The facebook/myspace thread coupled with the old advice column email thread got me thinking.
What was your first computer, and when? What was it used for?
I had a few show up at around the same time. I think the first was a second hand Apple IIc, around 1992-93 or so -
I had the extra external floppy drive, a broken modem, and the 6" green tube screen. It was pretty tiny. It had a few games and apple demo disks that I played around with, also programmed a few things in BASIC, which was neat. I had all the original manual and boxes up until around 2000- I remember at some point I had given it to my mother because she wanted to give it to a teacher for use in a classroom. I don't know what happened to it, but it would probably all be worth something today considering I had all the original papers, boxes, and receipts.
My second computer shortly afterwards was a not-quite functioning IBM DOS machine. This guy:
It was usually apart in pieces. It's what really got me into computers.
Anyone with anything older than that?
I think I got a modem and the internet around 1996 on my first windows computer- A 75mhz packard bell with windows 95. It only had a 610MB hard drive and it was always full...