Computers

amos hames

amos hames

Dedicated Member
In this Day of smartphones and I pads things are so advanced. Can anyone remember their first ever Computer or console. I seem to remember mine being a Commerdore VC 20. Then a Sinclair spectrum 48 k. A few games consoles right up to present day. What were everyones first Computer.
 
I Think my first was a Sinclair ZX81 and for a while I had the loan of a commodore pet
 
Early on my kids were given a radio shack (trs-80 ???) that
was just a bulky keyboard that plugged into a tv.

Our first real PC was an original IBM PC (no hard drive)
that cost some thousands back then.

Now we have some 6 or 8 desktops and 2 laptops
scattered about.
 
The first computer I seen was in 1979, I was a freshman in high school. A distant cousin was a math teacher, and he had the schools first Apple computer. All I seen was monitor and key board. I remember him turning it on, and I asked him what it was suppose to do!? Of course , all I seen was a cursor, and it was blinking on the small 13 inch monitor. Remember him saying computers were way of the furture!!
 
Mid 1980s I acquired an Amstrad PCW 8512. Used virtually exclusively for word processing - it included the Locoscript word processing program. I recall it had 3 inch floppies which were non-standard.

In 1990 I moved on to an Elonex 386 SX16 with Windows 3.0. I recall deliberating over whether to buy the cheaper but older 286 model - the 386 was relatively new to UK market. I recall that DOS was on two 720KB 3.5 inch diskettes and Windows 3 was on four 1.44MB diskettes. The machine also had the older 5 and 1/4 inch drive, long since gone, but they were real floppies.
 
The first one I owned was an IBM model that didn't catch on very well. Maybe an IBM PS/2, around 1989. The first personal computer I ever used, though, was an early Apple, at the public library, around 1981 or '82.

PCs were a revelation to me. I had been writing industrial process control programs for DEC PDP-8s for several years, and then accounting programs for various mainframes for a year after that. By the time I bought a PC for home use, I had moved on to writing library catalog and circulation programs that ran on a DEC mini.

Now I have a NexLink CPU running Windows 7 under my desk and an Acer flat-screen monitor in front of me. For input, I use a Fellowes natural keyboard and a Microsoft mouse. Very different from that early Apple with the monitor, CPU and keyboard all in one inflexible unit.

Marianna
 
The first computer I used was at work and I don't recall what it was except that the letters were all in green on a black screen. That was a recent upgrade from Exxon computers.
 
Oh jeez, I was thinking PERSONAL computers.

The first computer I ever used was an IBM Selectric
Typewriter terminal connected to an IBM 360 mainframe
Model 67 running TSS/360. The first (I think) computer
in the world to support more than one user at a time.
Was 1966, I think. The first Time Sharing System.
You typed in, and it typed out -- on a paper roll so you
could save your input and output!

Did not get a display screen till way later.

PCs came way way later.
 
My first computer was called an ADAM computer made by Coleco. It used cassette tapes for saving and games. I used to get personal computing magazine and they would have programs you could "write". I'd spend all day "writing" a program to simply watch a stick figure run across the screen or have a marque say "I Love Mom" scroll across the screen. If you missed one character, you'd get a syntax error message and you would have to go line by line to figure out what you messed up.


Wow, look how far we have come!!!! This is much better :)
 
Yes I remember the Dragon Amos,there was also the BBC branded computer but those were for the posh kids due to the price
 
Big Unc said:
Mid 1980s I acquired an Amstrad PCW 8512. Used virtually exclusively for word processing - it included the Locoscript word processing program. I recall it had 3 inch floppies which were non-standard.
Click to expand...
I too had one of those, about the same time. Prior to that I was the proud owner of an Apple-II which I hoarded until about seven years ago :( lost track of it after a major cleanup operation!

Edit: Oops, posting as my alta-ego :-[
 
cciaffone said:
Oh jeez, I was thinking PERSONAL computers.

The first computer I ever used was an IBM Selectric
Typewriter terminal connected to an IBM 360 mainframe
Model 67 running TSS/360. The first (I think) computer
in the world to support more than one user at a time.
Was 1966, I think. The first Time Sharing System.
You typed in, and it typed out -- on a paper roll so you
could save your input and output!

Did not get a display screen till way later.

PCs came way way later.
Click to expand...

I could have added earlier that in the early 80s we did get our son a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a very early PC.

Not sure I agree with the quote above that IBM 360 was first to support more than one user at a time in 1966. When I went up to Manchester University Electrical Engineering Department in 1960 the department was in the throes of developing the Atlas computer in partnership with Ferranti. That was commissioned in 1962 and was specifically designed for multi-user access.
 
Big Unc said:
Not sure I agree with the quote above that IBM 360 was first to support more than one user at a time in 1966. When I went up to Manchester University Electrical Engineering Department in 1960 the department was in the throes of developing the Atlas computer in partnership with Ferranti. That was commissioned in 1962 and was specifically designed for multi-user access.
Click to expand...

Hmm. could be. I joined IBM in 66 and TSS/360 was already
established as a test system (??) with several world-wide
customers, but I am not sure when it actually began. Back in
those early days a computer could be "in existence" long before
it was officially released as a product.
 
cciaffone said:
Hmm. could be. I joined IBM in 66 and TSS/360 was already
established as a test system (??) with several world-wide
customers, but I am not sure when it actually began. Back in
those early days a computer could be "in existence" long before
it was officially released as a product.
Click to expand...

From Wikipedia:

'The first Atlas was officially commissioned on 7 December 1962, and was considered at that time to be equivalent to four IBM 7094s and nearly as fast as the IBM 7030 Stretch, then the world's fastest supercomputer.'
 
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