View Full Version : OT: What was your first computer?
Martijn
11-05-2006, 02:01 PM
Mine: 486 @ 50 Mhz, 32 Megs of ram, 4MB 3D accelerator (still don't know what model, damnit)... 500MB HD... A killer in it's days :D
Ran Windows 95 and was used for gaming and school work. I also used dad's 286 lappy sometimes, to play Tetris (in colour!!! :toast:).
What was your first computer? :D
EDIT: I first started crunching with my dad... He had a huge farm of 100 pc's at work, he was running Grid.org (almost the same project as WCG now, I believe it still exists today). My first cruncher was a P2 350 @ 420... And OMG, it was soooooo fast :rofl:
Fr3ak
11-05-2006, 02:08 PM
Commodore C64 for me.
[XC] Malkec
11-05-2006, 02:10 PM
My first computer was the commodore 64 :D I still remember those funny huge diskette's :eek: I remember my brother having pr0n games on them :stick: :D
C16 as a gift from my dad. He gave it to me after i started playing around with the laptop from his office. ( laptop was an old 286 b/w laptop - 10 mb harddrive )
korby
11-05-2006, 02:15 PM
P1 75MHz and 16 MB RAM. In 1999 or 2000. :rocker: :rocker: :rocker:
Martijn
11-05-2006, 02:17 PM
My first computer was the commodore 64 :D I still remember those funny huge diskette's :eek: I remember my brother having pr0n games on them :stick: :D
I love 5.25" diskette's, I still have many of them :D
[XC] serlv
11-05-2006, 02:18 PM
486/66, for about a week. By then I figured it was not upgradeable enough so I did a little research and had a P2/350 built at a local shop. It had 128 MB of RAM, a Matrox 8MB VC and 6.4GB and I got an Optiquest 19" CRT with it. It had 95 on it, but I was assured of 98SE when I purchased it. Went back a month later and picked up my full version of 98SE.
That was the last computer I bought, whole.
echo.Gruni
11-05-2006, 02:19 PM
My first computer was an Atari 1040STe in 1996 ;)
My first PC was a Celeron 500 in 2001.
[XC] Teroedni
11-05-2006, 02:44 PM
My first computer were an A 500 with a Motorola 68000 7,14 mhz with 512kb Ram:D
My first x86 computer were an Amd Duron 800 mhz with a crappy Asus km133 motherboard :P
-Acid-
11-05-2006, 02:56 PM
286 enough said lol
it was also my first Oc rig with the 11hz crystal soldered out and replaced with a 22hz one for 100% oc :woot:
camouflage
11-05-2006, 02:57 PM
:confused: My first PC........? Sure my wife.
Once swiched on she does everything I want.........:p:
:toast:
Movieman
11-05-2006, 03:00 PM
First "real" one?
March 1997
Gateway P1-200..32mb ram,3.2 gig HD, optional 4mb STB/Virge Vid.
Last one I bought.
now first computer:Texas Instruments model whatever. 16K/16 bit..:D
RickH
11-05-2006, 03:04 PM
:rolleyes:
TRS-80 in 1978, with 16KB of RAM. Wrote a "glass teletype" program in Z80 assembler (stored on cassette tape) so I could connect to CompuServe through an acoustic coupler modem at 300 baud.
Now I'm typing this on a 3.5 GHz C2D with 2GB RAM and ~1TB disk, connected to the world-wide internet via Verizon fiber-optics at 15/2 Mbps.
Ain't no such thing as the good ol' days when it comes to computers. :)
[XC] MarioMaster
11-05-2006, 03:05 PM
16 mhz dell, i think it had 4mb of ram, 40mb hard drive, and a 5" floppy drive, man i used to have a lot of fun on that pc playing pixelated games that came on the huge floppies, you would move to another room in the game and it would pause, then the floppy drive would buzz and chunk for about 10 seconds before the next room would appear :)
WesM63
11-05-2006, 03:18 PM
Man i feel so.. new compared to you guys. My first PC or Computer was a HP PII 400mhz with 96mb ram and a 13gb Quantam Bigfoot in 1998 IIRC.
Built my first in 1999, AMD Duron 850mhz, 256mb PC-133, 20gb WD. Then i found out about overclocking within days, had that sucker at 1150mhz on a TT Volcano 7+.
Its been downhill ever since.
sierra_bound
11-05-2006, 03:18 PM
I've done workstation computing from the 1970's onward. I remember the systems back then were not very reliable. Everyone at work kept a typewriter under their desk, in case the server crashed. I didn't buy a PC until the 90's because I didn't really see a need for one at home. The internet changed my thinking.:) My first home computer was a Gateway Pentium II system. Pieces of that computer are sitting around somewhere in the house.
Frisch
11-05-2006, 03:18 PM
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/5865/ggggzk0.jpg
[XC] serlv
11-05-2006, 03:29 PM
LOL, the one thread in this forum of posts that goes OT so quickly is actually labelled "OT" and yet in 16 posts has stayed totally on topic.
Go figure. :)
Frisch
11-05-2006, 03:34 PM
LOL, the one thread in this forum of posts that goes OT so quickly is actually labelled "OT" and yet in 16 posts has stayed totally on topic.
Go figure. :)
You went OFF...and now me too :D
[XC] serlv
11-05-2006, 03:38 PM
You went OFF...and now me too :D
LOL, yeah I was thinking that as I was typing that post. Ah well, somebody had to do it. Our duty as XS~DC forum members...
[XC] riptide
11-05-2006, 03:39 PM
1996/7. Got a Packard Bell 486 DX 75Mhz. 8 meg of ram, 500MB hardrive, 2x CDROM, a big soundblaster sound card. Ran Win95 originally, and still runs Win98SE pretty ok now. For the honour of owning it I paid over IR£1,100 (before the Euro currency.) Without inflation that equates to €1400. Methinks I got ripped off. 'Compustore' bastages. :mad:
I learned an awful lot on that PC. It pretty much helped to make me the little whizz I am now. :rofl:
Frisch
11-05-2006, 03:42 PM
LOL, yeah I was thinking that as I was typing that post. Ah well, somebody had to do it. Our duty as XS~DC forum members...
You're right, it's hard work, and we must maintain a certain standard here at XS.
People should give you credit for doing it. :D
STEvil
11-05-2006, 03:44 PM
P1 233mmx when they had only been out around a month or so. 32mb ram to start but had that up to 64 then 128 within another couple months. Finally topped out at 196mb ram later on when I went from EDO to SDRAM (Same mobo - Aopen AP5T-3.1).
Had a ~4mb ATI PCI video card of some type. It barely played Monster Truck Madness 2 in 3D mode.
I overclocked it within 5 months of us first buying it :D.. to 250mhz :D. Got a Diamond Monster Fusion MX300 (3dfx PCI Voodoo Banshee) for xmas that year and pushed it to 166mhz according to the overclocking tool... still dunno if I believe it, but it was faster than at stock (110mhz?) anyways.
The banshee died later when I tried to remove the heatsink I put on it. The PC is still running today, still running Win95 OSR2 that was re-installed sometimes around 1997 or 8. Mom uses it for her office work.
EDIT
HDD was a Wester Digital Caviar 4GB @ 3800rpm or something. Still running today, but its been making a high pitched whine/grind nearly since we bought the PC. You can hear it from 2 rooms over.
Fr3ak
11-05-2006, 03:53 PM
I still remember when I bought the 3DFX Voodoo1 for my P133, 40Mb ram.
It was a tough decision, but I went for it.
It wasnt easy to decide, because there was only 1 game and a handful demos out that supported 3D acceleration.
Its a laugh compared to today lol :)
[XC] riptide
11-05-2006, 04:21 PM
And do you know what the scary thing is..... in another 10 years or so we'll be saying.... "baaaah.. do you remember those schiddy conroes and kentfields.. or whatever they were called... and those schit slow X1900's. Crossfire? What were we thinking? ha ha"
EDIT: OT, Martijn... were you given that PC on the 1st birthday? :rofl:
nn_step
11-05-2006, 04:26 PM
this old beast
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/nn_step2/crap/P1010395.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/nn_step2/crap/P1010394.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v643/nn_step2/crap/P1010397.jpg
that used the 8080 processor that died by overclocking
[XC] mysticmerlin
11-05-2006, 04:33 PM
My first was a Mac clone Adam w/ cass tape drive. Buck Rodgers and the planet of Zoom baby yeah!!
NickS
11-05-2006, 04:35 PM
First "real" one?
March 1997
Gateway P1-200..32mb ram,3.2 gig HD, optional 4mb STB/Virge Vid.
Last one I bought.
now first computer:Texas Instruments model whatever. 16K/16 bit..:D
Heh, ours was in Fall of '96. Those were the good years.
Packard Bell legend. P1-100MHz (still have the CPU), 16MB RAM & 1GB HDD. 1MB Integrated GFX too.
itznfb
11-05-2006, 04:48 PM
my first was an apple IIe from 1987. w00t! i got it in 88, i was 6 :) i still remember playing jester jumble, or whatever it was called.
mnewxcv
11-05-2006, 05:23 PM
233 p1 w/ mmx tech.
32mb edo
6gig hdd
win 95
WesM63
11-05-2006, 05:50 PM
Story time:
A ex-co-worker of mine and i where talking a few weeks back. Talking about old school hardware. He said his dad had a 486 33mhz (or something or other) and when Doom came out, his buddy and him would play "MoDoom" aka his buddy would dial into his computer and they would play against each other. I got a kick out of it. That was before the Internet.
I never had a computer till the PII 400mhz but i remember playing Castle Wolfenstein at my friends house on his dads souped up dell running DOS.
my first computer was a ZX-80 . (or was it ZX-81) Anyone remember these ?
It had a whopping 1Kb main memory:D later on expanded to 16Kb :toast:
[XC] moddolicous
11-05-2006, 06:37 PM
I actually don’t remember the first our family had. I remember using an old Performa 6360 for my early child-hood, but the first I got in my room was a P1 when I was ~10 for homework.
Bloody_Sorcerer
11-05-2006, 06:51 PM
My family's first computer was some old thing in the 10-30 mhz range... i was very young and know precious little about it. our second (at least in my lifetime... my dad worked with some pretty hot hardware back in the 80s, running AI apps) was a P2-300 upgraded to 192megs of ram with an 8 gig HDD thats currently living out its life happily as my smoothwall router.
My first box of my own was in 2001, when i got a dell dimension 4300 with a P4 1.7. I ran SETI@Home because i was unaware of other DC projects and loved it... at some later time i upgraded my graphics card for free from a Geforce 2 MX400 to a 9600 and discovered overclocking with it. Then she ran F@H for forums.amd.com for some time, then i built my last rig, which ran D2OL for us, then F@H, then rosey, then QMC, then SoB, then WCG, then F@H (i think in that order :D). Then my current box, which has been running F@H since birth :)
[XC] hipno650
11-05-2006, 08:11 PM
my first rig that i can remember is my 1.3 celeron with 384mb ram 60GB maxtor and ati all in wonder radeon 7200 32mb (my dad built it!) and it runs wcg to this day with more ram and different vid card and 160GB HDD.
gearhead364
11-05-2006, 08:27 PM
I really cannot remember my first rig, all I remember is that I was able to play Inspector Gadget using one of those 5 1/2" floppy's. I did not really mess around with PC's much until I got my 486 with who knows what.
L0$t Pr0PhEt
11-05-2006, 11:39 PM
my first was a 486 that ran windows 95, slow as hell :p
Martijn
11-05-2006, 11:44 PM
And do you know what the scary thing is..... in another 10 years or so we'll be saying.... "baaaah.. do you remember those schiddy conroes and kentfields.. or whatever they were called... and those schit slow X1900's. Crossfire? What were we thinking? ha ha"
EDIT: OT, Martijn... were you given that PC on the 1st birthday? :rofl:
Nope, on my 8th, but I did grew up with them, though... It just didn't interest me, until ~6 years ago :)
[XC]thewildblue
11-06-2006, 02:08 AM
First computer was a spectrum 48k with rubber keys. After that an amiga 500 with 512kb upgrade.
First PC was a 386 of some sort but as my Dad ran a small computer shop (where I worked after leaving school @ 17) it changed every week depending on what got sold. Needless to say I always had the latest and greatest as soon it come out, saw loadsa socket changes, had fun ocing from 386 upwards (crystals) 486 with changing from 25-33mhz, pentiums with 50-60-66 and so on. Would always have loadsa ram in the boxes as well which was nice, I can remember having more ram than windows 3.11 would see, same with 95 as well.
This slowed down around the time of the PII350 as then we packed the business in as there were too many competitors.
My first one was huge: The university Main Frame!!!!!! Punched cards that had to be carried to the computing center. Ah the fun of a Lake Michigan cooled air blast while carrying 6 cases of punched cards.
My first personal: a no name clone where I ran WP for Dos.
Then in the late 90's a HP whose sole claim to glory was that all cables came color coded (a gift from my brother).
Then 2 dells which i basically burned one after the other ...no overclocking involved... i fritzed the surge protector which in turn burned them'
Then came Sloth
and now Diablo. So you can say my first real PC has been Diablo :)
Fr3ak
11-06-2006, 02:33 AM
The first PC I bought myself was a Pentium 3 500Mhz with 256MB Ram on a Asus P2BF (best mainboard I ever had), Voodoo3 3000, 18!GB Hdd of which my uncle said I will never fill it. 5months later it was full :P
Also had a LS120 drive and a Creative Sound Blaster Live with one of the first surround speaker set the Creative 4.1 Surround.
That thing was a beast at that time when 64Mb ram was much and 128Mb was great hehe.
Cost me a fortune as well, I was 14 and spent 4000DM for it. Luckily my unlce has a IT based company, so I got everything as cheap as possible. If i would have bought that thing in a shop, I would have had to pay 7000DM, if not more.
Was a good investment. Without that PC I wouldnt know as much as I do now, because I started reading advanced computer magazines after I bought the PC to know when something faster is out and I can get mad about spending that much money ;)
I still remember a funny thing. The soundcard came 2 weeks later than the rest and I build it in by myself. I called my uncle 3 times asking if I am doing the right thing lmao. "I can still see a small part of the golden pin bits. Is it inserted correctly?" :rofl:
Martijn
11-06-2006, 02:38 AM
The first PC I bought myself was a Pentium 3 500Mhz with 256MB Ram on a Asus P2BF (best mainboard I ever had), Voodoo3 3000, 18!GB Hdd of which my uncle said I will never fill it. 5months later it was full :P
Also had a LS120 drive and a Creative Sound Blaster Live with one of the first surround speaker set the Creative 4.1 Surround.
That thing was a beast at that time when 64Mb ram was much and 128Mb was great hehe.
Cost me a fortune as well, I was 14 and spent 4000DM for it. Luckily my unlce has a IT based company, so I got everything as cheap as possible. If i would have bought that thing in a shop, I would have had to pay 7000DM, if not more.
Was a good investment. Without that PC I wouldnt know as much as I do now, because I started reading advanced computer magazines after I bought the PC to know when something faster is out and I can get mad about spending that much money ;)
I still remember a funny thing. The soundcard came 2 weeks later than the rest and I build it in by myself. I called my uncle 3 times asking if I am doing the right thing lmao. "I can still see a small part of the golden pin bits. Is it inserted correctly?" :rofl:
Ahh, I had 2 of those P2B-F mainboards as well.... Awsome :slobber:... I used to blow tons of P2 rigs in my days, I've had 8 of them in one month tops, I believe :stick:. Loved passive overclocking and showing my friends what happened if you put some drops of water on it... MBM5 showed temps of 100C load :D :D
jimwah
11-06-2006, 02:45 AM
My first computer were an A 500 with a Motorola 68000 7,14 mhz with 512kb Ram:D
Same here, well I had a ZX Spectrum 128k before that, but it was the A500 that got me hooked. After getting through some Acorn's & Atari me & a friend got a DX66 & DX4-100 off his dad, we used to play Descent & Rise of the Triads multiplayer over a serial or parallel cable iirc :D
EDIT>
After that an amiga 500 with 512kb upgrade.
Had to have the 512k upgrade :rocker: :D
[XC]thewildblue
11-06-2006, 03:11 AM
I didnt go for the RTC clock though as;
1). Didnt know what it was at that time
2). It was more expensive and was lucky to be getting the upgrade in the 1st place......
Helheim
11-06-2006, 07:02 AM
Victor 9000 - http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=210
bullet2urbrain
11-06-2006, 07:42 AM
had a 486 on which i learned QBasic, Gorrilas > * DX games
then had my dads laptop with this crazy thing called a modem.
then mom decided to go and buy a Toshiba Desktop with P1-133 thing BSOD'ed at the slightest hint, however i did use it to play Warcraft II. and Doom :woot:
illmatik
11-06-2006, 07:52 AM
C64 here
Still have it @ my parents place.. My 1541 is modded to spin hella fast and has a homemade anti-bump board to get around the knocks when you couldnt get a game with spiral tracking copied just right. I'm sure a lot of you know what I'm talking about ;)
When I was there last weekend going thru old stuff I even found my Epic FastLoad Cartridge, Vorpal Utilities Disk, and Final CartridgeIII !!
cadaveca
11-06-2006, 08:16 AM
Mitsubishi Oddesy(really a console, and not a pc), and then C64, Apple iie, Amiga 500, 286, 386, CyriX, then Intel-based pc's until the athlon.
C64 here
Still have it @ my parents place.. My 1541 is modded to spin hella fast and has a homemade anti-bump board to get around the knocks when you couldnt get a game with spiral tracking copied just right. I'm sure a lot of you know what I'm talking about ;)
When I was there last weekend going thru old stuff I even found my Epic FastLoad Cartridge, Vorpal Utilities Disk, and Final CartridgeIII !!
Yeah , I remember I had a 'power cartridge' for my c64 :D
Boulder dash was one of my favorite games.
JPeitzman
11-06-2006, 09:30 AM
I had some 486's, but my first real computer was a P1-200mhz w/ MMX, 32MB RAM, a 3GB HD, and awesome built in graphics. The I went to a AMD K6-2 at 450MHZ with 128MB RAM, the same 3GB HDD, but stepped up to a amazing VooDoo2 SLI setup that cost like $600. It was a monster compared to the P1. Then to a P3-600MHZ with 256MB RAM and a Voodoo3; then all the way up to my current A64 3500+, the last step was a big one. I had a short lived Intel P4-Northwood at 2GHZ, but that is now my parents computer. My dad had/has a couple Commodore's, a couple K-Pro's, and we have a stack of IBM's from 286's to I think we have a couple P1's, about 30 in total, mostly 486's. But I guess the question was first computer, so the P1 was MY first computer.
rob725
11-06-2006, 09:58 AM
Northstar with a z80 processor running cp/m; IBM PC did not yet exist.
meshmesh
11-06-2006, 12:57 PM
For those of you with grey hair, my first system was the 1.8 GHz Atari 800 (in 1981) complete with 48K RAM upgrade (maxed out), 5 1/4 floppy (single side) and impact printer. System cost (~$2500). :)
I had an Atari ST but I only started using computers when I got a PC. I wanted to script things right from start and GEOS (? was that the name) wasn't exactly friendly to it.
In hindsight I always wondered what would have happened if I got an Amiga. Certainly more hackable.
[XC] moddolicous
11-06-2006, 01:28 PM
For those of you with grey hair, my first system was the 1.8 GHz Atari 800 (in 1981) complete with 48K RAM upgrade (maxed out), 5 1/4 floppy (single side) and impact printer. System cost (~$2500). :)
1.8ghz :eek: Maybe 1.6Mhz ;) I have a dual 486 machine in my attic (too bad I only have 1 486 in there). That was the first comp I really learned on (dos, how to install hardware, operating systems, etc).
meshmesh
11-06-2006, 01:47 PM
I had an Atari ST but I only started using computers when I got a PC. I wanted to script things right from start and GEOS (? was that the name) wasn't exactly friendly to it.
In hindsight I always wondered what would have happened if I got an Amiga. Certainly more hackable.
The 520ST with the Digital Research GEM OS had a nice graphical user interface like that of Apple and much advanced that the Atari 800. I wanted to upgrade to it in 86 but didn't have the money then (just married,...).
1.8ghz Maybe 1.6Mhz ....
Sorry. You are right 1.8 MHz. Feals really strange typing it. And the funny thing is that it somehow didn't feel slooow. maybe we weren't demanding much at the time.
The 520ST with the Digital Research GEM OS had a nice graphical user interface like that of Apple and much advanced that the Atari 800. I wanted to upgrade to it in 86 but didn't have the money then (just married,...).
Funny :)
I wanted the opposite. I couldn't have cared less for the graphical interface, all I wanted is a decent scripting language/IDE.
If they had Python back in the days...
nn_step
11-06-2006, 02:13 PM
Funny :)
I wanted the opposite. I couldn't have cared less for the graphical interface, all I wanted is a decent scripting language/IDE.
If they had Python back in the days...
that is the thing uOpt, most people don't like Text interfaces. it is a comfort thing. Some people prefer to see a pretty picture on the screen and some just prefer it to work flawlessly
[XC] gomeler
11-06-2006, 05:07 PM
I consider my first computer to be the first computer I built, A-XP 2400+, 1 gig OCZ plat rev2 and a lowly Geforce4 TI-4800se :-D I got into the overclocking scene rather late :-\ What a fun computer to learn with though.
an0nym0us
11-07-2006, 10:31 PM
486SX 33mhz 4mb IBM Aptiva
mr.tie
11-08-2006, 01:45 PM
First Family Computer I remember using, either C64 or apple IIe, first box that was all mine, K6/2 333mhz with a 4mb rage pro onboard, 15 inch crt, 10gig hdd, and a $350 cd burner I bought that was 2x, 128mb of 66mhz sdram, man that thing was a beast....lol.
Replaced by a duron 800mhz and radeon 32mb.
then a xp 1400-1800-2200-2400-2600
(ti-200, fx-5200, ti-4800, x850xt)
now finally off my long line of AMD chips.