Very first computer owned

[dalesys]

The first computer I owned, circa 1975. A National Semiconductor SC/MP Kit & Kaboodle.
1K ROM, 256 bytes RAM. No battery, pre flash memory, so it forgot all programs when powered down. I/O using a calculator keyboard and 7-segment display.
Kind of a naked tablet.

[Bright_Star]

Commodore 64 with a cassette drive. I bought it in early 1985 for $135!!

[AdamAnt316]

My family's first computer was an Apple IIe with two Disk II 5.25" disk drives, Apple green-screen monitor, and an Apple dot-matrix printer. The whole kit-and-kaboodle was handed down to us by a relative in the early '90s, along with an Apple II+ (which became my father's computer, though I don't think he used it for much besides Brick-Out). It was fairly obsolete even then, but IIes were still being used at my elementary school at the time, so it came in handy. Still have it, though I installed UniDisk drives in place of the old Disk IIs, and replaced the green-screen monitor with an Apple color one.
-Adam

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Commodore 64C, along w/the OkiMate OkiData 20 printer (which required the Commodore style printer interface,) a 1541-II floppy drive and a 13 inch Maganovox amber monochrome monitor, all came from Service Merchandise. Also had the 1200 baud modem (got that later for Christmas.)

Played Odell Lake until I knew it by heart and used the GeoWrite software until I wore out the first set of discs and had to purchase an off the shelf copy of GEOS 2.0 software.

Many good hours were spent writing stories on that old thing.

[Pixelated]

An Apple "Blueberry." And when I moved back to My Hometown, I couldn't fit it in my car, so had to send it for recycling.

Wish I had booted it up one last time, just to see what was on it. Also wish I'd thought to take all the electronics out and make a kitty bed out of it.

Okay, frankly, I just wish I'd found a way to keep it.

[AdamAnt316]

Commodore 64C, along w/the OkiMate OkiData 20 printer (which required the Commodore style printer interface,) a 1541-II floppy drive and a 13 inch Maganovox amber monochrome monitor, all came from Service Merchandise. Also had the 1200 baud modem (got that later for Christmas.)

Played Odell Lake until I knew it by heart and used the GeoWrite software until I wore out the first set of discs and had to purchase an off the shelf copy of GEOS 2.0 software.

Many good hours were spent writing stories on that old thing.

Yeah, GEOS was great software. I had GEOS 2.0 for both the C=64 and C=128 thanks to a friend of mine. Did you have the proper 1351 mouse to use with it? I had that, plus a RAM Expander Unit which acted like a virtual disk drive. Once I copied the contents of my data disk to that, geoWrite and geoPaint launched within seconds. Just had to remember to copy any newly-created files to a real disk before shutting down, of course...

An Apple "Blueberry." And when I moved back to My Hometown, I couldn't fit it in my car, so had to send it for recycling.

Wish I had booted it up one last time, just to see what was on it. Also wish I'd thought to take all the electronics out and make a kitty bed out of it.

Okay, frankly, I just wish I'd found a way to keep it.

That's a shame. I used to have a lime iMac which was pretty fun. Eventually ended up selling it to someone who wanted it for their kid. Kinda wish I still had it, though I do have one of the later iMac G4s with the swiveling LCD screen.
-Adam

[Lachrymose]

Texas Instruments TI-99/4A..I think we got it around 1984, when I was 6 or so.

[Racket_Man]

bought in 1983 and had to take out a loan to get it

Apple][+ 64k with Z-80 add-in processor board with CP/M
2 5/14 floppy drivers
green screen
Epson MX-80 dot matrix printer (still have it somewhere)

[EricKei]

Trash-- er, TRS-80 Color Computer. Learned BASIC on it.

Then a TI-99/4a with a cassette drive (!)

Then a C=64 (M.U.L.E. liiiiives! All of the Gold Box games, too. And Raid Over Moscow. And Pitfall II....Thank Jeebus for the FastLoad cartridge!)

A few years later, circa 1990, I inherited an obsolete AMSTRAD 512K. OS was GEM DOS. (Hey! It ran Hillsfar, at least!). It even had the original up-sell brochure, where they offered...I think...a 40MB hard drive for the low, low price of only $1,500.

Then I got a 486 DX/99 and never looked back.

[TheSHAD0W]

IBM PC 5150, with the motherboard maxed out at 64K and TWO 160K floppy drives! Also had the monochrome display and the dot matrix printer.

[AdamAnt316]

Trash-- er, TRS-80 Color Computer. Learned BASIC on it.

Then a TI-99/4a with a cassette drive (!)

Then a C=64 (M.U.L.E. liiiiives! All of the Gold Box games, too. And Raid Over Moscow. And Pitfall II....Thank Jeebus for the FastLoad cartridge!)

A few years later, circa 1990, I inherited an obsolete AMSTRAD 512K. OS was GEM DOS. (Hey! It ran Hillsfar, at least!). It even had the original up-sell brochure, where they offered...I think...a 40MB hard drive for the low, low price of only $1,500.

Then I got a 486 DX/99 and never looked back.

The TRaSh-80 Color Computers worked nicely for BASIC programming. I had a CoCo 2, which I spent many an hour punching simple programs into, using the cassette drive to play music tapes through the TV speaker using a couple of special commands. Eventually acquired examples of the CoCo 1 and 3, as well as several other members of the TRaSh-80 series.

Using a cassette recorder with the TI-99/4A for program storage was pretty common, actually. About the only way to add a disk drive to one was the Peripheral Expansion Box, which often cost more than the computer did. I recently acquired an example of one, and it's rather awkward to use thanks to the goofy 'sidecar' connector.

The Commodore 64 was a fun machine. Had lots of fun playing Hacker, Red Storm Rising, Impossible Mission, and many others. Have also acquired several Commodore 128s, as well as some Amigas.

I have yet to find anything that Amstrad made. The CPC series was popular in the UK, using cassettes or a wacky 3" (NOT 3.5") disk drive. I know some of their gear was sold in the US, but it wasn't as widespread as Timex-Sinclair computers. The Atari ST machines ran GEM as well, BTW.

A 486DX-33 miditower (remember those?) was our first PC-compatible. Ran Windows 95, and had a cavernous 1GB hard drive. Pretty nice box, though the power supply eventually went flaky.

IBM PC 5150, with the motherboard maxed out at 64K and TWO 160K floppy drives! Also had the monochrome display and the dot matrix printer.

Did you use a cassette recorder with yours? not many did, but the option was there...
-Adam
"640K ought to be enough for anybody....."

[protege]

Texas Instruments TI-99/4A

I had one of those! It's still around somewhere, along with its software. No idea if it still works, or will even interface with the much-newer TV. It was OK for playing games, but not so much for programming. The included cassette player seemed to have a mind of its own, so I couldn't save whatever I'd typed in

First "real" computer after that, not including the Xerox CP/M machines at my dad's office, was an Apple III that he'd picked up for some reason. All of those machines cost more than a new car then

Then came a 486/33 SX in '94. That ran Windows 3.1, had 4MB RAM...and consumed many hours of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D

[mathnerd]

I honestly can't remember. I recall having a computer of some sort before I started kindergarten, which was in 1980. How long before, I don't know, and what it was I don't have the first clue.

[Dreamstalker]

All I recall of our first computer is that it was a 486 tower, and it had the 'turbo' switch and a physical tubular lock near the power button. Not sure what that was used for (maybe an early form of parental control to lock out the power button?).

[AdamAnt316]

I honestly can't remember. I recall having a computer of some sort before I started kindergarten, which was in 1980. How long before, I don't know, and what it was I don't have the first clue.

You could always try the by-year lists on this page, or this page. The most popular computers in the pre-PC era were the Apple II, the Commodore PET, and the TRS-80.

All I recall of our first computer is that it was a 486 tower, and it had the 'turbo' switch and a physical tubular lock near the power button. Not sure what that was used for (maybe an early form of parental control to lock out the power button?).

The key switch was generally hooked to some pins on the motherboard, and would stop the computer from booting if it was locked, throwing a BIOS error during the initial text-only screens as the computer was started up. I had a 386SX-25 tower which had such a set of keys, but never really needed 'em, and I don't think they typically were used too often on any computers, but who knows.
-Adam