What was your first computer?

rockymtnhigh

Hardly Normal
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Apr 14, 2006
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For some end of the year fun, I have three questions for you:

1) What was the first computer you have owned?

2) What was the first computer you used?

3) When did you first have an email account?




My answers: Timex Sinclair 1000, TRS-80 (not sure the model, it was in elementary school, and resembled the same console as a Model III, but definitely BEFORE that), and 1989 -- a bitnet email address.
 
1. Apple IIe (And still have it. Funny, Sheldon had an Apple II he wanted to have signed by the Woz last night).
2. IBM 1401 (followed by IBM 360, while in school in 1968).
3. 1988
 
1) Timex Sinclair 99/4A
2) Apple II
3) Don't remember but I ran an online BBS called Cheers, and we were the first site to give our members email addresses. People thought it was cool to have their own internet email addresses but at that time the only people you could email was friends on Prodigy and Compuserve.
 
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My parents got me a TI 99/4A (dad works for TI) when I was 4 years old (1984). My first PC was a custom built 8088 based IBM clone I got when I was 9 (1989). The first email address I had when I was 16 (1996).

My family had our first PC when my dad had a custom built 286 done in 1986 or 1987.
 
First computer at home was an HP portable "laptop"
First computer I programmed and used was an inertial navigation computer circa 1953.
First e-mail account was in 1979. I was part of the group that did the initial investigation of HP-UX unix. Those early e-mails were fascinating because they hadn't invented domain servers yet. email addresses contained the entire path of every computer between you and the recipient. Something like hpfcsvr1!hplabs!inhp4!sunysvr!cornellcs!fred. hplabs was a major hub as was inhp4 (Bell Labs Indian Hills Illinois)
 
1) Timex Sinclair 99/4A
2) Apple II
3) Don't remember but I ran an online BBS called Cheers, and we were the first site to give our members email addresses. People thought it was cool to have their own internet email addresses but at that time the only people you could email was friends on Prodigy and Compuserve.

Was it a Timex Sinclair 1000 or a TI 99/4A ? :D
 
1.1998 I bought the family an HP Pavilion Win98,PII 350mhz, 8g HDD, 8mb video, 32mb ram.
2.first work experience with computing, was data proccessing "punch cards" in 1967.
in the early 80's I worked for the phone company on computer terminals, taking orders and reports and other data entry.
As an operator in the mid 80's, we used computer monitors and keyboards to process the calls. That was light years from the corded switchboard with dials that I learned on in 1973.
3.)1998 elkhntr33@aol.com

I have a younger brother born with severe cerebral palsy, unable to do most simple things we take for granted. He can grasp a pencil and with a uncontroled arm swinging away, type on a keyboard with the eraser end. Of course he makes many mistakes and takes him hours to type a small segment of code. We got him a Radio Shack Tandy 2000 computer. Used a cassette tape drive. We bumped up the memory from 2k to 8k. The salesman said we'd never use that much, LOL He typed in lines of code for days to make a graphic of a spinning circle, he was very proud. I didn't see much use for computers then. That as a long time ago and I'm not sure when but most likely 1975ish
 
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1) Commodore 64 then an IBM XT Intel 8088 @ 4.77 MHz

2) Commodore PET

3) email was some time in the early 90's
 
1) What was the first computer you owned?

Radio Shack Model 1

2) What was the first computer you used?
Technically, my first exposure to a computer was at Air Force Security HQ. It was a Univac in 1960. My father worked there as a board wire tech. They had an open house for family and I got to enter my birthdate and it computed the day of the week I was born. :)

Much later, I took my first computer course as a chem engr student. It was a punch tape teletype terminal connected to the Dartmouth College system.

3) When did you first have an email account?

It was with Compuserve in 1978 I believe. Radio Shack introduced it's first modem for the Model 1.


My first private domain name was created in 1997 and is still active.
 
1) Some model of IBM PC running Windows in 1996.

2) IBM Mainframes starting in about 1981. OS/2 PC's in 1994.

3) Various email accounts in 1996 as I tried out the various ISP's available at the time. Finally settled on AT&T and still have that email account and dial-up plan as a backup.
 
For some end of the year fun, I have three questions for you:

1) What was the first computer you have owned?

2) What was the first computer you used?

3) When did you first have an email account?




My answers: Timex Sinclair 1000, TRS-80 (not sure the model, it was in elementary school, and resembled the same console as a Model III, but definitely BEFORE that), and 1989 -- a bitnet email address.
1- coleco ADAM
2- Apple II
3- drawing a blank on this one.i would guess early 90's
 
1. Home assembled generic pc circa 1994. i worked on Unix systems and always used a dumb terminal with dial up before that.

2. Played games on a Vax , first machine I programmed was a trs/80. This was 1976 and 77 respectively.

3. Back in the conpuserve era , early 1990s.

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk
 
1.) A home built PC in 1995 (from my buddy who built Ozzy below) I even had a modem!!!

2.) Probably played around with TRS-80 first, then an Ohio Scientific home-built computer nicknamed "Ozzy" in physics class, and then an Apple II around the same time. A Commodore 64 was in there, too.

3.) 1995 - yaz96 ( I was so forward thinking I put my email name 1 year ahead!! :) ) It was a free email at the time, then they started charging, but I still have it.
 
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1. Commodore 64 (1983?)
2. DEC PDP-8/L (1976, 4KB of magnetic core memory hooked to a KSR33 teletype with paper tape reader to load BASIC interpreter)
3. 1991 (POP3 account with sprintmail.com upon the demise of QuantumLink -- became AOL)
 
99/4A they tiny one with chicklet keys. :D
As did the Radio Shack Coco (Color Computer). Certainly better than the membrane keyboards of the TS-1000 and the Atari 400.

The chicklets weren't so bad as the fact that the keyboard was considerably smaller than a conventional typewriter keyboard.
 
1. Commodore 64. Got it as a gift in 1987
2. Apple II...Oregon Trail day in elementary school. That was always the best day of the week
3. Maybe 96...aol e-mail account
 
2. DEC PDP-8/L (1976, 4KB of magnetic core memory hooked to a KSR33 teletype with paper tape reader to load BASIC interpreter)
Another one with a PDP-8/L. This was in my High School for the first 2 years (1972-1973), the replaced with a HP-1000(?).

I thought I was the only one here that remembered the old DEC stuff.
 
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