The IBM PC turns 25: Engadget's first PCs

Guess whose birthday it is today. Nope, not us, we had ours a couple months ago -- so did Apple. August 12th marks the birthday of the IBM PC, the big, ugly, beige box that kicked off the computing revolution as we know it today (hold it in Mac fanboys). 25 years ago, Don Estridge and a team of engineers introduced the IBM 5150, the first box cobbled together from off the shelf parts manufactured by a variety of companies -- the very model that would make the cheap, ubiquitous personal computer flourish. Few of us here at Engadget HQ have had a chance to lay our hands on one, but we did want to take a moment to reminisce about years past spent in front of monochrome monitors and boxy machines running all variety of DOS, DOS clones, and the like. So here's one to you, PC, for being so "good" to us over the years -- let's take it back to the 80s. Oh, and dear readers, share your first PCs with us in comments!

Ryan Block - My first PC was my grandfather's Toshiba T-1200 series. The family business at the time was a robotics company called CIMAD (anyone want to dig up some dirt on that one?), and way early on they had car phones (one of those too big to actually remove from the car) and one of these puppies for doing "work" on the go. It was a powerful box: 4.77MHz, 640KB RAM, 640 x 200 pixel monochrome screen. The T-1200 was pretty massive, no doubt about it, but at 11 pounds it wasn't too much worse than many of today's high performance clunkers. I only remember actually doing three things with this device: playing Apes on it, fixing it when DOS crashed (which was, like, all the time), and carrying it around with me wherever possible, because being the only pre-teen kid with a laptop in the 80s had so much cachet. Robots, laptops, video games, I guess some things never change.

Darren Murph - While it's a bit hard to remember so far back, the mere mention of Wolfenstein 3D brings it all back into focus. My first PC was a run-of-the-mill beige box packed with a state-of-the-art Intel 80386 microprocessor (better known at just "386"), 2MB of RAM, dual floppy drives (5.25-inch and 3.5-inch), a 1x CD-ROM drive, and a killer 14-inch color CRT monitor. My folks surprised me with this on Christmas morning, and their primary intention was to teach me to type correctly and whip me into shape for "all those jobs" in the future that would require such expertise. It didn't take long to figure out that typing "WOLF" at the DOS screen using any combination of fingers I so desired would launch the legendary Wolfenstein 3D, where I spent entirely too much time stuck on that last boss before learning the "I + L + M" trick. My folks had no idea how that machine would mold my interests, but hey, at least I'm putting those oh-so-crucial typing skills to good use.

Will O'Brien - The first PC that I had at home was a sturdy Zenith 8088 running at a smoking 8MHz. I managed to write a few programs in BASIC, specially designed to annoy my sister. After a year or two, we even upgraded the graphics card and bought a CGA monitor. Aside from writing papers using WordPerfect for school, I played plenty of Jumpin' Jack and Flightmare. (No Wolfenstein for me until we bought the 486SX a few years later) Those were the days when shareware was actually a good thing.

Thomas Ricker - Hmmm, my first PC huh? Well this may come as a surprise but I've never owned a PC. As any purist or fan boy will happily pontificate, my father's Apple ][ -- the platform of my deflowering -- was not a PeeCee. Oh sure, pops sprung for an IBM AT (pictured) in my final year at university which delivered an Intel 80286 clockin' in at 6MHz, a 20MB hard disk, a couple MB of RAM, MS-DOS 3.0, and a 5.25-inch floppy drive all packed neatly into a lovely beige box. The attached dot-matrix printer would rattle the walls and send the cat into fits whenever WordStar detected a ^ P. Sadly, my AT met its demise in a hairy buffalo accident which must never be discussed.

Paul Miller - Being the son of graphic designer, my first computer experience involved scanning color images onto the family Macintosh IIci just because I could. My first actual experience with PCs was years later watching over the shoulder of a neighborhood kid messing around with MegaZeux, Commander Keen and crazy DOS prompt actions like "CD" and backslashes. It wasn't until 2001 or 2002 that I got my first proper PC though, an eMachines T1090, with a spankin' 900MHz Celeron processor, CD-ROM drive, 20GB drive and 128MB of RAM split between two 64MB sticks. I stole a 10Base-T PCI card from a friend to get it running on my network, and proceeded to push the machine to its limits with late night games of Unreal Tournament and an installation of QuickBooks. The Command Prompt still gives me the heebie-jeebies, and I try to pretend things like the registry and DLL files don't exist, but I'm thoroughly cross-platform these days and wouldn't have it any other way.

Ross Rubin - I'd played my fair share of games on an Apple II, Commodore 64 and Coleco Adam that belonged to friends (I was holding out for the Intellivision Keyboard Component), and the first PCs I used on a regular basis were IBM PC ATs at a school lab and the infamous PC jr. to work on BASIC homework at a neighbor's house. As a Mac-only guy for many years, who was also lucky enough to generally use Macs at work, I finally purchased my first PC when a series of articles about PC software I got to write justified the purchase -- a Dell Dimension XPS T700r with a 700 MHz Pentium III. It had a DVD-ROM drive, a 10GB hard drive and came with Windows 98. I added a tape drive which I used exactly never and eventually a CD burner and more RAM. I'd had a big 20-inch Radius CRT that I used with my Power Computing PowerWave 604/150 and had dual video inputs, so i would use it to switch between the two computers. With the size of that thing, there wasn't room for much else on my desk. I replaced that computer as my home music server last year and still have it. (Please do not bid if you do not intend to buy. Users with positive feedback only please!)

Chris Ziegler - Not including the trusty TI-99/4A that I used to cut my teeth on BASIC, my first true PC was a homebuilt 8MHz 286 sporting 640K of RAM and an expansive 40MB hard disk. My favorite feature of the box was its clearly-labeled external "Turbo" button, toggling the processor for compatibility with older PC and XT apps (my copy of Pitfall being a prime example -- though attempting to play it at full speed was great exercise for hand-eye coordination). I clearly remember pleading with my parents to spring for a Hayes Smartmodem 1200 so I could check out the then-new Prodigy service; they eventually relented, though not until we upgraded the giant beige box to a 386DX with 4MB of RAM. Some 13 years after canceling our membership, my Prodigy ID and password are still inexplicably stuck in my brain. Should they ever decide to go back to a DOS-based service, I'll be first in line to whip out my credit card.

Don Melanson - My first PC was a Tandy 286 sold by Radio Shack back in the day. It had a massive 25MB hard drive and 1MB of RAM, not to mention full-blown VGA graphics, which proved to be perfect for playing countless old-school Sierra adventure games when I should have been doing my homework. Soon after we added a 2400 baud modem and I discovered the world of BBSes (both of them), where I got a taste of the demo scene that made this PC do things I'd never imagined was possible. Sadly, that's not the actual computer at the right. It was sold long ago and replaced with a true monster of a system: a 486.

[SEP @ Aug 12th 2006 4:43PM]

A the trusty ZX Spectrum with a mighty 16K of RAM. Very little, even today, can challenge Manic Miner for my affection.

[Zadillo @ Aug 12th 2006 4:44PM]

My first computer was a Mac 512ke purchased in 1986. It actually lasted me a very long time, and I didn't get another computer until 1993 when it finally died out (more specifically, when the monitor on the 512ke finally conked out). I got a few different Macs throughout the 90's (first a Performa 475, then a Power Mac 7600, then a Power Mac G3/300, and most recently an iBook).

My first "traditional" PC was a store-brand PowerSpec bought at Microcenter in 2001 or so. More recently in 2004 I decided to try building my own PC, and built one in 2004 which I am still using currently (a Socket 754 Athlon 64 3400+ with an MSI motherboard and a 6800GT graphics card).

[RobEllis @ Aug 12th 2006 4:53PM]

My first computer I got in 2000 it was a dell dimension not sure which model it was 800mhz 64mb of ram a 4mb onboard graphics card and a 10gbs hdd. My brother still has it in his room although now it has a dvd burner a radeon 7000 and another 256mb stick of ram. Those were the good ole days with windows ME getting blue screen everyday o.0

[jedd @ Aug 12th 2006 5:03PM]

My first PC was a 486DX (forgot the clockspeed), 4MB RAM, a massive 500MB hard drive and a color monitor which blew up in my mom's face. Well not exactly blew up but it was emitting sparks and there was a small explosion sound. It was running DOS (of course) and it had Windows 3.1 installed. Ah, I remember the hours spent playing Trog, Dune II, Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island. Good ol' days. Hmm, not factoring in inflation, that PC is more expensive than any of the PCs I've bought in the past 5 years.

[wendo @ Aug 12th 2006 5:03PM]

Radio Shack TRS-80. Plugged into the television.

[Big Sam @ Aug 12th 2006 5:06PM]

My first computer was a Commodore 64. I remember getting excited when I got a 300 baud modem so I could connect to Q-Link. My first "PC" was a Packard 'Hell' 486-DX2. Again I was ecstatic when upgrading from the 14.4 modem to a 28.8 for a faster connection when dowloanding from a BBS. Someone also gave me a 286 after that which I only booted up occassionally because the fan sounded just like a plane taking off.

[Dana @ Aug 12th 2006 5:06PM]

My first "PC" was an Atari 400. It had the memory upgrade that bumped it to a whopping 16K of RAM (up from 4K). It also had an aftermarket keyboard upgrade that replaced the membrane type keyboard that came on it.

More info about early Ataris:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_400

[Excelsior @ Aug 12th 2006 5:07PM]

My first PC was a Timex Sinclair 1000 waaay back in, ummmm, 1982 I think. Many multiple hours plugged into the TV typing in DOS lines just to display the cheap thing that I programmed in.

Then came the Coleco Adam. What a waste of effort there, I learned LOGO and it had that loud a$$ daisy wheel printer. But oh do I miss 2010: a text adventure from the good-ol cassette tape.

I feel old now! thanks!

[Rick @ Aug 12th 2006 5:15PM]

Early TI994/A with the black plastic bottom and metal top. Parsec was the best game on that machine. Had a few others including Donkey Kong, Jawbreaker, Hunt the Wumpus, Chisholm Trail, The Attack, Alpiner, Adventure. Loved saving my Basic programs using our Panasonic Tape Recorder......Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep Ker Chunk Ker Chunk Ker Chunk....liked to turn up the volume and annoy the family with that.

[Chris @ Aug 12th 2006 5:18PM]

Colecovision ADAM was my first computer. Boy how I loved those dual tape-drives and the daisy wheel printer...not to mention playing "Buck Rogers", which was a very cool game at the time. Since all of the ADAMs were basically recalled for various problems, I instead got a Commodore SX-64 (portable, luggable version of the venerable C-64). That thing was sweet, with the first 5-inch COLOR screen I had ever seen on a computer. Only weighed about 35-40 pounds, so it was very mobile ;-)

[Pat @ Aug 12th 2006 5:19PM]

My first PC was a TRS-80 Model I. 16k. Green-screen. Then I splurged and got the expansion module which brought me up to I think 256k. Maybe 128k. I can't remember. I worked for Adventure International. The first software company to make Adventure games for the personal computer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_International).
It was a lot of fun. I got paid to test Scott Adams' adventure games. What a blast! I then upgraded to an Atare 800, and an IBM PC with an Intel 8086 chip. 4Mhz! It screamed!

[Rick P @ Aug 12th 2006 5:20PM]

My first computer was an Apple IIe with two floppy drives. That was my first foray into pirating. Yarr!

[Michael Wyszomierski @ Aug 12th 2006 5:21PM]

My first was a Macintosh LC, (a Christmas morning surprise) running at 16 MHz (actually I think the documentation says something like 15.9997) with a 30 MB hard drive and 2 MB of RAM. Hooked up to the machine was a 12" color Apple monitor and an ImageWriter II printer. My grandfather encouraged me to learn how to type, which I did, using a book, not one of those typing games. The result? I was the immediate champion of Mario Teaches Typing when we got it in school 3 years later, I now peck away on a Das Keyboard, and I recently moved to Mountain View, CA to work on the Internet.

[Chris Betcher @ Aug 12th 2006 5:26PM]

Hmmm, my first computer was a Commodore Pet. With a massive 8k of RAM, a monochrome screen, and a cassette drive for storing programs (which you had to write yourself). Ah, brings back memories. To load a program, you had to type LOAD , then press play on the cassette drive... haha. The Pet ran the same processor as the early Apple II machines, a 6502 I seem to recall. There was virtually no software available for the machine, so you had to write your own if you wanted it to do anything useful, but it was still a lot of fun. From there I had a few Apple IIs, which used basically the same language, AppleBasic.
The last time I saw a Commodore Pet was in the computer history display at the PowerHouse Museum in Sydney.

[shark_tts @ Aug 12th 2006 5:27PM]

Hmmmmm... So many readers from the dawn of PC's, you should rename Engadget to "Grandpa Gadget Forum".

[Maggnolia @ Aug 12th 2006 5:31PM]

My parents gave me a Commodore 64 for christmas 85' (or 86', cant remember exactly). I would sit there loading games with the tape drive, watching the flashing colors on the screen for hours, hoping the game would eventually load, and maybe even work!
Things looked up when I got a disc drive and could load a game in 5 min. rather than 30!
I still have it and a bunch of old discs that still work. I set it up occasionally and have a play, till I get bored with it and pack it up for another 2-3 years hibernation.

[Charles @ Aug 12th 2006 5:36PM]

My first PC was a Processor Technology SOL-20. I built it from a kit in 1975, I think I must have burned out 4 or 5 soldering iron tips from soldering all those hundreds of tiny little pins. I splurged on two factory-built S-100 memory boards, each with a whopping 8k of RAM.
All the software came on cassette tapes, I could not afford the massively expensive Helios 8" floppy disk system to make a full CP/M system. But I did have one extravagance, a 300 baud acoustic coupler modem. I used it to connect to my university's mainframes to do my programming class assignments, and to do programming and data entry work in my spare time.
I love my old SOL, I still have it, and it still works, but the keyswitches have rotted away, so I can't type into it or actually do anything on it. I'm still searching for replacement keypads to restore the machine to full working status.
As far as I'm concerned, the SOL-20 was the first true Personal Computer, it was the first microcomputer to assemble all the standard components (except the monitor) into one cabinet; it had a keyboard, CPU, memory and expansion card slots, and video output all inside the machine. At that time, the only rivals were single-board machines like the Apple 1, or naked CPUs like the IMSAI and MITS boxes.

[Earnest Pettie @ Aug 12th 2006 5:36PM]

My first home computer was the Commodore Vic-20 running with its 5KB of Ram at 1.0227 mHz with a Disk Drive and a Tape Drive. What cracks me up is that I had the Snake game on a cassette tape, and it now comes on your basic cell phone. My first IBM PC was a used PCjr, and since my family wasn't rich, I had it all the way through graduation from high school in 1996. I read every book on it and bought every upgrade possible, thanking God that Sierra Online supported it for as long as they did!

[Joe @ Aug 12th 2006 5:39PM]

My family got a Gateway 386SX 16MHz machine when I was in seventh grade. It ran Windows 3.0, had a blazing fast 2400 baud modem and a 40mb hard drive. We had Lotus 1-2-3 (along with Ami Pro) on the machine, and I became a pro at all the backslash commands.

I remember spending countless hours playing Space Quest IV and King's Quest V, along with Pirates, Sim City and the first Test Drive game.

[sracer @ Aug 12th 2006 5:45PM]

I just knew that there are a bunch of "kids" contributing to Engadget... and their first PCs prove it! A Toshiba T-1200? A generic 386?! YOUNGSTERS!

My first personal computer was a TRS-80 Model I w/LEVEL 1 BASIC. 4KB RAM and a Cassette recorder/player for storage! Before that I had the opportunity to program some portable computers at my Jr High School.

[jesse @ Aug 12th 2006 5:46PM]

my dad bought a compaq portable from a family friend. it had two floppy drives and no hard drive. i remember we had a pirated version of dos 2.11. the only things I can remember using it for were playing paratrooper, sopwith camel, and the text-based game amnesia.

[Atro @ Aug 12th 2006 5:55PM]

My first PC way back in the day of 1997 was a P2 266 with a whopping 32mb ram, a 4 mb video card, 4.3 gig hard drive, and a 17inch CRT. Boy those were the good ol' days. Warcraft II and C&C. Took me four years to upgrade. My last PC cost about $600 less but has a 2.4 AMD64 with 2000mb ram, 26"lcd HDTV and a 256mb pci-e vidcard. Wow I feel so old now. Yeah when I say my first PC I mean the first PC I owned as an adult. Not what my mommy bought me cuz that does not count. Plus my mommy never bought me a PC so I hate kids that had cool stuff.

[Thomas @ Aug 12th 2006 5:56PM]

my first computer was a commodore 64/128. Loved it.. Tape drive and 5 1/2 inch floppy.. But my first True PC would be a few years later, hand-me-down, 8086 IBM.. That bugger had a whole woppin 4 Mhz chip.. I think.. Oh and cant forget those STUNNING CGA graphics..

[mrtoner @ Aug 12th 2006 5:59PM]

My first PC (Personal Computer) was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I, followed by an Apple II+, Apple III, and six Macintosh models, but I didn't buy my first IBM-compatible -- an eMachine -- until 1999.

[Don @ Aug 12th 2006 6:06PM]

Commodore Vic-20! Wish I still had it. I will never forget that OMG feeling I got when I came home from school to find out that I had my very own computer. My social life would never be the same. :) Moved on to a Commodore 64 in a year or two...

[Rosy @ Aug 12th 2006 6:06PM]

People talk here about Mac, atari etc.

Eh guys those were not pc's! My first pc was the IBM XT

[James @ Aug 12th 2006 6:18PM]

first computer was the hand-me down TI-49a when my dad bought a IBM PCjr with the optional floppy, two cartridge slots and a wireless keyboard.

quick succession of hand me downs came : amstrad 1512 where the graphics card AND computer power supply was built into the monitor. 386 packard bell. modern age comes with a 120 pentium Digtial!

variety of pcs followed until 2003 when I bought a powerbook and it was all over. welcome to apple land after that and six more macs.

[Zac Leingang @ Aug 12th 2006 6:21PM]

Emerson 386, running DOS-SHELL then windows 3.1, i think the only game we had was 1 disk of the first leisure suit larry, and a 9600 baud modem, and my dad and me used to dial into BBS systems, then he got a 486 packard bell, which had a "cd-rom" it was the kind u put the cd in a case and load it in the machine, looked like a big mini disc, had all the latest games, sim city, sim farm, wolf 3D, was a killer machine, then win95 came out, and the version we got was on like 20+ 3.5" discs The Taskbar was REVOLUTIONARY. lol i think my dad said something about leasing a tandy from radioshack before the 386, but i dont' remember much about that.

[Nelson @ Aug 12th 2006 6:26PM]

Thanks, sracer and others, for not making me feel like the grandfather here(!).

My first PC was the family PC my father bought for us (and his start-up business). It was an Apple II+, and came with 16K of memory, and he upgraded it to 64K -- And purchased an add-in 64K module. The store clerk tried to talk him out of it, in that he felt there was no way we would ever use 128K. My father was using it Visi-Calc -- And ran out of memory within a month or two.

But that was several years after I was chosen to participate in a pilot program to learn BASIC on my school system's Digital PDP-11. That was my absolute first experience with computers.

This meant I could kill time at the mall's Radio Shack playing around on the first TRS-80 when it came in. It was helpful while my mother and sisters would shop.

My first owned computer was an Apple IIp, which I took to college. The school had just purchased a collection of 128K Macs (I believe it was from the first batch made), and when I started to learn PASCAL for engineering classes, they had bought a second batch with 512K -- There was always a fight between the enginnering and English students to use the newer PCs.

Ah... Those were the days. It's amazing when I look at my PocketPC, and realize that it has SO much more computing power than any of those old machines.

[Zac Leingang @ Aug 12th 2006 6:26PM]

my grandma worked at a college and there computer used punch cards..lol maybe u old timers can reminicen about that.. and the move from tubes to microprocessors....speaking of tubes you guys sound like senetor ted stevens...

[Jumpman @ Aug 12th 2006 6:28PM]

my fist computer was an abacis, beat that.

[bigboy @ Aug 12th 2006 6:30PM]

You young turks. The first computer I owned was an Apple ][ Plus ("II" wasn't k-kool enough), though I started noodling around on a Commodore PET 2001 with the calculator keyboard and built-in tape-drive. We also played games on the school district's minicomputer (needed a teletype with an acoustic phone coupler -- this one even had paper tape!)

[Nathan M @ Aug 12th 2006 7:02PM]

My first PC was a hand me down custom built of my dad's. It had a 199 MHz Pentium processor with 64 MB of EDO RAM and a 6 gigabyte HDD. Ahh, that brings back memories... memories of fighting with Windows 98 that is. xD

I find it funny, that computer was top-of-the-line for it's time. It's time was just 11 years ago. :P

[Bweetza @ Aug 12th 2006 7:04PM]

The first computer in our household when I was a kid was an Apple ][+. I learned a bit of programming on the Commodore PET with the cassette tape drive. From there it was learning basic on a Tandy-Radio Shack TRS-80, in which we called the Trash-80. At that point I bought an Osborne portable PC... if you want to call it that. I still have it and it works perfectly. Oh those sweet, sweet dual 5.25 floppies. Hah!

[anthony @ Aug 12th 2006 7:07PM]

I remember the "turbo" button, it was a great way to cheat.

[PodMonkeys @ Aug 12th 2006 7:09PM]

For the Rosy's comment that Macs, Atari, etc not being PCs... PC = Personal Computer. So therefore, everyone really has posted about their first PC. Of course, this is about IBM, so Rosy is the only one posting about their first IBM PC.

And me. My first IBM PC was an old 8088 IBM monster desktop, that I picked up in 1996 to add to my personal mini museum of old PC's.

Glad to see a few more TRS-80 users. My first ever PC was a TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo) I. It came with 4k, and was upgraded to 64k.

[Waylan B. @ Aug 12th 2006 7:11PM]

My first PC was a Packard Bell. I don't remember the model #, it was one of those long crazy ones...but I do remember that it had DOS, and we had all the 5.25 disks with games we could possibly store in the desk. Then we got even more excited when we got the local 'computer guy' to upgrade to a 10 gb hard drive and Windows 95, a new intel processor, etc. and we replaced the 5.25 with a 3.5 in. floppy, which the floppy never made sense to me since they were not floppy anymore...strange how times have changed...i was only 4 yrs old when we got that computer in 1994...now its 2006 and I finally have my hands on my new Dell Inspiron 6400/E1505 -- It rocks my face off!

[Sam Jackson @ Aug 12th 2006 7:22PM]

Wow this is awesome getting to see everyone who had the same experiences as I did. At 24 I thought I would be one of the younger readers and this would be filled with "Oh yeah? well we used punch cards", but I'm surprised to see so many people who entered post Pentium! My first computer was a C64. I laughed outloud when someone else reminded me of typing LOAD and hitting play on the tape drive that used Audio cassettes. Remember Jump Man Jr? That was the best. Then my first clone was a 386sx40. Anybody remember the joys of battling with conventional ram in order to get games to run?

Here's to MODs, Wolf3D, SPISPOD, Gravis Ultrasounds, BBS's, LoRD, Sierra Adventure games (the originals where you typed the commands), and not being the athletic kid on your block! Cheers!

... oh and the first time you got to see Quake run on the rich kids new Voodoo FX.

btw, what ever happened to the Duke Nukem 3D sequel?

[SteveZ @ Aug 12th 2006 7:31PM]

Well I'm not an old geezer yet
but i started out with an AcerAcros, equipped with the "award winning" Buttons OS..yeah..

sitting around in the basement somewhere with a proud "Pentium, Intel Inside" sticker and, ohmigod, a 4x CD-rom drive for blazing fast data access

[Simon @ Aug 12th 2006 7:46PM]

Wow, I'm a young whippersnapper by comparison to some of you people. My first PC was a noisy-as-hell 800Mhz AMD beast rocking Win95. I never could master Microsoft Golf 95, but I was a master at Hover. I remember the first day we got the internet - stringing wires across the house, whining 56k modems. Simple times, simple times...

[Bosco @ Aug 12th 2006 7:50PM]

Ironically enough, the only differences really is the speed and they turned the cases on their side.
Such progress !

[Colin @ Aug 12th 2006 7:53PM]

My first computer was a Mac (1993), more specifcally a Performa 638CD: 33Mhz 68LC040, 8MB of RAM (later upgraded to 20MB) and a massive 328MB HD...
MY first PC was a Dell Ispiron 7000 (1997) Lappy (although at 10Lbs it was rarely on my lap) yeah that thing rocked a Pentium 2 at 400Mhz, 128MB RAM (later upgraded to 256MB) and an even more massive 14GB HD...

[shirizaki @ Aug 12th 2006 7:54PM]

The first computer in my household was an Hp pavillion with a 133Mhz processor, 3 GB hard drive, and 16 MB RAM runnig Windows 95. I still remember that it had a 4x CDROM drive.

I was only 9 or 10, so my limit to the computer was built in games. Later we added a 10 Gb hard drive and some RAM.

It was also at this time I learned to hate the Best Buy computing department and AOL. I still have a healthy hatred of both.

I got a new computer after that one that (then) was maxed out. I'm still on it now, though I've upgraded it.

Next I plan on getting an iMac for my mom and having it dual boot, and for myself I'll get a pc laptop.

[Peter Thill @ Aug 12th 2006 8:00PM]

I bought an Ohio Scientific Superboard II with 4K of RAM. 8K of ROM with a BASIC version on it, and it used a cassette tape for storage and a TV for a monitor! Hey, in 1979, that was enough to make me a 733t hAxOr!

[OuyOfFocuz @ Aug 12th 2006 8:33PM]

The original Tandy 1000 8088 AT clone from Radio Shack. That bad boy ran at 4.77 MHz and had not just one but...count 'em...two state-of-the-art 5.25" floppy drives. When I got my parents to beef it up to 640k of memory, we elicited much admiration from the geek community.

10 Print "hello"
20 goto 10
you had to press to get the cursed thing to stop.

When the time came, I had the hardest time grasping what a "hard drive" was.

[Lee @ Aug 12th 2006 8:37PM]

My first pc I got 10 years ago, it was an Amstrad 2286 (the extra 2 was on the case) It had a 12mhz processor and 1mb ram plus a broken hardrive which only allowed me to use 34 of the available 40mb. Damn bad sectors.
It was good for running Grand Prix - just, used to get my mates over and we used to do the take your turn multiplayer action.
I remember it had Qdos on it instead of windows - although I did have windows 3.0 disks, but it wasn't worth installing. Had all the manuals for it and everything though.
Oh and another thing, it could play Wolfenstein 3D and Gorillas.

[Nanoborg @ Aug 12th 2006 8:45PM]

Well, back in 1946 we had this thing with a series of tubes...ok, I kid.

[Bruce @ Aug 12th 2006 8:46PM]

Aah, my first computer experience was an Atari ST 512, which was then upgraded to 1024 (You had to solder a load of fiddly little wires to do it).

No hard drive (Although upgrades were available), floppies only, but I loved using it.

[Lemmy K @ Aug 12th 2006 8:51PM]

Ah, the Tandy 1000... I had one of those smokers as well. Hard drive? Who needed it! I remember playing all those Infocom games - I never did finish Cutthroat Island :)

Remember DeskMate? What about that wacky lightpen (pre-mouse)?

For Christmas my dad bought me a whopping 128k memory upgrade (now I was pushing 256k - gobs of memory!). I remember the price tag on the memory upgrade - $99.95, and it was an expansion card.

My geek friends were jealous. Just me, solo flight and my RGB Tandy monitor. Those were the days.

[KidDooc @ Aug 12th 2006 8:52PM]

My dad's TRS-80 at work was where I learned my way around spreadsheets (doing his inventory in the summer) and word processing (for 1-page reports in 6th grade). My first PC was an Atari 800 hooked up to a 19" color TV, with memory expanded to 64K.