What brand was your first computer?

[alfordaln]

Mine was a packard bell.
Which was your!!

[jblum315]

Compaq

[memason]

Sinclair 80

[Xavier]

Radio Shack (Tandy) Color Computer connected to a TV set. After hours watching the screen your eyeballs looked like they were bleeding - Serious road maps! Cassette Tape for storage!

[villages07]

Another early adopter here.... Radio Shack TRS-80 (trash 80, it was called) with black/white monitor, basic programming language, and cassette tape storage. This was probably about 1980.

Next one was an Osborne "portable" (only because it had a handle; it weighed 27 pounds). Paid $1,800 for it. Woo hoo 5.25 floppy drives for programs and storage. A 5MB hard drive cost well over $500 to add on.

[kfierle]

The first computer I worked on was a TRS-80 (trash 80) with dual 5.25 floppy drives. The first computer I owned was an IBM portable. It was called partable bacause it had a carry case. It weighed about 40 pounds and some people I know even carried these monsters around! This computer had dual 3.5 drives and an attached printer that could be used with pin feed thermal paper or you could buy a ribbon and print on regular paper.

Conputers have come a long was since the 1980's!

[Sonny39]

A.s.t

[chuckinca]

IBM PC Jr (128K Ram)

Then traded a highchair to my brother-in-law for a Mac 512K that still works.

.

[memason]

Another early adopter here.... Radio Shack TRS-80 (trash 80, it was called) with black/white monitor, basic programming language, and cassette tape storage. This was probably about 1980.

Next one was an Osborne "portable" (only because it had a handle; it weighed 27 pounds). Paid $1,800 for it. Woo hoo 5.25 floppy drives for programs and storage. A 5MB hard drive cost well over $500 to add on.

The cost of new computer equipment is amazing! I was in an electronics store last weekend, here in Germany, and looked at a 1TB portable drive (USB) that was about $150. I remember moving to Japan in '95 and upgrading my computer with a new 300MB HD for $500. I have a USB stick I plug into my car stereo and it's 8GB...paid $12.00 for it.

[Doreen]

My first computer was a Compaq-second was a Dell and now I have a Compaq again. Love Compaq

[Hawkwind]

Heathkit H-8 that I had to solder all the parts on the circuit boards. Machine language programming back then with cassette recorder to save the programs. This was before the Radio Shack TRS-80 and IBM PC. 4K of memory and you were king on the streets.

That gave way to a Heathkit H-19 Monitor that in time was upgraded to a H-89 computer. It had 2 hard sector hard 5 1/4 floppy drives that you could notch the disks and flip them over for more storage. Then came came soft sector drives and 8" drives. At one time I had 6 floppy drives attached to that computer. Hard drives were not even a dream for the PC market at that time.

The H-89 gave way to the original Compaq lug-able. I still have that one.

Along the way I built an Apple IIE clone for something to do but got rid of it shortly after getting everything working.

Lost track of how many PC's I have built and upgraded over the years. Don't even ask how much money was spent over the years.

Currently have online an old 800 MHz XP machine with a couple of 250 gig hard drives and DVD burners, a 2.6 Windows 7 machine, an HP Windows 7 lap top, and an HP Windows Home Server with 2.5 TB of storage.

Remember when a program could be no larger that 640k?

[faithfulfrank]

Compaq with a 700 mg HD. It was nice.
Then a few HP's.....had one "blow up", then switched to Macs 10 years ago and never looked back. That 10 year old G4 imac is still our main house computer....works great...a work of Art.
I mainly now use my new macbook pro.
Can't wait to see the new Apple tablet being announced this month.

Frank

[memason]

Compaq with a 700 mg HD. It was nice.

Can't wait to see the new Apple tablet being announced this month.

Frank

Frank....looks like you've bought into the rumor mill on the Apple tablet. It'll be interesting to see if they announce one, since there's a ton of buzz already.

Do you also have an iPhone? I have one and it's the most amzing phone/computer/ipod/???? I've ever owned...bar none. I gave up a World Edition Blackberry for the iPhone...never looked back. Even used the GPS for golf, here in Germany last year.

[The Great Fumar]

Mine was a Philco and it was gas operated .......I still have it but my wife won't let me turn it on ...

phew fumar

[Jazzper]

Atari 800 then a Kaypro 2 running CPM which I modified to run at 5MHz instead of the default 2.5...woo-hoo! Used it to write dBase II programs-:)

Then the IBM PC hit the market and our local Kaypro club soon disbanded.

[marianne237]

The first computer I was involved with still used key punch cards, and my job was a key punch card operator. The computer was kept in an isolated office with air conditioning and it was the most fascinating thing I'd ever seen.
After switching jobs, my office purchased a large Radio Shack Tandy that used 5" discs for storage. It was fun to work with and did the job needed.

My husband had a Compaq, and wanted to upgrade to a new 'puter in late 1999. We held off getting one until 2000 because of all the questionable statements going on then about how computers would be all messed up.
Remember all that silliness that was going around?

We now have an Acer.

[SNOK]

First one was a Radio Shack PC2 - basically a programmable (basic) calculator. Mostly for hobbiests. My first real computer was a PC with 8k ram and two 5 1/4" floppy drives (A & B). I never did use the TRS 80 8" floppy drives. Then a few months later, I moved up to 16k ram, with a 5MB hard drive, and then to a 64 k ram and a 10Mb hard drive. I thought that was all the computing power I would ever need. I started using the old VisiCalc spreadsheet program in about 1980, which led to Lotus 1-2-3 (which I still use today), and then to Excel. Since I started my career in finance and accounting in the late 1960's, well before there were any desktop computers, I can fully appreciate the exponential productivity gains the computer has allowed.

[golf2140]

Commodore 64. What a beast !!!!!!!!

[Xavier]

Mine was a Philco and it was gas operated .......I still have it but my wife won't let me turn it on ...

phew fumar

Did it have a kick-starter or did you have a newer model?

[obxgal]

packard bell

[DickY]

Commodore 64, upgraded to a Commodore 128, before that had an Adam game system.

[faithfulfrank]

Frank....looks like you've bought into the rumor mill on the Apple tablet. It'll be interesting to see if they announce one, since there's a ton of buzz already.

Do you also have an iPhone? I have one and it's the most amzing phone/computer/ipod/???? I've ever owned...bar none. I gave up a World Edition Blackberry for the iPhone...never looked back. Even used the GPS for golf, here in Germany last year.

I do not want to throw off the thread, but I also do not want to appear rude and not reply, so No, I do not have an iphone....i'd love one, but Verizon is king up here, and until I move to Florida full time, in 532 more days, I can't have one. If you guys get good reception there with ATT, then I may. Who knows if by then ATT will even have the contract exclusively by then?

Anyway, back to the original question.......

Thanks! Frank

[Don H]

I had a Radio Shack color computer hooked up to a tv. It had 4K of memory. That's right 4 "K"! I had dial-up to what was probably the first online service, Compuserve. It was a text only service. I used to fool around with programming using "BASIC" from a how-to book sold by Radio Shack. This was probably around 1979. The other big computer Radio Shack sold back then was the TRS-80. It was their original offering. Programming was stored on an audio cassette tape! Whoa, we've come a long way. :smiley:

[Shirleevee]

Gateway

[Xavier]

I had a Radio Shack color computer hooked up to a tv. It had 4K of memory. That's right 4 "K"! I had dial-up to what was probably the first online service, Compuserve. It was a text only service. I used to fool around with programming using "BASIC" from a how-to book sold by Radio Shack. This was probably around 1979. The other big computer Radio Shack sold back then was the TRS-80. It was their original offering. Programming was stored on an audio cassette tape! Whoa, we've come a long way. :smiley:

Yes we have. I have a true story about a friend of mine who also had a Color Computer and we had a little club of enthusiasts. Anyway, after upgrading his memory and doing all we could to be in the technology main stream, he decided to buy a 5 1/4 in Disk Drive. He called a place in Massachusetts to make the order and the sales lady asked how many disks he wanted. He said, as serious as could be, "Well I can't imagine ever needing more than one." We HAVE come a long way. Do you remember the Rainbow Computer Magazine. People would write Basic code and publish it in the magazine and we'd type it in to our computer. I used to write programs in Basic so the kids could practice their math facts and many times I out-wrote the memory in the computer.

[zcaveman]

I started my career in programming with the IBM 1401 back in 1965.

But my first purchased home computer was a TRS-80. I used a cassette player to save the programs I wrote in Basic. I crossed my fingers every time I loaded them. Prayed to make sure they loaded. The disk drives were too expensive. The next was a Commodore 64 with that special programming add on. Can't remember the name but it had some great correlation macros. I wrote several sub shoots boat programs and a library program in BASIC. My first real computer was an IBM Aptiva. I really liked it but it had a software modem that croaked every time the ISP made made a change. And of course it was my fault. After spending countless hours debugging every new problem, I purchased a ZOOM modem and unloaded the Aptiva modem software. Clear sailing after that.

My only problem with the PCs is that I lived out in the sticks in New Jersey - Sussex County and the best I could do was a 26000 Baud transfer rate.

When I moved to TV I went right with the cable modem and have been a happy guy ever since.

[mitchbr47]

In 1984 I bought my first computer. It was a 128k Apple IIc with that ugly green screen. With a printer the bill was over $1600. The OS was called ProDos. I wouldn't mess with the cassette tapes on earlier computers. I remember wasting a whole prep hour trying to load a cassette. Very frustrating until the invention of the floppy disk. I remember typing grad school papers and the data wouldn't always fit on one floppy disk. Those were the days! I ran that machine for 7 years. It still ran but was so outdated. I still have it in the attic up north.

[RVRoadie]

There is something fishy about the OP. Look at the 4 threads that the OP started, with no subsequent posts. Also, these same threads have been started by the same OP on the Escapees Forum (RV forum that I follow).

[chuckinca]

Ur right - strange!

[Yoda]

RADIO SHACK Model 1

[Xavier]

There is something fishy about the OP. Look at the 4 threads that the OP started, with no subsequent posts. Also, these same threads have been started by the same OP on the Escapees Forum (RV forum that I follow).

I had noticed it too but figured it was Talk Host boosting the site post numbers so that he can charge more for the advertising. He's really pretty obvious about it. Does some in his name and I figure he has other posting names as well. Sameless Capitalism! Talk Host: It's a joke - I'm just kidding!

[jaspal]

My first computer was an Apple 2E (25-30 years ago. Later I switched to a PC because of software. Five years ago I switched back to a MAC. I am not an Apple lover of all their products. I have 2 ITouches Apple desktop & Mac Book pro. I have my name on a list to buy the IPAD 3G. Apple is the best. I have taken their one-to one classes regularly for almost 3 years now.

It is the BEST!

[colleenj]

The post from Xavier brought back memories- My first computer was a Radio Shack and yes, I remember Rainbow magazine! How times have changed :)

[Donna2]

Dell. It is my first and only computer. (6 1/2 years)

[jblum8156]

My first computer was a Gateway. I think they're out of business. I loved the cow boxes but their tech support was just horrible.

[MelZ]

My 1st computer was a RCA Spectra 70/45.

[Pturner]

I don't remember the brand of the first computer I used at work. The first computer I owned, was a Mac Plus, 1986. It was the first personal computer with 1 megabyte of RAM. 1 MG! My how things have changed.

[TrudyM]

First computer was a hand me down IBM with 5" floppy drive and Lotus spreadsheets. 1981 First learned language was Cobol with the little punch cards and basic on the Dartmoth timeshare system which my college had access to.

[Hancle704]

A Timex Sinclair which used a tape recorder/player for memory and a B&W TV for a monitor. Kids played Pong on it. This was followed by an Atari a few years later.

[The Great Fumar]

I think my first machine was a philco..and it had a little round black and white screen ...........

Seems to me it used coal .........

ancient fumar:duck:

[nkrifats]

A Timex Sinclair which used a tape recorder/player for memory and a B&W TV for a monitor. Kids played Pong on it. This was followed by an Atari a few years later.
My first set up was the Timex Sinclair with the tape recorder and TV. Too many different computers after that to keep track of. Now an Apple.

[Shirleevee]

Commodore 64..which I still have...somewhere!

[Xavier]

I think my first machine was a philco..and it had a little round black and white screen ...........

Seems to me it used coal .........

ancient fumar:duck:

... oh yeah, and if you shut the damper before it got hot enough it would smoke you out. Yeah, I remember... ah, the good old days.

Xavier

[macro]

Didn't anyone else get the TI-99A? :undecided: Got mine for $50 with the rebate, total cost after all the programs, expansion box, memory upgrade, floppy drives, etc. almost $2k. :faint: Those cheap computers really get expensive! Still have it but afraid to plug it in. would probably blow my flat screen. MelZ, did you run the RCA's or did you work on them? I was a tech in Chicago for them before Sperry bought us.

[mrbillmidlo]

The first computer I worked with was a CDC1604 at the Washington (DC) Navy Yard in 1966. It had 16K of memory! Wow! We have owned several pc's. The first was a Leading Edge Model D in the early/mid 80's. Just took it to recycling. We have had homemade, Gateway, Dell, and Toshiba desktop's and pc's. I use a Toshiba notebook and my wife uses a Gateway notebook. We bought Toshiba notebooks for our grandsons (8 & 11) for Xmas 08. They must be good computers because they're still running.

[redwitch]

First work computer (word processor really) was a Lanier. First true computer I ever touched was an Apple -- my boy friend was a true computer genius and use working on an AI program. Whenever he was out of town, I'd try to teach his puter to play bridge. Almost had a workable program when he busted me lol. First computer I bought was a Dell.

[SABRMnLgs]

A Commodore 64

[macro]

I think my first machine was a philco..and it had a little round black and white screen ...........

Seems to me it used coal .........

ancient fumar:duck:

... oh yeah, and if you shut the damper before it got hot enough it would smoke you out. Yeah, I remember... ah, the good old days.

Xavier

Ahhh! you guys had the new improved computers. I hated to print anything out on mine :rant-rave: The little guy with the hammer and chisel was sooooooooo sloooow! :icon_bored: And anything over one page was such heavy reading. :p New avatar Fumar? anybody we know?

[cats12470]

Mine was an IBM.... paid $2000... figured it would last forever.... then came color montors...2nd was a Tandy....loved that computer....

[MelZ]

Didn't anyone else get the TI-99A? :undecided: Got mine for $50 with the rebate, total cost after all the programs, expansion box, memory upgrade, floppy drives, etc. almost $2k. :faint: Those cheap computers really get expensive! Still have it but afraid to plug it in. would probably blow my flat screen. MelZ, did you run the RCA's or did you work on them? I was a tech in Chicago for them before Sperry bought us.

I was a Systems Analyst on the Spectra, wrote programs in BAL and machine language. I moved into sales and finally left with the Sperry purchase. 1st machine I sold was a 70/35 with 64K memory, 10mb hard drive, teletype console, card reader/punch, line printer and a tape drive. Sold it for about $1Million for the sole purpose of printing food stamps.

[starflyte1]

A looong time ago, I bought a Radio Shack.

[Zass38]

My very first computer was an IMSAI 8600 kit that I put together and used to program in assembler...then a TRS 80 ... from then on a proliferation of brands.....

[mgman]

My first was an Apple 2C the little compact one with about an 8" screen. Have a picture of my son at age 3 playing a game on it. He is now a hardcore gamer at age 27. I soon upgraded to an Apple 2GS so that I could begin playing golf on the computer. For what I paid for that 2GS I could today buy a gaming computer that would be the envy of even my son. :D

[Lou Card]

A vic 20

[dgammon6]

Wish I could remember the name of my first computer. Maybe someone can help. It was in the late 70's and the information was stored on cassette tapes.

[LittleDog]

Mine was an apple II.

John

[getdul981]

I've read most everyone's post, but I don't remember anyone mentioning the one I had. It was a Texas Instruments TI-99A. It used MS-DOS and I never did learn much about it. It also had cartridges for programs that you could plug into the side. It used a 5 1/2" floppy drive for storage that was built into a separate component.

[linandvin]

Commodore 64....with a typo in the owner's manual...Do not turn the machine off when the green light is lit. They meant the red and we had to wait until after Christmas to call the store.

[Johncancook]

I had a Colecovision, but I'm not sure that counts. I had a little Timex too which I found totallly useless. But in 1983, I upgraded to a Kaypro II, which was almoost a combination desktop/laptop since it was totally self-contanined. It ran CPM and came with Wordstar, Calcstar and some other stars (software) you could use for real computing. It had 64k (yes, k) of memory, no hard drive, 2 - 5 1/4" floppy drives and a built-in 9" green screen that supported text only - no graphics. I still have the machine along with all the software and documentation. I think it works too! The printer I had had long since bitten the dust.

(I started as a mainframe programmer in 1970, so I've been into computers for a long time)

[benjohara]

Mac 512K. Even after all these years I'm still a mac fan!

[pauld315]

The first one I had in my house was a TI-99A. I bought that back in 1982, had it connected to an old black and white tv and used a casette tape recorder for storage. You could buy solid state cartridges to plug into the thing, mostly for games.

I started working on computers that were sold to busnesses in 1973. Memories of what size some of those mid range computers were and the capacities of the memory and hard drives are amazing. Suffice it to say your iphone far exceeds anything we developed for companies back in those days and they were huge and very expensive. I have been in development of hardware and software since 1973 and the advances in technology during that time are just incredible in all aspects. Three more years and i will retire and move to the Villages and the only hard drives i will be talking about will be on the golf course...I just can't wait !!

[Avista]

Radio Shack TRS-80

[k2at]

Mine was a Commodore 64 and for 28,000 bytes of available space it was an amazing machine at that time.

[Talk Host]

Commodore Vic-20.

The first Dos computer was a Hyundai.

[meridana]

Had tape storage, even had spread sheet.
tossed it when I moved to TV last year. It still worked:BigApplause:

[aljetmet]

Didn't anyone else get the TI-99A? :undecided: Got mine for $50 with the rebate, total cost after all the programs, expansion box, memory upgrade, floppy drives, etc. almost $2k. :faint: Those cheap computers really get expensive! Still have it but afraid to plug it in. would probably blow my flat screen. MelZ, did you run the RCA's or did you work on them? I was a tech in Chicago for them before Sperry bought us.

My first home computer was the TI-99A as well. I spent about $75 for a cassette player that I used to save my programs. I had some games and an extended basic module which allowed you to program games. I wrote a black jack program with graphics. I found some kind of algorithm that I programmed to shuffle the deck. I even wrote a primitive shooting game. I enjoyed it. My first PC at work was one of the first IBM ATs distributed in 1984. I worked for AMAX Inc. a major mining company at the time and the first AT for the company some how landed on my desk.. I thought dos was great but hated windows when it first came out. Didn't like using a mouse. I am a convert...

[dkcm33]

Mine was a Hyundai; man it was a biggy to. It had a 30 mb harddrive; can you imagine?

[KayakerNC]

Commodore 64.
It was a "free" gift for attending a Time-Share presentation. The computer was fun, but not worth the aggravation of the high pressure sales.:boxing2:

[Mikeod]

Eagle II. Two, yes count 'em, two 5" disk drives. And a whole 64K of RAM. Wow!

Poor guy who started the company in Santa Clara county, took it public and made millions on the IPO, died in a car wreck shortly afterwards. They later came out with an IBM clone version, then went belly-up like a lot of other start-ups.

[John Hammack]

I built 3 Heath kits, H89&90's, a large dot matrix printer, and a monster dual 8" external drive. Best computers and most fun I had (CP/M), with cpu's. Gary Kildow (sp) was a CS instructor at USNPGS when I was there. John

[brostholder]

first IBM pc with 32k and a single floppy. Used to do my own programming in BASIC

[rjm1cc]

Commodore 64 and MultiPlan for a spreadsheet. Was it ever grate to get on the computer.

[tudacee]

gosh..so long ago, I think it was an Apple IIc. Then later, we got a newer model...was it performa? can't remember, but since then, I've been a mac fangirl.

[Jim007]

Abacus

[2newyorkers]

COMPAQ at home. In work we had dummy terminals that only accessed the state computer.

[kb8tpw]

Tandy 64K Color computer. Big investment too.

[ducati1974]

The first computer I used was in high school in 1974. It was a Wang 3300 Basic. Programs were punched onto a paper tape about 1 1/2'" wide. I got straight A's in that computer class and was planning on going into computer programming after high school. But... life got in the way and the guy working for my father's HVAC company quit and I went to work for my father thinking it would never work out. Here I am 37 years later still doing HVAC until I retire & move to Virginia Trace in 2013!

[Pat_RI]

A Texas Instruments that I use to play a game called Parsec on. You loaded info via a cassette player or something like that.

[Number 6]

AT&T 8086 with two floppys.

[logdog]

My Commodore 64 with two floppy drives and a color printer are in my attic. I'd like to plug it in to see if it still works but can't remember if it accepts an HDMI cable. I do remember back in the early 1980's having to schedule print jobs for just before dinner because it took about 30-45 minutes to print each page.

I learned to use PCAN cards and keypunch machines back in 1971. Took my first FORTRAN course in 1975. I still think computers are just a passing fad. Why would anyone spend good money on a computer when you can drive to the library and look up information for free? And are emails really any better than the old fashioned telephone party line?

[golfnut]

I too had a TI. reading all these responses has been a real trip down memory lane....gn

[mtdjed]

I hate to admit it but mine was a used Wang PC001 with two 128K floppy disks, Wang word processing, Multiplan spreadsheet for only $3K.

[Larryandlinda]

Our first was a North Star, back in 1982. It was a 5 megabyte one we bought for our business and paid $12,000 for the whole system and it barely worked.

Now we have Macs and love them. We used to get pop-ups and viruses on our PCs but never get them with the Macs.

[silvertoken]

Kay Pro64 Used it with my TNC and 2 meter radio to chat and download at 300 baud than 600 baud. monochrome monitor, then I upgrade to a Commodor 64 and my hard drive was a tape recorder with numbers on, It help me find my programs. Word star was my word processor with dos 2. After all that I was so glad when Windows came out. Although I do miss using the telephone to connect to other peoples houses. It was like trading comic books in the old days.

[skyguy79]

For my first computer I went to the hardware store and bought up all the light switches they had and had them order me a lot more. I then mounted them onto several boards then wired them all up. Unfortunately it took so long to keep changing the switchs to turn the bytes on and off that it wasn't worth developing it any further.

Actually my first computer was an IBM 360 back in 1969. It was a huge monster. Try fitting that baby along with it's 14 tape drives into your bedroom! (The part about the IBM 360 in 1969 it the truth but the bedroom part is... well... not exactly true! Ok, ok, not true at all)

Seriously, my first system was an Apple II+. Cost over $2000 at the time.

[natickdan]

It was an IBM PC Jr. OK, maybe the employee discount played a role in my decision. Nonetheless, the progress we've witnessed in technology has been nothing short of remarkable. I can't wait to see what the next 25+ years bring us.

[cybermuda]

Timex-Sinclair - cost $100+ in 1983
Membrane keypad so typing was a nightmare, but at least you couldn't spill coffee into it
1k of RAM - but I splashed out $20 for a plug-in extra 1k - which kept falling out and crashing the machine
Cassette for back up and TV for screen
Amazing what games it could run on that tiny memory

On to a Commodore 64, which was my favourite computer of all
Fun to program, rather than just going out and buying software
5.25in floppy drive was the size of two car batteries and loading rarely worked first time - writing to disk was even worse

Commodore 128 - lasted about a month before being destroyed by a hurricane

Commodore Amiga - huge potential as it was way ahead of its time, but few people bought one and the early Apple Mac stormed ahead, despite being more expensive and not color
Hard drive cost a fortune, was huge, and totally unreliable

After that, just boring old PCs :-(

[cherylncliff]

The first computer we owned was a Gateway 2000 (1991):024:. Our most recent Dell I5 system cost about 40% of that first Gateway and does a whole lot more.

Intersting to note that today's high school graduates have probably always had a computer in the house and can't remember a time before the internet (or forums like this).:smiley:

[jblum8156]

First was a Compaq. It was a horror. Then two Gateways. Then Dell.

[Don Wilson]

IBM -650 (1960) before that I wired program boards on IBM EAM machines including 407 machines

[pakirk]

TI-99 with a tape recorder for files. Only program was basic.:024:

[rirlam]

KayPro II - 1982. Mostly played the StarTrek game that came with it.