Soquili]

Ah....fond memories.

I had several of those after my first computer. In 1974 there were several variants of the S-100 bus system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-100_bus

Parts were bought at various electronic stores around town (North Highlands/Sacramento, CA).

[gracehjs]

First "PCs". The first computer I used filled the room

[Karateed]

This was my first computer, in fact, I still have one but a model up....it actually has a real size keyboard....and it still works...though pretty useless by today's standards.

Some advance features were:
Upgraded to 3 EProms - Rabbit, made tape load and save up to 10 x faster, Assembler/DisAssembler, Toolkit (10 functions). Also upgraded the RAM to 16k from 8k.

Below are the stock specs for the machine.

Manufacturer: Commodore
Year Introduced: 1977
Cost (new): $795 (US), $1200 Canadian or so
Processor: MOS 6502
Speed 1 Mhz
RAM: 8 KB - 32 KB
ROM: 14 KB
I/O Ports: IEEE 488
Parallel
Tape Recorder
System Bus: 8-bit

[pauland]

Sadly, the first computer I ever used was an ICL 1900. My first "home" computer was cobbled together from cards designed by a company called GreenBank Electronics. I couldn't afford anything else. Computers were really fun then!

[gidgit]

our first was a xt, and then we got an amiga 500, and then several more amigas from there ( 2000, 1200 ), and then a 266 celeron...

[Drwyd]

My first was also an ICL (1906a) It was the size of 3 articulated lorries and was water cooled

My first owned computer was a Sinclair ZX81, with the wobbly 16k rampack :-) closely followed by a spectrum, atari 1040st, 286, 386, 486, p75, p166, p233 ....

Fun days :-)

[Rik]

My First computer was the BBC B Microcomputer. I got it in 1984. It's amazing what the were able to achieve with just 16K of RAM. Elite was (in my opinion) one of the best games ever.
Had it for many years and the got the Atari 1040 ST.

Then I built my first PC in 1991. DX2 66MHz processor with 4MB of RAM and a 1MB graphics card. This thing was the fastest on the market at that time. Then made that into one of the first multimedia PCs. Which means that you have a CD ROM and a Sound Card. The CD Drive was connected to the sound card as there was no spare IDE connector on the motherboard.

And things went from there. Have not looked back since!

Though recently I was fortunate enough to find a BBC emulator for the PC and can still play many of the BBC games which some kind souls have translated so that they can be played on the emulator.

Brilliant!

[Soquili]

If we can consider computers we personally did not own

My 'first' computer was an AUTODIN switching center. I actually worked inside the computer. Memory was in several cabinets, central processor in another, arithmetic unit in still others. The building was the size of a city block.

[Scotty]

Hi,
My first computer was a Radioa Shack 'CoCo' using tv as monitor, 16KB memory (if I remember right), then upgraded to 'CoCo2' with 32Kb memory, then 'Coco 3'...512KB memory with a RGB monitor...
I still have the last two kicking around somewhere...
JimM