[twoplanekid]

My first experience with computers was using a mini system that used these two removable storage media, an eight inch floppy and a 5 megabyte removable platter. For those computer buffs out there, the name of this popular computer of the late 70’s would be??

[Henryk]

Originally Posted by CowBubba

My first real computer was the 64. Ya know we're dating ourself just knowing what a Commodore 64 is. I had a VIC 20, but it was barely a computer.

Heh, heh. Aging ourselves? LOL!

Actually, in the '70s I was on the IBM-370 doing assembler programming, and later supervisor state and key 0. Anyone relate to this?

[Henryk]

Originally Posted by twoplanekid

My first experience with computers was using a mini system that used these two removable storage media, an eight inch floppy and a 5 megabyte removable platter. For those computer buffs out there, the name of this popular computer of the late 70’s would be??

Wang?

[twoplanekid]

Originally Posted by Henryk

Wang?

Yes! I am constantly impressed by the accumulated knowledge of Villagers.

I started out with a Wang 2200T with 16K of ram which was then upgraded for several thousands of dollars to a 32K VP. The Wang ended up being a 64k MVP unit with multiprogramming capabilities which allowed adding several terminals.

As custom applications were not available or taking too long to be written, I taught myself to program the Wang and ended up writing most of the applications.

I talked the Champaign Historical Museum in Ohio to keep and display the Wang as a historical artifact.

[golf2140]

Originally Posted by leftyf

I go way back, my first was a Commodore 64 (I think I remember it right).

Yep, great machine at the times. I was able to do our little league memberships on it. Way back when !!

[Aloha1]

In 1975 at Honeywell, we sold a 25 MB disk drive ( yes, 25 megabytes) that required an air cooled environment for $25,000. It went with the Honeywell 2000. A state of the art computer with 256KB of internal memory and the latest in Hollerith punch card technology. Again needed an air cooled room and cost $250,000.

In 1979, I saw something called the Texas Instruments 99/A home computer. Used GROM cartridges for games and basic learning games plus 5 1/4 inch floppies so you could run things like Multiplan. I knew the world had changed at that moment and switched careers. But I still have that TI 99/A!

[Schaumburger]

A movie that well illustrates the pre-computer days of the early 1960's is "Hidden Figures" which was released earlier this year. If you want to rent a great movie, get this one. The story focuses on a team of female mathematicians who worked for NASA before computers were commonplace. Parts of the movie may make you angry; parts of the movie will make you cheer and applaud.

[TomPerry]

My first computer was a Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 around 1972. It had 16K of memory and I boosted it up to an amazing 48K of memory!! I installed two double-density, double-sided 5 1/4" floppy drives for an amazing storage of 360K each!! With the supplied Manuel I taught myself to wright programs in Basis. I used it in my CPA practice for years with an Epson MX-80 bi-directional dot-matrix printer with a speed of 80 cps!! We said "nobody could type that fast!!!".

[aninjamom]

Our first one was a Dell 429? that I think we inherited from a boss that was upgrading. My husband just wanted to be able to type a letter on it, and I learned a lot about computers and Windows by going: "what does this do?" and then having to "escape" or reboot! That computer was very forgiving. I remember being impressed when the 1MB floppy came out! Now I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop with 1TB on it and a touch screen. I love it but I do miss the CD drive.

[Topspinmo]

Originally Posted by leftyf

I go way back, my first was a Commodore 64 (I think I remember it right).

I had the up scale version Commodores 128 with hole punch paper printer. Kmart special mid 80s? Some knowledge in COBOL, pascal, and basic was really handy.

[JerryLBell]

My first home PC was a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. According to Wikipedia, it had a 3 Mhz CPU made by Texas Instruments, 16 kilobytes of graphics RAM and 256 bytes of "scratchpad" RAM. Programs that I typed in were saved to audio cassettes. It had a BASIC language interpreter built-in and from that I taught myself programming. I took a class on BASIC to expand on that and from that ended up quitting my career in sales, going back to school to learn programming, becoming a college instructor and then a software engineer. That first computer put me on the road to the career from which I just retired.

My second home computer was a LOT more fun. It was a Commodore C64. It had a 1 Mhz CPU made by MOS, 64 kilobytes of RAM and 20 kilobytes of ROM. I had first one then two floppy drives (5.25", 160 Kb single-sided diskettes). It also had a BASIC language interpreter built-in but you could load and run interpreters and compilers for several other programming languages plus word processors, spreadsheet generators, graphics programs, music programs and thousands of games. There are still people out there that think that this was the most fun home computer ever.

I eventually got an IBM PS/2 PC; the first "serious" or "business" computer I ever owned. It was the first I had that included a hard drive (aka a "fixed disc"). Since then I've bought or built probably a dozen or more computers for myself and dozens for other folks.

There is no other technology that has ever grown the way electronics like this has. For example, my first hard drive held forty megabytes (essentially, forty million bytes). I have several hard drives in my current PC ranging from two to eight trillion bytes each and each of them are smaller, hugely faster and much less expensive than that first one. Plus I have a tiny "flash" drive in my phone that holds 128 billion bytes (32,000 times the capacity of my first drive), has no moving parts and is the size of the fingernail on my little finger. The advances are mind-boggling. Don't even get me started on comparing tablets and smart phones to those original PCs. If cars had advanced at the rate of computers, we'd all be buying flying cars for a few hundred dollars that got a thousand miles a gallon and could go into orbit or drive us to the moon.

[JerryLBell]

Originally Posted by Topspinmo

I had the up scale version Commodores 128 with hole punch paper printer. Kmart special mid 80s? Some knowledge in COBOL, pascal, and basic was really handy.

That was my third computer! It was everything good about the Commodore C64 but twice the speed, twice the memory and an 80 column (instead of 40 column) display. What a great early PC!

[Ithreeputtoo]

I had a Commodore 64 back in mid 80's first then an Apple II

[Regor]

Bought a TRS-80 in 1977 when they were introduced. 4k of ram. Around $600 then (Equivalent to $2600 today). Used a cassette tape for storage

[MrGolf]

A DEC Rainbow in 1982 or 3.