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Vic20 with 3.5k mem, tape drive and TV for monitor. Upgraded it to accept 32k mem. Commodore thought I was crazy.
Then a C128 (had 3 operating systems C64, C128 and ?)
Then a XT with 640 mem and 10meg hd (you will never be able to fill the hd with programs and data)
Then 486 with 2 hds totaklling 20mb
Then P1 166 MMX
Then PIII with .................
Makes you thingk what we were stuck with. But they worked!
leonvdm, that Vic20 must have been a real rubber-burner in it's day, kinda like a porsche 911 in a volkswagen...
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If you want to email me, or anyone, about a problem, please include a description of your system and a reference to VrDr / your post. Thanks. _Junker :>)
Probably CP/M. The C64 and C128 could run CP/M programs, however, you did need a boot disk of sorts to do that.Quote:
Originally posted by leonvdm:
Then a C128 (had 3 operating systems C64, C128 and ?)
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Am386DX-40 + Cx387DX-40
32MB, 128KB cache
(2) 540MB HD's
8x CD
2MB Video
SB16 PnP
DR-DOS 7.04
Win3.11 w/ Win32s
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Just because it's unusual doesn't make it a virus!
Ping is NOT an acronym!
Sometime in the late '70s I tried a TIMEX/SINCLAIR, but drank too much beer to make a go of it.
About 1985, I got a C-128 Commodore. That was fun, if a bit complicated to learn, all the manuals assumed that you knew everything.
Then about 1988 bought a 286! Mostly because my sister kept making fun of my Commodore.
Since then I have had several computers.
Catman https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
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My doctor tell's me that if I'm not hungry, then I'm not staying on my diet!
TI99/4a had programs, word processing etc. on ROM cartridges, casette tape backup, enormous floppies with tiny storage capacity, Epson Dot Matrix printer. Learned early on save and save often and to multiple media https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
What is a TI99/4a? visit http://www.netten.net/~garycox/ti99.htm
since then I have been busy building PCs for myself, friends, family etc. including this one
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Smile..... from here on out life only gets shorter
A lot depends on your definition of a PC. Around 1977 I was using a Datapoint Ventek terminal which had limited stand-alone capability. It stored programs on cassette tape and I think had a RAM of 16K. The programming language was Databus, not very advanced fro machine code. It took about 50 minutes to change a single byte of code as the cassette tapes wound back and forth. I recall that these machines cost my employers around £16,000 each in those days. They were really terminals connnected to a mainframe but had limited off-line capability. The one I used printed out address labels.
In 1980 I acquired an Intertec Superbrain. This had 64K RAM, and 2 x 5.25in floppy disk drives of 360K each. Operating system was CP/M and programming language MBASIC, but main use was word processing using Wordstar.
In 1986 I upgraded to an Olivetti M24 - a PC clone O/S MSDOS with 640K RAM and with a RGB colour monitor. This served until 1993 when I bought a Dell with 1MB RAM, O/S Windows 3.1.
Computers have made fantstic progress over the last 25 years. I remeber attending acourse in 1965 when a guy from IBM explained that one day computers would be reduced to the size of a suit case. He lugged a suitacse across the platform to make his point. No-one really believed this prediction! Soon after that time I was using an IBM 370 which was a massive mainframe - it had about 1% of the power of a modern PC.
My very first computer (not my own of course) was in 1960 - an English Electric KDF9. It was about the most powerful thing around at the time, and had 4K of RAM. It was attended by chaps in white coats andc broke down a great deal, and had to be kept at a temperature of 70.5 degrees F and a hunidity of 34 or something or it could not function. Before that I had heard a lot about(but not encountered) LEO, which was Lyons' Electronic Office. I don't suppose many remember J.Lyons these days - they were acquired by Allied Breweries around 1970.
I am 64 so I guess I am one of the older people around here.
386sx 16 mhz. MS DOS 4.0, Dosshell WOW!
8MB RAM, 5.25 and 1.44 (720k) floppies plus an 80MB hard disk (more space than I'll ever need....)
About $4,500 -- if memory serves
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I want a big American Automobile with tail fins.
Atari 800XL from Toys R Us for $99.99. I hooked it up to a T.V. That's where I learned about saving files every so often as I was typing this program and after about four hours there was a little power cut off from the local utilty. There was an Atari club that had 1500 members at one time that I belonged to.
First was: Commodore 64 with the large 5-1/4 floppy drive which a friend won on a radio station, which I then bought off of him(Don't remember the amount, but it was not much, in fact I still have it in the closet, however the monitor cable was chewed thru by my moms cat and I could never find another one at the time so that's why I quit using it, along with the fact that I got a Nintendo system 1st generation), Cheap monitor that had audio/video RCA jacks that my father bought me from Sears.
Second: My first "real" Computer If you don't count Sega and the Sega CD(which are not really computers anyway) was a Sony Vaio Pentium 1 (I think)200MMX Tower (sorry don't remember model number), which is still going strong I might add at my brother-in-laws house (used for the kids mainly) with a Sony 15 inch Vaio Monitor. I got into changing sound cards, video cards,hard drives and sound card with this computer. mainly adding a bigger hard drive and Voodoo Graphics card, the one with the pass thru cable.
Third: The one I have now which is a
Sony Vaio PCV-R539DS
Pentium III
550MHZ
256Mb ram
CD/DVD Rom
CD/RW
17 gig hard drive (Internal)
Added a 10 gig hard drive also internal
External Fire wire 80 gig hard drive
ATI Radeon 64 MB DDR VIVO Video Card
56K Modem
I added the extra ram, external and internal hard drive (the extra one I added from my old 200mmx) and upgraded the graphics card to what is above. Latest thing I have added was a 56K V92 best data modem, because for some reason the modems in the Sony's suck (at least in the ones I have had)
My next one? Well I'm hoping for this, but since we didn't get a bonus from work this year (thanks to Mr. Bin Laden!) I will have to save a little will be:
PCV-RX600N
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.20 GHz1
nVidia TNT2 M64 AGP Graphics Card w/ 32 MB SDRAM
256 MB PC-2100 DDR
CD-RW Drive: 16X/10X/40X max.; DVD-ROM Drive: 16X max.
60 GB2 UltraATA/100 Hard Drive
V.90 Modem
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
Of Course I will upgrade the video to the Radeon 8500 128MB Video card and up the memory to 1 gig, and then use my 80 gig Firewire drive and probably the modem I just got depending on how well the on in the system works (hopfully they got better by now?)
[This message has been edited by Rohrad (edited 04-18-2002).]
Radio Shack's Model I with a whopping 4K of memory.
A cassette recorder was used to load the programs.
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W6OHI
Commodore 64.
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File it under X for X-perience.
My first pc was a P133 with 16MB RAM and a 1.8gb hard drive with win 95 - well it still is all of the above but had a massive upgrade to 32MB RAM and an exchange of graphics card to a 4MB one and installation of Win 98. This pc is still working well - even with my daughters trying their utmost to kill it!
The pc's I am using at the moment are not much better - Both are PIII one at 450mhz 128MB RAM with a piggy back voodoo 2 graphics card bring it up to 20MB Video memory (the gaming machine). This one only has a 4gb hard drive.
The other is a 600mhz 95MB RAM basic video card and a 10gb hard drive (my work horse).
I am still dreaming of owning an up to date speedy computer - but it's a full time job keeping these three running at a reasonable standard!
VP
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/im.../2002/03/1.gif
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When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!
I started out with an IBM compatible 80-88 with DOS, although I was too young to really check the version. Great computer ::chuckle:: It may have taken forever to boot, but it never locked up :-) We upgraded to windows 3.1 at some point. on a side note, I found a version of windows 1 on the net the other day. I think I'm going to install on a p4 here in the office <grin>
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- yes, fdisk is a valid form of virus removal
- I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol
[This message has been edited by eshows (edited 04-19-2002).]
unlucky enuff to have started playing with a mainframe (amdhal (ibm mainframe clone) if i recall) but the first PC was what I could fix (epson? perhaps ibm? I think?) before that it was kinda an Apple (2e'ish) world. Was much happier to see SUN show up. (miss the motorola and flat mem - never really a SPARC thinker https://discussions.virtualdr.com/ )
BTW - the term PC has ibm origins https://discussions.virtualdr.com/
[This message has been edited by IMM (edited 04-19-2002).]
I worked on other people's computers long before I finally got my own Personal Computer. Like others my age, there's a history dating back to the slide ruler. Then came simple desktop models in high school. College is where I saw mainframes using timesharing and punch cards for the first time. Computers 101 started me on many successive years using computers in applications. I remember as I was preparing to leave grad school, some of the computer geeks would gather in one of the back rooms in the basement of the Math Center, oggling those new fangled PC-things. Shortly after that, I used a Macintosh for the first time while still at school.
When I left, each job I had came with it's own PC. But I still didn't have one at home. It wasn't actually until about 1997 that I got my first PC! I already knew a lot about programming and software, but hardware was a mystery.
My first PC was a Dell 433 running at 40MHz with 28MB RAM. It forced to learn about hardware in order to keep it running. Then it was stolen. I replaced it with a PCChips M599LMR. (I bought it without knowing it was PCChips -- in fact, I told the guy I didn't want one!) It really doesn't handle everything I do, but it's light years ahead of the Dell.
Now I have about 20 computers that I've collected while learning about hardware. I've built a number of 486 and slower Pentium models from scratch. Most recent project: 50-page document on basic principles of classic video card operation (yes, that's right, it's finally done!).
Sooner or later, I'll be putting together my own 'dream PC'.