First computer

[xelasnave]

For me was a Tandy 16k tape feed....just thought back about those days..

[cometcatcher]

Dick Smith System 80 for me which is a clone of yours.

[Larryp]

Texas Instruments TI-99-4A. With a tape recorder

[pluto]

My dad had an Exidy Sorcerer when I was born so that would've been the first I used. But my first, as in it was in my room when I was 7 or 8, was an IBM AT complete with an amber monochrome monitor :D

[torana68]

too long ago to remember, I started by making paper tape programs and running them on (I think it was) the ANU's computer, first PC owned by me was probbaly something like a 286?

edit, might have been punched cards, I do remember the computer was HUGE!

[cometcatcher]

The things we could do with 16K. Flight Simulator 1 was a "3D" combat flight simulator with mountains and runways. The enemy plane was 1 pixel lol. Used to spend hours on that game. The tape took 3 minutes to load the program!

[Shano592]

Green-screened Microbee, with a tape recorder. Mine had a massive 32k of RAM!

I upgraded that to a 256k system, with a 3.5" floppy disk drive. I still have it too!

[mithrandir]

First one used - Sharp programmable calculator at a summer job.
First computer - IBM1460 with punched cards.
First one I owned - HP47 programmable calculator.
First desktop - Apple IIe with DuoDrive.

[AndrewJ]

Used to dream of that sort of RAM
I had a Sharp PC1500 ( still do and it still runs )
Basic unit had 2k ram
The "add on" 8k ram was 60% the price of the unit
( 127$ in 1983 dollars :-( )
Andrew

[acropolite]

DSE System 80 16K, I upgraded mine to 48K by soldering a couple of extra layers of ram on top and connecting up a couple of extra addressing pins. Those were the days, it was either Basic or Assembler language if you wanted to tinker.

[wayne anderson]

My first computer was a Tandy TRS 80 model 1 it had a whopping 4kb ram z80 processor running at a fast 1.7mhz it had black and white TV monitor no sound and a cassette tape deck drive, you had to spend 100s of hours inputting basic 1 computer language commands onto the tape just to get a simple paddle tennis game. I really Dont miss those days.

[julianh72]

I built my first computer in early 1979 from a kit - as in, I soldered all of the components onto the motherboard, hacked a cassette tape player as the storage drive, and hacked a B&W TV to be able to use it as a monitor. (TVs didn't have HDMI / VGA plugs in those days!) The kit cost me well over $1,000 (in 1979 dollars).

It used a Z80 processor, and I splurged on the RAM to get the "huge" 16 kB upgrade instead of the basic 8 kB RAM. (That's KILObytes of RAM, not megabytes or gigabytes!)

The first time you booted it, you had to laboriously enter a bootstrap program in binary machine code, line-by-line, by flicking 16 switches on the front panel, load the 16 bits into RAM, then repeat until you had loaded all of the initialisation commands. Get any one of those 16-bit commands wrong, and you had to power down and repeat until you got a successful boot. Then the first thing you did was write the bootstrap code to a cassette tape, so that you could reboot from the cassette drive.

At this point, you could use the keyboard (also soldered from a bag full of components), but there was no Disk Operating System or programming interface as we think of it today - the only way of issuing commands was in machine language, so the next thing you did was to set about loading a BASIC Interpreter using line-by-line machine-language entry from the keyboard. This took MUCH longer than loading the bootstrap program the first time, but at least you could now save your work progressively onto tape, and pick up from where you left off. From memory, it took me a couple of weeks from first boot before I could actually USE it for something!

I then wrote a structural analysis program in BASIC from scratch (using the theory I had learnt in 3rd-year university), and used it during my final year of studying Engineering at university.

[omegacrux]

An Amiga500
i thought the games were great
then dad got an Amiga1200 I was jealous
now my mobile makes those look prehistoric !

David

[Monstar]

Mine was the A1200, no memory everything ran from floppies. It had a great paint program that came with it and a word processor. Had games like Monkey Island and every time you went from one screen to another you had to use a different floppy.

The first games console was Sega Mega Drive to which I added the CD drive.

[xelasnave]

I remember one at the museum in harris st ultimo.
You played it 0s and crosses
I installed the trs at the office and started a little days base but folk didn't know or had not seen a computer so it was a good talking point and helped sales really.
I think I was the first to do a presentation folder in real estate ..I could deliver pages of personally typed stuff in so far as each page had name and address ...but it got me so many listings being more professional...hang on that was with an osborne little screen ...

[xelasnave]

Duplicate post deleted

[multiweb]

Commodore vic 20

[dannat]

C64

[xelasnave]

I remember one at the museum in harris st ultimo.
You played it 0s and crosses
I installed the trs at the office and started a little days base but folk didn't know or had not seen a computer so it was a good talking point and helped sales really.
I think I was the first to do a presentation folder in real estate ..I could deliver pages of personally typed stuff in so far as each page had name and address ...but it got me so many listings being more professional...hang on that was with an osborne little screen ...

[Bassnut]

Zx80, then Zx81,THEY started the revolution, much later, a VIc 20. Made memory expansion boards for all three and sold dozens :-). Then the 64 came out and that was the end of the beginning.

[Shiraz]

Like Fred, ZX81 (kit imported from UK before they were available here) - modified the RF coil to suit and designed and built a RAM upgrade card to get from 1k to 5k of ram (bit hazy now, but I think that the video display pinched a bit of the 1k RAM, so it was a bit tight as supplied). Magic - light years ahead of a Marchant.

[Glenhuon]

First one I had a play with was my mates Sinclair Z80. Later bought a C64 (for the kids ;) ), with tape drive for loading games, spent hours writing programs in basic, even had one used by the local special school to teach the kids arithmetic. Next one was a 286 "portable" 2 x 3 1/4" floppies, weighed about the same as a middy tower Pentium. :)

[TrevorW]

Trash 80 for me

[RickS]

The first computer I used was a DEC PDP-10. First one I owned was a 386 PC. Wasn't much point in buying a toy micro in between when I was used to big iron :)

I did spend quite a lot of time disassembling, reverse engineering and rewriting the "OS" on Tandy TRS80s and Exidy Sorcerers but I got paid for that...

[sheeny]

Mine was a 32k MicroBee, with a cassette drive, which I later upgraded to a 64k "Chook in a Book", which, like Shane I still have! ;o)

I used to be a member of SMUG (Sydney MicroBee User's Group) and NMUG (Newcastle MicroBee User's Group). We're you in either of those Shane?

Al.

[grasshopper]

As an 80's child, I remember our Commodore 64 as being our first. Loved Summer/Winter games! :) I have some C64 floppy disks that have content on that I have not seen and would love to find out what is on them but have not come across a functional C64.

There is a pretty neat exhibition at ACMI at Fed Square that showcases some old computers/consoles - it encouraged me to whip out the old Original NES!
https://www.acmi.net.au/exhibitions/screen-worlds/

[gary]

I was lucky to own a programmable HP-25 calculator in 1975.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-25

However, the first real computer I owned was a Motorola D2 Kit in 1976.

It was an evaluation board that Motorola had introduced for its 6800 microprocessor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_6800)
and came with 128 bytes of static RAM (yes, that's bytes) and 1KB of EPROM.
The CPU could run at 1MHz but from memory was clocked at 512KHz.

It came in a large folder along with documentation :-
http://allardschaap.woelmuis.nl/computermuseumgroningen/motorola/6800map.jpg

You soldered it together yourself and it included seven segment LEDs,
a keypad and a cassette interface running the Kansas City Standard.

You programmed in machine code in hexadecimal and I spent countless
hours creating programs and punching them in. What simultaneously got
programmed was my own brain as I can still cite many of the
6800 opcodes off-by-heart. 0x86 - Load A immediate,
0x7E - Jump extended, 0xCE load index register and so on. As useless
as still remembering your very first phone number. :lol:

Anyway, this computer had a profound impact and a little over a decade
later I found myself sitting in Silicon Valley in front of much more powerful
graphic workstations creating the test vectors for my first custom
integrated circuit.

The coolest computers I ever owned, which incidentally ran incredibly hot, were
a couple of Apollo DN1000 Personal Supercomputers.
See http://jim.rees.org/apollo-archive/marketing/Apollo_Series_10000_Brochure_Jul88. pdf

This same model computer was in use at CERN alongside their Crays.

64-bit RISC multi-processors with fabulous graphics. About 1000 were
made.

One of the oddest computers I ever worked with was the Intel iAPX 432.
It was Intel's first 32-bit architecture and were originally meant to
be the architecture that was to follow the 8008 and 8080.

The chipset included some of the largest integrated circuits ever designed
up to that time and only a very small number were ever made.

The instruction set was variable length and somewhat incredibly, bit
aligned.

Instructions could range from 6 bits to 361 bits long.

However, the programming language of choice for them was Ada.

Suffice to say they ran very slowly.

They were sufficiently complex to understand that the Intel
engineering documentation often resorted to using comic strips
to help succinctly convey some of the more subtle concepts.

Our primary research focus with them was fault tolerant computing.

A team at NASA who were also studying them for possible use on a then
future space station made up a significant part of a tiny user group.

[Peter Ward]

IBM 1130.....I but it wasn't mine. The guys at IBM let me play with it after school in 1972. Used to write program's in Pascal.

The first one I owned was an Amiga 1000.

[RickS]

The DN10000s were serious beasts, Gary. I was working for Apollo when they were released.

[astronobob]

was a late entry into puutas, I worked in the building/concrete circles, most technical equipment I had during the turn of the century was an Electric Ciggerete lighter, (Bic) :rofl:
think early 2000'ishwas my 1st puuta, hence , an acer desktop, with 40gig harddrive, not sure how much ramm, prop 1/2 gig or 256k ?
Spent like 6-9 months getting my head around Windows :screwy:

[cometcatcher]

No one has mentioned the Tandy COCO's yet? I had the colour 16K version from 1982 onwards. Upgraded it to 64K. Had so much fun with that thing.

Took a break from computers in the mid - late 80's and then in 1992 bought a 386SX with 2 meg of RAM and a 40 meg hard drive. Cost me about $1800! The main reason for buying was to get into digital astrophotography. I had Richard Berry's book that came with a 5" floppy full of images taken with an ST-4. It was all downhill from there lol.

[RobF]

First computer used was a PDP at the local College/Uni - BASIC and paper cards.

First computer owned, the C64 - first with tape, then a floppy drive with 160K of memory (I think) :eyepop:
Couldn't believe it first time I saw Flight Simulator running on a 64k computer. Used to spend hours and hours writing 6502 assembly code for it and the sound chip.

[gary]

Hi Rick,

It's a small world! :)

We also used DN3000's, DN4000's, DN3500's and 425t's.

Still retain some as a collection.

Working with the Apollo's in the 80's and early 90's was arguably
one of the best and most productive computing environments I have
ever enjoyed.

The networking was integral to the operating system and as luck would
have it, network access speeds and disk access speeds in those days
were closely matched on these machines so when you had a network
of them, you had one big hierarchical file system that was pretty fast.

To this day I can't understand why we are stuck with SMB, AFS
and NFS. How could such second-rate networking architectures have won?

Plus the Display Manager and integrated text editor just kicked-ass.
Transcript pads that were effectively infinitely long. Really nicely
thought-out.

In collaborative engineering environments, they were amazingly productive.
We would run DSEE and when you would do a build it would use all the
machines on the network you had nominated to perform the compiles.

At three companies I worked for we used Mentor Graphics CAD
software on them.

At one company here in Sydney, I was assigned their first DN3000
along with about $120,000 of CAD software on it in the mid-1980's.
Though the company had about 400 employees, for a time I was the
only one using a mouse and a 19" colour graphics terminal.

It was such an eye-opening thing at the time that visitors
given the corporate tour would be shown it. It would be explained to them
that "this is called a mouse" and "this is a windowing system". :)

I recollect at the time going to a tradeshow with a colleague and Apple
had just released their very first Macintosh. We played with it briefly
and having been so spoilt by the Apollo workstations we turned and looked
at each other and involuntarily both burst out in laughter. :lol: It was
just a tiny tinker toy.

But fast forward to 2014 and Apple had the last laugh with the largest
market capitalization in the world. But despite that, I still look back at
the Apollo's and they had features sadly lacking in Mac OS X to this day.

Did you ever get to travel to the Apollo factory in Chelmsford?

[ZeroID]

First use - PDP 11e with paper tape inbut and basic.
First PC 386 AT with green screen.
Amiga 500 upgraded to 1000 !! with extra RAM.
486 or something.
By that stage work figured I was into it and I took over the SBD ( Special Business Division) Service team and trained on the first laser printers, Word processors and small computers that Xerox launched. I was already the national 'Faxpert' and supporting MemoryWriters, the first typewriters with processing power including disk drives and screens. Then launched the first Digital Printer\Copier\Scanners for the company followed by Electronic Documentation systems from USA and Japan with connected Diag SW to products.
A very practical PC path for me..
You can now understand why DIY is in my blood

[bojan]

ZX-81 (from UK)..
home built 16k memory (with static RAM chip)
Then, home built Apple][.. with home built Z80 card..

[RickS]

Gary,

Yes, Apollo had a remarkably good network operating system for the time with features that would still be advanced today. Alas, the best technical solutions don't always win in the market. Still, they would have been toast sooner or later unless they had done a major pivot. Nobody pays tens of thousands of dollars for a graphics workstation any more!

I didn't ever get over to Chelmsford, unfortunately.

Cheers,
Rick.

[graham.hobart]

The commodores, with the tape feed. I remember that annoying tennis game too. Also a tank battle game with very similar graphics to the tennis game!
I was given one of the earlier big old macs a few years ago and wish I had kept it but needed the room. Would have been a talking point.
My brother got one of those hand held space invader games for Christmas one year - very jealous of that (about the same time digital watches came out!!) Mind you he got all the cool pressies and we as younger brothers got the cast offs!!:bashcomp:

[pluto]

They certainly do!

My current workstation for the visual effects work I do was about $9k, I'll be upgrading pretty soon and the new one will come to around $10k - and that's just a linux box!
For my job it would be easy to spend ~$13K if you chose to work on a Mac.

A compositing workstation is much more if you include the cost of the drives and any video and audio processing/output hardware you need. We have a Smoke-on-Mac box here that was about $35K including software and drives etc. and a Flame box would start at around $80k.

I do however remember the SGI days when my O2 workstation cost about $150k and a Flame suite started at about $1 million.

[RickS]

That was possibly a slight exaggeration, but 95% of the applications that used to run on high-end workstations now work fine on a cheap laptop.