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Forums > Home› Ten Forward

My first Computer

otisnobleotisnoble Member Posts: 1,290 Arc User
edited May 2013 in Ten Forward
My first computer was a Pide Piper which ran on the CPM operating system because they said windows would never make it. It was portable, meaning that it had a handled to carry it like a suitcase. It had to be plugged into either a TV set or green screen monitor. No graphics. One built in 5.25 floppy and one plugin 5.25 floppy, no harddrive. Memory was a wapping 64K.

The only RPG games I could play were nongraphic type in the words games like Zork. You had to make a map on paper with every Go East, Go West, Pick up the stick, knock on the door. Sounds boring now but at the time it was great.

Today I look back fondly on those days as I play STO on my Alienware computer in my room at the Old Folks home.
Fleet Admiral Stephen
Post edited by otisnoble on
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Comments

  • johnstewardjohnsteward Member Posts: 1,073 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Mine was a C64 with the rest being equal like 64k "ram" and floppy disc and 16 colors..

    ;)

    Had graphical games on it but well .. fun times ;)
  • otisnobleotisnoble Member Posts: 1,290 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    johnsteward wrote: »
    Mine was a C64 with the rest being equal like 64k "ram" and floppy disc and 16 colors..

    ;)

    Had graphical games on it but well .. fun times ;)

    The C64 came out a few days after I bought mine.:rolleyes:
    Fleet Admiral Stephen
  • starsvoidstarsvoid Member Posts: 161 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Mine was a Superbrain, another CP/M machine. Any games I wanted to play, I had to code in, myself.


    My walking cane, however, has flames on it.
  • otisnobleotisnoble Member Posts: 1,290 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    starsvoid wrote: »
    Mine was a Superbrain, another CP/M machine. Any games I wanted to play, I had to code in, myself.


    My walking cane, however, has flames on it.

    My walker has a cup holder.
    Fleet Admiral Stephen
  • UnknownUnknown
    edited May 2013
    This content has been removed.
  • UnknownUnknown
    edited May 2013
    This content has been removed.
  • anazondaanazonda Member Posts: 8,399 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    My first computer was a Atari 2600.

    Later came the C 64, and then finally a 12 MhZ PC with a stunning 8 mb ram (I think it even had that "Turbo" button)
    Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
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  • crusty8maccrusty8mac Member Posts: 1,381 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    My first computer was a Kaypro 10. It was also a "portable", but it did have a screen, and the 10 stood for a 10 megabyte hard drive. The drive was hard sectored - I guess it was actually 10 different plates - at one meg a sector. It had 64k of RAM. It was a CP/M (is the slash in the right place?) machine, but I had a card installed so that it could run MSDOS 1.0 - which I never did. It also had a built in modem, and came with tons of software.

    When I went to look at personal computers, I took my cousin along who was an engineer at Bell Labs, and had the first personal computer of anyone I knew. It was a Tandy with a tape drive. We went to the IBM store which was selling their new PC. The salesman thought he knew what was best for me, and wouldn't show me the PC, but wanted to show me the "portable version". We left there and went to a locally owned place that was selling Kaypros. They ended up selling me the Kaypro and my next two computers.

    The Kaypro saved my bacon in graduate school. I still have it, and I keep threatening to get it down out of the attic, because I have a game on it I want to play.
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  • daveynydaveyny Member Posts: 8,227 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    The first 'Computer' I got to work with was a 'Main Frame' out of the NY State University at Albany...

    It was my Senior year in high school (1977).

    We had to color-in little dots on about 60 'Punch Cards' in order to be able to feed them into a 'Reader' that then took over-night to send back information to our Dot-Matrix printer in the class.

    It ended up being a picture of Snoopy doing his happy dance.


    The first 'computer-like' device I had at home, was an ATARI and the only game I had was PONG.
    (played that thing for hours)

    I too then got a COMMODORE-64.

    The first actual PC I got, was a Packard 'Hell' with a .75Mb hard-drive, phone modem and a 13" Monitor.

    That was in 1995 while I was working part-time at Montgomery Wards.

    It was a return I picked up for $200 bucks. (originally listed at $1999.99)
    (we had a great employee discount back then)

    It was with this machine that I first discovered the Internet and the AOL Chat rooms.
    (thus my DaveyNY, No-Numbers title)

    I think, if I remember correctly, I've had five other PC's since then.

    :cool:
    STO Member since February 2009.
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  • hevachhevach Member Posts: 2,777 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Compaq SLT/286, here. 35 pounds, dual 3.5" drives, detachable keyboard, radioactive exploding batteries, LCD response time you could measure with a stop watch, uncooled aluminum frame that could keep coffee hot if you took part of the plastic off. Now that was a laptop.
  • UnknownUnknown
    edited May 2013
    This content has been removed.
  • hevachhevach Member Posts: 2,777 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    64 mb of memory in 1983? How many millions did that set you back?
  • otisnobleotisnoble Member Posts: 1,290 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    daveyny wrote: »
    The first 'Computer' I got to work with was a 'Main Frame' out of the NY State University at Albany...

    It was my Senior year in high school (1977).

    We had to color-in little dots on about 60 'Punch Cards' in order to be able to feed them into a 'Reader' that then took over-night to send back information to our printer in the class.

    It ended up being a picture of Snoopy doing his happy dance.


    The first 'computer-like' device I had at home, was an ATARI and the only game I had was PONG.
    (played that thing for hours)

    I too then got a COMMODORE-64.

    The first actual PC I got, was a Packard 'Hell' with a .75Mb hard-drive and a 13" Monitor.

    That was in 1995 while I was working part-time at Montgomery Wards.

    It was a return I picked up for $200 bucks. (originally listed at $1999.99)
    (we had a great employee discount back then)

    I think, if I remember correctly, I've had five other PC's since then.

    :cool:

    I did the mainframe thing in College in 73. No monitor just a dot matrix printer that would spit out the questions you needed to answer and then your answer and if you got the question right, then it would spit out a punch card that you gave to the professor. Also the keyboard had round keys.
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  • tacofangstacofangs Member Posts: 2,951 Cryptic Developer
    edited May 2013
    386 DX 40
    80 MB Hard Drive
    2 MB RAM
    5.25" + 3.5" Floppies
    VGA card

    From Make-A-Wish in 1992.
    Came with DOS 5.0, Windows 3.1, KidPix, BattleChess and probably a few other things installed.
    Didn't take long before we were passing 3.5"'s around school. Wolfenstein, Syndicate, Commander Keen, etc.
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  • daveynydaveyny Member Posts: 8,227 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    God.. some of us are OLD...
    <chuckle>
    STO Member since February 2009.
    I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
    Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
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  • otisnobleotisnoble Member Posts: 1,290 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    daveyny wrote: »
    God.. some of us are OLD...
    <chuckle>

    Yeah, I tried to upgrade my brain but they don't make the parts anymore.
    Fleet Admiral Stephen
  • txn8vtxn8v Member Posts: 30 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Mine was a TI-90 with a cassette drive that you could code games in BASIC. Took me 2 weeks to program a Donkey Kong-like game that had a Yeti rolling snowballs at you.

    Then I graduated to a Xerox 860 with a 10 inch (yes, TEN inch) floppy drive.

    No cane, no walker...yet!
    "You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with until you understand who's in ruttin charge around here." - Jane Cobb
  • sussexgentsussexgent Member Posts: 14 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    A Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K. Had a journalist type cassette recorder to load games off of tape, hooked up to a black and white, dial tuning TV.
  • daveynydaveyny Member Posts: 8,227 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    otisnoble wrote: »
    Yeah, I tried to upgrade my brain but they don't make the parts anymore.

    You obviously didn't contact the correct seller...

    See Here

    ;)
    STO Member since February 2009.
    I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
    Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
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  • daveynydaveyny Member Posts: 8,227 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    otisnoble wrote: »
    Yeah, I tried to upgrade my brain but they don't make the parts anymore.

    You obviously didn't contact the correct seller...

    See Here

    (to bad Best Buy is probably going out of business)

    ;)
    STO Member since February 2009.
    I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
    Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
    upside-down-banana-smiley-emoticon.gif
  • otisnobleotisnoble Member Posts: 1,290 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    daveyny wrote: »
    You obviously didn't contact the correct seller...

    See Here

    ;)

    Actually I know the manufacturer personally but there is no money back guarantee as Adam and Eve voided the warrantee
    Fleet Admiral Stephen
  • dcblackmandcblackman Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Triumph Adler PPC

    8086 CPU
    128 KB RAM
    NO HDD
    2x 5,25" Diskdrive
    CGA Graphics

    TA-DOS 2.6

    Made 1983. I got it Second hand in 1991 for 50 DM.
    It is still fully Operational
  • daemonhelddaemonheld Member Posts: 286 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    What, none of you ever had the AWESOME Coleco ADAM!? I'm just... SHOCKED! LOL

    My mother bought it for my brother and I, in '83. I was 11 at the time, and to us it was "the best thing since sliced bread" ... We'd sit and enter "code" for hours.. data input found in books and magazines at the time.

    <sigh>

    Scary...


    Jolan'tru!
  • kitsune424kitsune424 Member Posts: 232 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    otisnoble wrote: »
    The only RPG games I could play were nongraphic type in the words games like Zork. You had to make a map on paper with every Go East, Go West, Pick up the stick, knock on the door. Sounds boring now but at the time it was great.

    my first computer was a windows 98 model, I don't remember the exact model but I know that type of game and they are not boring at least not to me. I'm only 23 and I never knew about the green screen PCs but I almost wish I did they sound, while low-tech, fun with those games
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  • mongooseformmongooseform Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Wow, there ARE some old ones here. As for me, the first one my family owned my mom brought home from work when her office upgraded in the early 90's. Can't remember all the details but it was something like:

    IBM 486 processor
    1.25 GB hard drive i think
    maybe 32 or even 64 MB ram
    DOS 6.1 and Win 3.1

    Not as old as a lot of you obviously, but it had the unique distinction of being my gaming rig for the Star Trek: 25th Anniversary game, which installed from TWELVE 3.5" floppy disks :D
  • otisnobleotisnoble Member Posts: 1,290 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    kitsune424 wrote: »
    my first computer was a windows 98 model, I don't remember the exact model but I know that type of game and they are not boring at least not to me. I'm only 23 and I never knew about the green screen PCs but I almost wish I did they sound, while low-tech, fun with those games

    What I like about Zork was that they left everything up to your imagination since I couldn't see what the world looked like except in my mind and on paper. The mind's eyes see better than anything cobbled together by men.
    Fleet Admiral Stephen
  • nanomorphnanomorph Member Posts: 203 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    IBM 5150 PC from a TRW surplus sale. Had a 10MB hard drive in place of the second DS-DD floppy drive. Monochrome green screen. Ran PC-DOS 3.1, took about five minutes to boot, only useful application I had on it was WordStar, which got me through middle school.
  • lostusthornlostusthorn Member Posts: 844
    edited May 2013
    Hrmm, started with a C64 back in the stone age, then came a Amiga 3000.
    Which was followed a few years later by a SparcStation2 and 10.
    Which hold me out for a few more years. Then a Sun Blade 1000 and a SGI Octance.
    Also got a Sun Enterprise 4000 with 8 cpus and a A5100 Fibrechannel array.
    These days mostly x86 machines for playing sto and running Solaris x86.
  • sacerd75sacerd75 Member Posts: 30 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Mine was this Atari job. I don't remember exactly what it was called but it did not have floppy disks, the programs ran off of cassette tapes.


    I think I found the thing on the fancy interwebs. I think it was the Atari 410. It was a long time ago but it looks familiar.
  • tymerstotymersto Member Posts: 433 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Like several others, my 'first' was a C64. Worked well enough. I've migrated through six or seven machines of my own over the years. I've delt with nearly all versions of Windows and latter stages of DOS.

    And personally, I don't believe I could stand a Rocking Chair. A nice, comfy office chair will do just nicely though...

    Thank you for the time...
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