What Was Your First PC?

[Bill_Bright]

The first I owned: a Mac Plus

Well, we all have our faults! LOL

 

[Shrek]

I was a Mac fan boy till... they started to glue things shut... then I jumped ship.

In about a year and a half support for Windows 10 stops and I wonder if I will jump back.

 

[Frick]

So is this PC as in "personal computer" as in "general purpose calculating machine but doesn't take up a room/building" or IBM PC compatible"?

The first computer I used was my brothers Amstrad CPC-464, my first computer was a probably something based around a Pentium II 266 Mhz. My sister and her husband did computer classes and I was quick to scavange for leftovers.

 

[64K]

So is this PC as in "personal computer" as in "general purpose calculating machine but doesn't take up a room/building" or IBM PC compatible"?

I meant it to be PC as in IBM Compatible. Technically my C-64 was a pc because it was a personal computer but it wasn't an IBM Compatible using MS DOS.

 

[Shrek]

My bad

My first IBM compatible was a Core 2, and I am working from it right now.

 

[68Olds]

Werent IRQs and DMAs fun? NOT!

I remember using a sheet of graph paper to organize the IRQs & DMAs. Had to learn what devices could share & what devices needed to have dedicated addresses. Giant pita!

 

[xmanrigger]

I remember using a sheet of graph paper to organize the IRQs & DMAs. Had to learn what devices could share & what devices needed to have dedicated addresses. Giant pita!

If I remember correctly, I think even with Win95 a person still had to mess with IRQs and DMA somewhat. I think it wasnt until Win98 SE that things actually got Plug n Play.

WinXP and Win7 were the best Win OSs to date in my opinion. VISTA was an abomination.

 

[Lei]

I had a Tatung monitor with built-in speaker stand, a Chicony beige keyboard. perhaps a 5x cd driver. some 1~2gb hdd or so. an A4 Tech mouse with ball. some 2mb gpu.
had PC before 1998. so Windows 98 was a big thing.
I used Norton Commander a lot on DOS.

 

[sLowEnd]

this thing

Compaq Presario 9548

The Compaq Presario 9548 is a PC compatible powered by the Intel Pentium processor.

wiki.preterhuman.net

 

[Klemc]

CPC 6128, then a PC Olivetti 386... my brother found interest in computers at a young age.

 

[natr0n]

It was a cyrix 233 something for a few months... then my dad found a complete system someone got rid of because windows was corrupted that was a 500mhz amdk2 which I reformated good as new.

 

[Jetster]

My first was a IBM clone 8088,
286 Super with a 14.4 baud modem
386
486 DX2 60
486 DX4 120, 600 Mb hard drive
Pentium 90
K62 -350 - First real PC build
AMD 1200 Duron
Intel Pentium 4 Prescott 2.4
Athlon 64 X2 3800
Core 2 Quad
Then all intel after that except for a few AMDs someone ordered

 

[Shrek]

It was a cyrix 233 something for a few months... then my dad found a complete system someone got rid of because windows was corrupted that was a 500mhz amdk2 which I reformated good as new.

I found a Core 2 Dell dumped outside a house; reformatted the hard drive, updated the BIOS and it ran great (still does).

Power supply eventually needed a new a capacitor, so maybe that was the real reason it was dumped.

 

[theFOoL]

My first was built by my sister's bf at the time. AMD Athlon 2000+ 1.67GHZ socket A 256MB of RAM 80GB HDD nVidia 4200Ti 128MB

 

[TheLostSwede]

A Mitac 386SX 16 MHz with 2 MB of RAM over four 30-pin SIMMs, a 40 MB hard drive and 256kB of graphics memory. The graphics chip was from WDC (yes, the hard drive maker) and it was possible to upgrade to 512kB graphics memory, which I never did. However, I did upgrade to 6 MB or RAM and I installed a second 40 MB hard drive in it, which barely fitted.
It also had a 3.5" floppy drive, a 14" Mitac display and a really terrible, squared off mouse.

Found a really terrible picture of the mouse, the one with the Mitac logo. At least it was PS/2 rather than a serial mouse.

Someone posted a video of one on YouTube.

 

[Jalex459]

Owned a Sinclair Spectrum 48k when I was about 6, then moved up to a 128k at 8yo. So many hours of Galaxians, Operation Wolf, Paperboy and James Bond enjoyed during these early years. First PC I chose myself was a Time computer with Windows 98, an Athlon XP 1700+, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, 19" CRT and Geforce 4 MX 440 64MB, picked out from a Daily Telegraph ad in 2002, of all places. Cost me over £1500.00 back then, which took many a shift of supermarket work to pay off, but with zero regrets.

It has to be said, those Athlons were a little disappointing, with many a shutdown, but this could be attributed to the inefficient coolers they came with at the time. It was a big relief to finally replace it with a Pentium 4 2.8GHz and crazy looking Zalman CNPS3100 Copper cooler just 12 months later. A PNY Verto Nvidia Ti 4200 64MB soon followed, such an awesome all round card back then.

Finally, the legendary 9800 Pro 128MB was a great addition, in preparation for Doom 3 & Half Life 2 in 2004. This was a card that lasted me many years, perhaps too many years, providing excellent value for money for its day. Overall then, an incredible period to be around PC gaming, with so much innovation and technological progression happening all at once. It was harder to keep up in those days but I wouldn't have changed it for the world. Great times!

 

[gffermari]

Although I had access to my fathers 486 and pentiums, my first pc was a celeron. I has multiple gpus taken from my fathers pcs and don’t remember which one was the oldest. Cards like riva 128, matrox, and others but I do remember the first high end gaming card. TNT 2 Ultra.

 

[Melvis]

Atari 800XL was I think classed as a PC even though it was basically a console, I could be wrong though . Back in 1983.

 

[Vayra86]

This, in several versions.

 

[Aynsley]

A Macintosh SE with a 20MB HDD inside. That would have been around 1987 or '88. I'd been using IBM/NEC PCs at work, but needed multilingual support for technical papers.

 

[Dristun]

Pentium 2 400mhz, 32mb of ram and S3 Trio 3D card, don't remember what else was there. But I sure played a lot of Need for Speed 1 and 2 on that one, thanks Dad!

 

[Hugis]

IBM PS/ValuePoint 425SX/Si (Budget line)

486SX 25 with 1*4MB simm, 120MB IDE HDD (upgraded to 4*4MB ,SB PRO and CD rom (2 or 4 speed matsushita)) circa 1992?


I did have a C64 before this and an amiga 500 after that

 

[AsRock]

ZX81, with the horrid rubber buttons

this awesome beast. What a machine. Put the game to load, go outside to buy the bread, and come back to play the game


View attachment 293746

OMG those tape decks were a nightmare haha, the 128K Siinclaire before t witht he separate tape deck was a much better way to go.

My very first computer was ZX Spectrum 48Kb then later I had Amiga 500 and only after that I jumped on "PC" it was 486 DX as I remember....

Yeah the Amiga 500\1000 would of loved having one of those back then.

The first I used: a BBC Micro (by Acorn Computers)

The first I owned: a Mac Plus

Used to love the switches on the keys,

 

[Sm0k3d-0uT]

My Christmas Present when I was in 4th grade and my most prized possession.

Laser 128/EX (Apple IIc Clone)

I still have it.

 

[Bomby569]

OMG those tape decks were a nightmare haha, the 128K Siinclaire before t witht he separate tape deck was a much better way to go.

i never got to own the zx, it was a battle with my father, when i finally got one, this one had just come out. I had for several years, the tape deck never gave me any issue, and me and my brother used the crap out of that thing. They do not make stuff like that anymore, bulletproof, or in this case to idiot kids proof.