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I started out on a Commodore 64 and later became king of the block when I unveiled a Commodore 128. Long afterwards my Compaq 5360 became lord of the manor. It has been a great computer and I look forward to many more nights of running the Commodore Emulator.
My first computer was an Atari 400 for about $500. The next victum was a Comadore 64 for $300. Inm 1995 i boughta 486 with 8 megs of ram and .164 meg hard drive followed by a Pentium 200 MMX with 2.6 HDD and 64 megs of ram. I now have a Pentium II 350 mgz with 128 megs of ram which i built from parts from a generous cousin. My only problem now other than a needed upgrade is my 2.6 HDD. It has no room.
Well, its been great reading about all these contraptions we started out with. I think Ucklak and Herring take the awards for the least capable first computers, and we also heard some good stories from the likes of Lance1 and PhilipM.
Its been something to see those hard disk drive's we started out with - I started with 40Mb, but some of you didn't have one at all - just a tape recorder or twin floppies. I've now got 375 times more drive space than I started with. I'll kick this topic off again in 2009 - by then I should have over 5 terrabytes!
SatGig
My first computer was a Toshiba Satellite lappy with a Intel 486 CPU, 8 MB RAM, a 512 MB HD and Win95.
My first desktop was a Compaq Presario 2200, 180 MHz MediaGX CPU, 16 MB RAM, 1.6 GB HD and Win95 B.
Then I bought a Creative Labs Blaster PC from TigerDirect and added an 800 MHz Celeron and 128 MB SDRAM, a 30 GB HD and 32 MB Herculese Prophet AGP card and Win98 SE.
Then I decided I wanted more power so I built this thing I'm using now with 1.4 GHz Tbird CPU, 256 MB Crucial DDR, ATI Radeon 64 MB AGP DDR video card and Win98 SE.
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The Velociraptor
Well folks not counting calculators(several) I started in true computers with an IBM sub-mini notebook (p-100 I think?) 70 mb hdd (wow) can't remember the memory but it wasn't expandable(probably 12 mb and the LCD was black and white, although color was sent out if you connected a color svga monitor. Then a got a used Dell desktop 386 W ith 500 mb hdd, 32meg memory and boy was it fast?, maybe 50mhz? But with win 3.1x it was fast enough. After that got the wife an e-machine 400-I tower, Celeron 400mhz and 4.5 gig hdd with 160 meg memory good machine, but not my cup at the time as I was traveling and got another laptop pc clone and AMS travelpro (now out of business) with a pentium IIMMX (not laptop but regular desktop cpu - powerful but hell on batteries) It was 100 mhz and 2 gig hdd. Did fine untill I attempted to flash the bios (eventually found someone that could replace the bios chip) but in the interim I got the present IBM Thinkpad i-series w/433mhz Celeron and 4.6 gig hdd, external pcmcia 10 gig hdd and 160+mb memory, and usb cd burner. Good machine but not as robust as the TravelPro. Fast enough for me w/98SE, and more powerful than anything else I have. By the way all machines are still functioning and in use by relatives today - even the sib-mini note book B&W- though it is badly in need of a new case as the hinges for the lcd have gone away as has some of the other plastic based pieces - oh well no complaints here.
I truely believe I have more than got my monies worth out of the puters I have had.
I am one that does not have to have the biggest, baddest, fastest, most virsitile puter. It just has to do what I need it to do.
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Brian
Always something to learn.
Knowledge is power, and knowledge is where you get it
hey, what about the Macintrash SE series. portable, and had 2 floppy disk drives. it had no hard drive so its "disk space" was limited to the size of your 3.5 floppies (about 700k). if you lost the boot disks, then you were screwed. it also came with an earpiercingly loud dotmatrix printer.
hey, what about the Macintrash SE series. portable, and had 2 floppy disk drives. it had no hard drive so its "disk space" was limited to the size of your 3.5 floppies (about 700k). if you lost the boot disks, then you were screwed. it also came with an earpiercingly loud dotmatrix printer.
Made punchcard programs on an IBM mainframe first in the 80's at tech school and got interested. Soon bought a C64 and later Amigas. Ditched my A2000 in '94 and got my first PC: 486DX2 80 MHz. Now running a small herd of machines at home.
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Karl, Denmark
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"..and may The Force be with you - too..."
1.abacus
2.Fingers
3.Slide rule
4.Calculator
5.Atari 800
6.Zeneth Z48
7.Micron 386SX 16Mhx 4MB Ram (WOW -that was fast)
Then started building my own:
8.486SX 66Mhz 8MB Ram (Wow -that was even faster)
9.Then went to 32MB RAM -Super fast
10.Cyriz 233Mhz
11. Cyriz 263, then 300 then 333Mhz
12. AMD 400Mhz, then 450
13. Current AMD 500Mhz, 256MB Ram and all that other stuff, .......
Used DOS 3,4,5,6,6.2 Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95 and 98 have 2000 sitting here have not installed yet....Use NT at work...
Whew came a long way in too many years....
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Murf
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Note:"Murf's Garage" under Major Renovation.
First was an Apple IIe in late 1983. Served well until 1998 when I decided to invest in a IBM clone. I've since graduated to a generic, locally built. I don't know much more now than I did in 1983, sorry to say.
one of those early compaq 8088 "portables" with a handle yeah right made it portable it weighed a ton.. with a 8x6 screen, dual 5.25 floppies, no hd. dos 1.0 or something er other. really bad, just like the new ones it hung quite often.
https://discussions.virtualdr.com/ mach
that's as far as I got!Quote:
Originally posted by Murf:
1.abacus
2.Fingers
3.Slide rule
4.Calculator
<pc I use is a loaner https://discussions.virtualdr.com/>
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^dAvEy^
Commododre 64 where I played all my Dungeon and Dragon games.
My first was a XT with 640 mg memory and use to love the local BBS boards. That first machine was probably my favorite. I graduated to a clone 286 then Dell 486. Now I'm playing with new Gateway IV with 2 gig memory and 120 HD. And in all the years don't know if I've progressed or regressed.
it was a handheld RS TRS-80, one line lcd screen with 1.4 kb, it fitted into a small printer which used adding machine rolls