[Ernest]

My first computer was a Commodore vic-20. That was back in the 80's so you young people probably don't know what I'm talking about. :lol
It was a keyboard you hooked up to the tv. You had to load the programs with a cassette recorder. Some of you may not even know what that is! The only game I had for it was all text. No graphics. It would type a sentence such as "You are in the living room. You see a box." Then you would have to type something like "Open the box." And it would tell you what was in the box, etc.

My next computer was a Commodore-64. I thought that was the neatest thing since sliced bread! It had graphics and pretty good games. Anyone ever heard of M.U.L.E.? That was my favorite game.

Then I got a Tandy from Radio Shack. It cost $1000.00 and you couldn't upgrade it. That was back when computers became obsolete within several months.

My next computer was a Packard Bell. I used it mostly for games, but it finally died in the late 90's so I bought a Playstation. Then I went to GameCube. I got so aggravated at some of the games that I quit playing them altogether. Then I decided I wanted another computer so I bought a reconditioned one at a local store. I got dialup internet service and it worked ok for a while, but then I got some really nasty spyware on my computer. I got a recovery disk from a local dealer, but that computer never was the same. The recovery disk deleted my modem drivers, and I never could get it to work right again. I bought another reconditioned computer from the same store and it worked all right for a while, but then I started having problems with the phone line. It kept saying the phone line was in use. I finally managed to get connected with Dell, set up an account, and order a new computer.

I bought a Dell Dimension 4700. Then I got broadband from the cable company, and I'm finally happy.

 

[David1976]

I had a A Tandy 1000 HX which didn't have a hard drive but came with a 3.5" disk drive! Then I went without a computer until I got a Power Mac 7100/66 for college... which rocked by the way...then my brother got the second generation slot loading imac... and then I got a dell 4300 and that is what I have now.

 

[Amande]

We've had the same computer (a Compaq) for 8 years now. What's that, 80, in computer years? :lol It's slowly dying. Hopefully I'll be able to afford a new one.

 

[lauren]

i can't remember who made the first one but it was ancient! after that we got a Dell :x and the last two we built.

I'll probably build new one next year.

 

[glittergaze]

We had a Gateway for a while, but we have a Compaq right now. It's only a few months old, so hopefully it'll last a long time.

Ernest, my sister used to have a Tandy from RadioShack too. The last I knew, it was still sitting at my parents house collecting dust because it hasn't been touched in years.

I remember hearing about the Commodore 64 when I was younger, but I don't remember the Commodore vic-20.

 

[Lonelyguy]

I used to have a Tandy that I got for free from my church. They updated their computer equipment and gave it to my parents. I couldn't do much with it, it had a whopping 8 mhz processor and no modem or mouse but it did have a 3.5" floppy drive. I don't remember the model but it was new around 1987. I remember using the old Apple IIE back in elementary school. Those things are like a dinosaur compared to today. Our first real computer was a Dell Dimension 4100 that my parents bought in January 2001. They still use it but Windows Me is a nightmare for them. Last fall I bought my own, a Dell Dimension 2400 with an 80 gb hard drive and 512 ram. Its a basic entry level model but plenty sufficient for what I need.

 

[Kardax]

I've had a TRS 80, an IBM 8088-based machine, a Packard Bell 486. I have a semi-old Alienware machine in the closet.

Most of my computers I built for myself, including the "silent-PC" that's my primary machine at home.

-Ryan

 

[soma]

I bought a PII 600 for a little over $100 on eBay when I was a sophomore in high school. That was when I started getting geeky. After the PII, I built my own system (the one I use to this day and plan to use for at least a couple more years.).

AMD 2600
Radeon 9800 PRO
768mb PC2700

Very modest specs, but because I reformat it ... every other month or so, it's still running like a champ.

 

[ghostgurl]

The first computer was a packard. It lasted quite a while, but we got rid of it now. Then we got a dell. I think we got it in 1998. It's now my computer. The one I'm on right now is an HP Pavillion and it sucks. We got it in 2001 I think. The newest one is a dell. It's strictly a gaming computer and I think we got it last year.

 

[Woody]

My first computer was a Radio Shack Model 1 with a blazing fast 1mhz 8bit Z80 processor and a whopping 16k of ram. I remember the command prompt they used was: READY> All programs were saved and loaded using a cassette recorder. My second computer was a Tandy Model 3. It still had the Z80 processor but it had 64k ram and 2 disk drives. My third computer was a Tandy Model 100 which had an LCD display. I think this may have been the first laptop computer but I'm not sure. After that I can't really remember. I've had a lot of computers. I still have the Tandy Model 3 by the way, and it still works, and it has never locked up.

 

[copper]

The first computer I ever had was a Commodore 64. I had it hooked up to a 19 inch color tv. A year later my father purchased a 5.25 floppy drive for it with the Reagan tax cut of $300 in 1984. I used it until my Junior year in college. I bought a color printer for it, and an operating system called Geos(Graphical Enviorment Operating System) similar to the old Machintosh interface. I then got a pc. It was a custom built system. Nothing fancy, it was just for college work. It had 4 megs of ram, 386 40 mhz processor, and 80 meg hard drive. It had Microsoft Windows 3.1.[/code]

 

[Amocholes]

My 1st computer was a Timex-Sinclair 1000. About 9" square with a bubble membrane keyboard on the top surface. It had 2k of ram and hooked up to a Black & White TV. I had to type in all the programs by hand so I learned to program in basic.

2nd was a Commodore 64.
3rd - Commodore 128.
4th - 386sx 16 mhz

Several inbetween but I ordered a new Dell today.

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

I started out in 1978 with a "Vector Graphics" machine. It had a SCREAMING 4MZ Z80 (which was extra money) and VERY VERY expensive STATIC memory boards. Those suckers would get TOO hot to touch in about 15 seconds if you pulled the cover and no air would flow over the chips. I only had one 8" floppy disk drive and 32 KB of memory. It was a super pain to copy files from one disk to the other, using CP/M. I build a "S100 to TRS80" bus converter so I could use the TRS80 voice synth module with my S100 computer. It worked fine. My mom freaked out when she came home to a talking computer.

After that, a 1991 386 50MZ (double clocked deal, was really a 25 MZ) from Gateway. Gateway is a full sized tower and is still working right now. It has it's 4th motherboard inside, board is not full sized so I have some dental floss holding the card in place :cig .

It's been 3 Compaqs since then. 1996 233MZ PII, 1998 400 MZ AMD and now a 3045US laptop (2.4 GHZ Pent4).

I DON'T MISS those $300 phone bills from calling BBSes all over the country with my 300 Baud acoustic coupler modem.

 

[donniedarko]

My brother had a Vic 20 with the tape deck when I was a kid--that was my intro to computers. I rememeber a text game like Earnest describes plus Gorf, which was pretty decent.

My 1st was a C-64. We used to trade copied games in middle school. I rememeber my friend's dad giving up poker tips so we could beat Strip Poker.

My 1st PC was in 2001. It was by ABS computers--a mutt system. It just died on me last friday.

My new system is an HP Pavillion. It has a P4, 512MB Ram, DVDR with lightscribe, 200G HD, and a flat panel. I think I got a steal for only $700 but I could be wrong.

 

[Winston Smith]

My first computer was a Commodore 64/128, which I had since I was about 2 or 3 years old. It was a blast. After that, when I was about 9 or 10, my dad brought home a 286/8 from work. It was AWESOME! I used to play Hero Quest for hours on that old thing. My dad had to bring the 286 back to work, so he bought us one. After that, in a couple of years, we got a 486DX2/16. I forget the progression after that, as those 3 seemed the most revolutionary. It wasn't too long before we started building our own. Now, I own an Athlon XP 3200 (2.4 Ghz).

 

[WinterDave]

Atari 800
Atari 800XL
Commodore 64
Commodore 128
Centrix 386
Hewlett Packard PII
Dell Dimension 8100
Monarch Custom Built AMD3400

I remember The Timex Sinclair and the TRS80....I loved the game MULE...
Used an Apple II in High School....The Atari had a much better DOS than the C64...Raid on Bungling Bay was a really fun game....As were the Infocom text adventures....I liked computer games better before they had 200 page manuals, programmable joystic buttons and keys, graphics card settings etc...Star Raiders for the Atari 800 was pretty cool....My first computer came with a Tape Recorder too....Try loading a game by tape recorder....SLOW.....

 

[SebFontain]

This is my first computer I have ever owned on my own. It is an Emachine laptop. The sucker is fassssssst as hell! I cant wait to upgrade it to a gig of memory and get a phat graphics card.