What was your first computer?

[Chief]

Timex Sinclair circa 1982

Gordon

[Arcusmedia]

Macintosh Classic!

[acymc]

Ditto _ Timex Sinclair Z81. I still have the huge 16 K expansion and keyboard with cables.

[darktiger]

Tandy 1000 or that Commodore 64....

[brewercm]

The chad from the old paper tape punch used to make the best confetti.

What was bad was when the military sent us to school we actually had to learn to read the tapes and cards manually.

[Gleep]

My first computer was a Tektronix that a friend bought when a local business upgraded the machines in their lab in 1987. I don't know the model number but it looked similar to a Tektronix 4025. It had a 25 line green CRT monitor mounted at the front of a metal case that was about four feet long. It weighed around fifty pounds and stored its data on a tape cartridge. It didn't come with any software so I had to write all of my own.

It was also very sensitive to temperature changes. I lived in an old house that had no AC and was nearly impossible to heat in the winter. As a result the computer wouldn't warm up enough to use in the winter and overheated in the summer.

[Nikonfan]

We were actually on the internet back in the 80's. It's so funny to think back about. Our modem had this receiver that you would place the handset to your actual phone on. CRAZY!

[Murph]

Yep, and I remember being excited at my first 1200 baud modem!

Originally Posted by Nikonfan

We were actually on the internet back in the 80's. It's so funny to think back about. Our modem had this receiver that you would place the handset to your actual phone on. CRAZY!

[Nocturnus]

ti 99/4a, then commodore 64, then commodore 128, then onto 8088 and beyond.

funny thing is quite a few years back I threw in a Amiga 500 in there.

[MHampton]

Originally Posted by Nocturnus

funny thing is quite a few years back I threw in a Amiga 500 in there.

I'm still mad at commodore for killing the Amiga. Had it stayed the course all media people would be using them now. It blew windows and mac/apple out of the water in its day. Along the way I had a 500 and a 3000. Still miss them.

[ka5txl]

Originally Posted by panhandler

Ti 99

That was mine as well followed by a radio shack trash 80 something or another, no hard drive but a powerfull 128k on board memory and TWO yes TWO 5.25 floppies

[stephenpinn]

Originally Posted by SJHester

I am feeling really old. My first work computer was an IBM system 360, first work micro was a vector graphics running CPM (the OS before DOS for Micros) first home system was an Altar I, yes i assembled it myself.

I had a VG as well! cost me $5k for a 5MB disk drive!!

[kenw]

Originally Posted by tc95

BUZZ...!!! WRONG...!!! The original floppy disk was created in the 1960's which was an 8" floppy disk...which became commercially available in the 70-71...by 1976-78 the 5 1/4 disks were introduced because they were easiser to carry and were not as fragile as the 8" disks...

Hope that helps out....

it was the early 80s before 5.25 became widely used in commercial equipment. They replaced 8" because while smaller, they could hold more data but the physical contruction was almost identical; both were 'floppy' unlike the later hardcased 3.5" diskettes. The 5.25 didn't take off until they could surpass the existing 8" in capacity, and IIRC that wasn't until they had a DSDD version to supplant the DSDD 8".

We built 8" drives from before I started in 1977 thru the mid 80s, at 1st they were single sided and single density, when we stopped making them we had taken them to double sided and double density (DSDD). Our drive was originally licensed from Shugart, but we reverse engineered around the patents and designed the double head version ourselves. The upper head mounting was particularly tricky.

At one point we had some issues with the upper gimbal-mounted head resonating and literally scraping the oxide off the discs. We came up with fix that involved .1 sqin pieces of latex as a dampener. I bought a single box of latex surgical gloves at the local drugstore and they were enough to rework 1000s of drives!

I can still remember when my boss showed me a Mitsubishi (or was it Matsush*ita?) 5.25 and we fully understood the sand was running out in the 8's hourglass (I was working in our Ft Worth factory, and I was there only in 1983-84, that's how I remember!). Until then I pretty much knew more about the manufacture of the 8" than anyone in the world outside Shugart. I decided then and there that being an expert was a fleeting proposition, and that being flexible was a better career path.

[SCone]

I have a Sony disk around the house somewhere that is about 16" square. Looks like a huge 3.5" floppy, but houses a optical disk.

[bargarbutt]

I remember that mine was an HP with a 500 megabyte hard drive.