Your first home computer?

[matt930s]

Found this while digging through the garage, my old Commodore SX64... Fired right up and even loaded an "app"....Had to look up the command- Load "*", 8, 1....lol...been awhile..still have a Commodore 64 and Atari 2600 on the same shelf...will fire those up next....I owe a lot to those old computers, done real well for my family learning on them early on....

My first actual computer was a Vic 20 a few years before this one...

What was yours?

[Jim Richards]

Apple II+

[Borders Reivers]

Build-It-Yourself computer kit from Southwest Technical Products, the very first personal computer, (San Antonio) circa 1975, wirewrap motherboard and all. Was racing Porsches (911s and a 718 RSK Spyder) with Phil Ray from Datapoint at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWTPC



Here's a link with Phil Ray driving the RSK (former European Hillclimb Champ car) and 911S at the 1972 Austin TX AquaFest Supercross. He placed second in Class 1C in the RSK and 1st in Class XB in his personal 911S
http://www.spokes.org/rattle/TSSCCRattle_197209.pdf

Brenda Flowers won Class XII in her Porsche 911 at a DoubleCross event as well.

Phil and Gus Roche designed and developed the first microprocessor the 8008 at Datapoint (formerly Computer Terminal Corp CTC) so we had lots of resources. And of course also the company of super intelligent, drop-dead gorgeous TechnoWitch Brenda Flowers.

It was an incredible time with a staggeringly powerful renegade brain trust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapoint

https://books.google.com/books?id=idTeAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT15&lpg=PT15&dq=phil+ray+porsche&source=bl&ots=cLz-DXRvNL&sig=RBox9UqPxndtKqp-fEtPABbymOs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_1P7I3unVAhVGzmMKHTYQD6oQ6AEIOzAG#v=on epage&q=phil%20ray%20porsche&f=false

[fanaudical]

Another VIC-20 here, followed by a C-64 (still in the garage).

[masraum]

We bought a C64 before there was a floppy drive available. For the first 3 months, we had to use the cassette deck. I didn't really learn much off of that. My next computer was about 10 years later, I was a freshman in college and got a IBM compatible, Tandy 1000 TX.

[sammyg2]

Intel 80486SX

The Intel 80486SX is the same chip as the 80486DX with one exception: the lack of an integrated math coprocessor (floating point unit). Note that this is a different kind of difference between the SX and DX versions than is the case with the 386; the 386SX and 386DX both had no coprocessor and the 386SX had narrower data and address buses than the 386DX. The 486DX and 486SX have the same bus widths. Since it is the same chip except for the floating point processor, the 486SX has the same advantages over the 386 that the 486DX does. Note that the 486SX was made available in slower clock speeds than the 486DX; the SX comes in 16, 20, 25 and 33 MHz versions, while the DX is 25, 33 and 50 MHz.

About a year later I upgraded it to the 486 overdrive. Cranked up the clockspeed on the bus.

Intel 80486DX2 and 80486DX2 OverDrive

The 80486DX2 was the first chip to use "clock doubling" technology, where the processor runs at a faster speed than the memory bus it talks to. This was done to allow the processor speed to be increased without having to deal with the much more difficult task of increasing motherboard speed. Chips that run at faster than memory bus speed improve performance but at a diminishing rate as the multiplier increases, due to the processor waiting for data from memory.

[cashflyer]

TI-99/4A
After that was an IBM clone

[osidak]

trs model 80 II
ibm pc xt (eventually added memory and over clocked it)
ibm pc at
then some clones
80286 followed by 80386DX 16

[Evans, Marv]

A Kaypro was my first machine. I really didn't like it, nor the Apple II or IIe. I got more use from Apple II Plus & McIntoshes. 486 machines were good workhorses. I used a lot of different ones over the years & kind of got away from using them much for work in the mid 90's.

[Don Ro]

Macintosh
It was just above Pong capability.

[id10t]

TRS-80 Mk IV - that had a white case (not silver like older models) *and* both floppy drives *and* a whole 32kb of RAM.

[Gogar]

C64. still works, but i'm afraid to try a floppy.

Jumpman JR cartridge still works great!

[wdfifteen]

Vic 20. Looking back, it was pretty much useless.

[NY65912]

1st home computer was a Commodore 64. Upgraded to a 386 40mhz with 4 mb RAM and a
140 kb hard drive.

[VINMAN]

[Bill Douglas]

I still have it. An early IBM twin floppy PC. And have the two books with disks.

Sadly I bet on the wrong horse, if I'd kept an original Apple it would be worth something.

[Aurel]

Mine was an AppleII europlus, which my dad bought me used for 8,000 francs. It came with an amber monitor, and a single floppy disc drive. I chose the Apple because many cracked games were available from friends at school...It is still in my parents attic in Normandy, I never took it back to its land of origin. I learned basic and machine language on it. Games had to be written directly in hexadecimal, it was the only way to get enough speed. I wrote funny little routines, like controlling the speakers with the joystick. Good times where things were still simple, like a Porsche 911 of the same era. At some point I upgraded the memory from 8 to 64kb, or something like that...

[Por_sha911]

First use: teletype and cradle modem connected to Hofstra Univ.
First Software programing: Basic and Fortran.
First machine I owned: Commodore 64 with a floppy drive.
First IBM: XT Turbo (8 meg) running DOS 3.0 with a color EGA monitor and a 20 meg hard drive!
First internet access: 56k modem (good luck getting more than 35-40k).

Yeah, I'm an old geezer.

[Borders Reivers]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

First use: teletype and cradle modem connected to Hofstra Univ.
First Software programing: Basic and Fortran.
First machine I owned: Commodore 64 with a floppy drive.
First IBM: XT Turbo (8 meg) running DOS 3.0 with a color EGA monitor and a 20 meg hard drive!
First internet access: 56k modem (good luck getting more than 35-40k).

Yeah, I'm an old geezer.

LOL Did the same/same pulling news off the wire ticker at Tulane Univ. for campus radio station WTUL in 1967.

[Sooner or later]

Trs 80