I was given an old 386 by the company I worked for to learn programming in my own time, pretty standard apart from an external SCSI drive to carry files around to and from work. The first one I bought for myself was a P2 400 from Gateway circa 1999 and I think it cost about £1300 including monitor, in comparison, the last "personal computer" I bought 3 months ago cost £499.
Amstrad PC1512 with dual 5 inch floppy drives. Came with MS-DOS and GEM Desktop. It had state of the art CGA graphics that could display anything up to 4 colours at once.
I later added a swanky 3.5 inch drive and a 25Mb hard disk.
February 1996, I was nine nearly ten and my Dad bought a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16 MB RAM, 1.3 GB HDD, 2MB Diamond Graphics Card, Magic Sound Card, Quad Speed CD-ROM drive and a 3.5" Floppy Drive. It initially ran MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 but we later upgraded to Windows 95
August 1998 we got a Advent 8575 PC with Pentium II 350MHz, 64MB RAM, 8GB HDD, 8MB ATI Rage Graphics Card, Aureal Sound Card, 32x CD-ROM, 3.5" Floppy Drive and ran Windows 98
TRS 80, a very long time ago.
All you got was a keyboard with built in 16meg of memory, cost me £399 to buy.
Data input was by a seperate casstte recorder that at the time was about £50.
Oh and you had to use your own TV as a display.
Progarms, inported from the states.
First flight smimulator I ever had had a mono crome display that looked a bit like this:-
TRS 80, a very long time ago.
All you got was a keyboard with built in 16meg of memory, cost me £399 to buy.
Data input was by a seperate casstte recorder that at the time was about £50. Oh and you had to use your own TV as a display.
Progarms, inported from the states.
My TRS80 Model I had its own monitor IIRC it did not have the standard aerial connector it had a din plug.
My first PC was a very strange NCR 286, it was a very thin rectangular box that split into 2 half's ??
It had an EGA screen (Green), 20MB Hard disk that sounded horrific & squeaked like mad the more it filled up and a 720K floppy disk drive, which I later upgraded to 1.4MB.
It had a ESDI hard disk controller i believe.
Running Windows 3.0 Loved it, I also remember getting my first CD-ROM drive, it was a 1 x speed and had it's own controller card, it was a SLOW as hell to load anything up.
I joined the fledgling IBM PC division in early 1984, not long after the PC was first released in Europe. My desk computer was a PC-1 with 16K RAM, 5.25" 360K floppy drive, DOS 1.1, IRMA 3270-emulator card and a monochrome display.
TRS 80, a very long time ago.
All you got was a keyboard with built in 16meg of memory, cost me £399 to buy.
I doubt it, the original came with 4K of memory but presumably yours was the next model that came with 16K. The Z80 it came with could only address 64K though I did use industrial versions (well same instruction set) that had address banking to expand it to 1M (though it crawled in expanded mode).
Okay since everyone seems to be recounting the first computer rather than the first PC mine was a homebrew MC6800 (Motorola microprocessor) that I wire wrapped and had 256 bytes of RAM with around 28 switches for program entry, the display was 8 LEDS (binary LEDS not 7 segment).
I dare anyone to come up with anything more primitive - just using a 4040 instead of a 6800 doesn't count:D. I did of course rapidly upgrade that to having an EPROM and hex key input and display. It was actually more fun in those days:(.
Okay since everyone seems to be recounting the first computer rather than the first PC mine was a homebrew MC6800 (Motorola microprocessor) that I wire wrapped and had 256 bytes of RAM with around 28 switches for program entry, the display was 8 LEDS (binary LEDS not 7 segment).
I dare anyone to come up with anything more primitive - just using a 4040 instead of a 6800 doesn't count:D. I did of course rapidly upgrade that to having an EPROM and hex key input and display. It was actually more fun in those days:(.
PC = Personal Computer, so every one in this thread is giving details of their first computers :eek: :cool:
PC = Personal Computer, so every one in this thread is giving details of their first computers :eek: :cool:
yes, a fact many seem to gloss over --- macs, tablets, windows machines, all the older compact computers you've ever seen (& even smartphones) are forms of PC
In my parents attic they have one of those Commodore CBM jobs with an external cassette recorder (no hard disks or floppy drive) . My dad had made some games and I remember they took forever to load whilst you sat watching a green cursor.
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On a side note can anyone recommend the best way I can transfer Win95, or even 98 setup files from an XP box to a laptop running MS-DOS with Win3.1? The system has a floppy disk drive but no CD-ROM or ethernet. I'm guessing serial cable but I'd have no idea how to go about that in DOS or 3.1.
PC = Personal Computer, so every one in this thread is giving details of their first computers :eek: :cool:
PC has always been used as shorthand for IBM PC compatibles and their successors, hence the title of this forum "PC & Mac Hardware and Software". Yes an abbreviation of personal computer is PC but that is not the general usage and hasn't been since the IBM PC came out.
If the thread title had been "First personal computer" then you would have a point. I don't see why you should be confused over my post, you would appear to see it as an excuse to nitpick rather than actually be confused by it.
First, a Commodore 64. Mostly used for games, had the odd piece of non-game software.
First proper PC, was an 8086/8088 clone, can't recall the brand now. It had a 5MB HDD (that was bigger & heavier than your average DVD drive today), 640KB RAM & Hercules Monochrome Graphics card. Ran MS-DOS 3.22 and had Microsoft Works installed, attached to a 10" Monochrome monitor.
I later upgraded the OS to DOS 5.1 (later 6.22, which slowed booting a bit) and installed GEM Desktop (version 3.13) to finally have a GUI. It was also able to run many DOS games requiring CGA monitors, with the usage of a software-based CGA emulator.
Also remember using DoubleSpace (later renamed DriveSpace) to increase the HDD capacity via compression.
I could only ever access 638KB of the available RAM, as the HDD boot sector was infected with the Stoned Virus. It certainly lived up to it's name, as the virus never actually did anything, except infect Floppy Disks. It did wreak havoc on my friend's Amstrad PC though, with the HDD often disappearing. I never did manage to get the famous boot message "Your PC is now Stoned!" though.
I still have the original HDD and HDD controller card, as well as the original Motherboard. The RAM chips & ROM chip are either in bad condition, or missing, however. I also still have the Hercules Monochrome Graphics card & Monochrome monitor. Last time I checked (a few years back), both still worked! Was amusing modifying settings to get Windows 95 running in Monochrome on a 486.
PC has always been used as shorthand for IBM PC compatibles and their successors, hence the title of this forum "PC & Mac Hardware and Software". Yes an abbreviation of personal computer is PC but that is not the general usage and hasn't been since the IBM PC came out.
If the thread title had been "First personal computer" then you would have a point. I don't see why you should be confused over my post, you would appear to see it as an excuse to nitpick rather than actually be confused by it.
The fact so many people are posting their first personal computer, you are wrong.
Comments
I think it was technically a 086 from what I remember (if such a thing actually existed)
Wow someone actually used Windows 2? :eek:
I later added a swanky 3.5 inch drive and a 25Mb hard disk.
C128
Atari ST
Amiga 500
Amiga 1000
486 DX33 followed by an endless cycle of upgrades.
August 1998 we got a Advent 8575 PC with Pentium II 350MHz, 64MB RAM, 8GB HDD, 8MB ATI Rage Graphics Card, Aureal Sound Card, 32x CD-ROM, 3.5" Floppy Drive and ran Windows 98
All you got was a keyboard with built in 16meg of memory, cost me £399 to buy.
Data input was by a seperate casstte recorder that at the time was about £50.
Oh and you had to use your own TV as a display.
Progarms, inported from the states.
First flight smimulator I ever had had a mono crome display that looked a bit like this:-
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My TRS80 Model I had its own monitor IIRC it did not have the standard aerial connector it had a din plug.
It had an EGA screen (Green), 20MB Hard disk that sounded horrific & squeaked like mad the more it filled up and a 720K floppy disk drive, which I later upgraded to 1.4MB.
It had a ESDI hard disk controller i believe.
Running Windows 3.0 Loved it, I also remember getting my first CD-ROM drive, it was a 1 x speed and had it's own controller card, it was a SLOW as hell to load anything up.
I joined the fledgling IBM PC division in early 1984, not long after the PC was first released in Europe. My desk computer was a PC-1 with 16K RAM, 5.25" 360K floppy drive, DOS 1.1, IRMA 3270-emulator card and a monochrome display.
I doubt it, the original came with 4K of memory but presumably yours was the next model that came with 16K. The Z80 it came with could only address 64K though I did use industrial versions (well same instruction set) that had address banking to expand it to 1M (though it crawled in expanded mode).
I dare anyone to come up with anything more primitive - just using a 4040 instead of a 6800 doesn't count:D. I did of course rapidly upgrade that to having an EPROM and hex key input and display. It was actually more fun in those days:(.
PC = Personal Computer, so every one in this thread is giving details of their first computers
Yup, I've still got the floppy discs somewhere. Might have to install it on a VM when I get home now...
Windows 3.11 was king though :cool:
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On a side note can anyone recommend the best way I can transfer Win95, or even 98 setup files from an XP box to a laptop running MS-DOS with Win3.1? The system has a floppy disk drive but no CD-ROM or ethernet. I'm guessing serial cable but I'd have no idea how to go about that in DOS or 3.1.
PC has always been used as shorthand for IBM PC compatibles and their successors, hence the title of this forum "PC & Mac Hardware and Software". Yes an abbreviation of personal computer is PC but that is not the general usage and hasn't been since the IBM PC came out.
If the thread title had been "First personal computer" then you would have a point. I don't see why you should be confused over my post, you would appear to see it as an excuse to nitpick rather than actually be confused by it.
I have an Acorn RISC PC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risc_PC) in my cupboard and it has an ARM processor and runs RISCOS.
I can't remember the specific model, but it looked remarkably similiar to this http://www.recycledgoods.com/zoom.aspx?productID=22731
First proper PC, was an 8086/8088 clone, can't recall the brand now. It had a 5MB HDD (that was bigger & heavier than your average DVD drive today), 640KB RAM & Hercules Monochrome Graphics card. Ran MS-DOS 3.22 and had Microsoft Works installed, attached to a 10" Monochrome monitor.
I later upgraded the OS to DOS 5.1 (later 6.22, which slowed booting a bit) and installed GEM Desktop (version 3.13) to finally have a GUI. It was also able to run many DOS games requiring CGA monitors, with the usage of a software-based CGA emulator.
Also remember using DoubleSpace (later renamed DriveSpace) to increase the HDD capacity via compression.
I could only ever access 638KB of the available RAM, as the HDD boot sector was infected with the Stoned Virus. It certainly lived up to it's name, as the virus never actually did anything, except infect Floppy Disks. It did wreak havoc on my friend's Amstrad PC though, with the HDD often disappearing. I never did manage to get the famous boot message "Your PC is now Stoned!" though.
I still have the original HDD and HDD controller card, as well as the original Motherboard. The RAM chips & ROM chip are either in bad condition, or missing, however. I also still have the Hercules Monochrome Graphics card & Monochrome monitor. Last time I checked (a few years back), both still worked! Was amusing modifying settings to get Windows 95 running in Monochrome on a 486.
I'm the same time wise as regarding PCs, but i can not for the life of me remember what it was.
Before that i had something far superior, an Amiga!
Before that was an Amstrad CPC 464.
The fact so many people are posting their first personal computer, you are wrong.