What brand was your first computer?
 

Mine was a packard bell.
Which was your!!

Compaq

Sinclair 80

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 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!

A.s.t

IBM PC Jr (128K Ram)

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

.

Add-on Hard Drive
 

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.

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

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?

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

Apple Tablet
 

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

packard bell

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

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

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:

Gateway

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.

First computer
 

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.

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).

Ur right - strange!

RADIO SHACK Model 1

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!

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

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

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.

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

1st computer
 

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.

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.

First Computer
 

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.

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: