What Was Your First Computer?

michaelmichael writes "News.com.com is running a special report, asking readers to tell everyone what their first computer was. This was prompted by another article commemorating the 60th anniversary of ENIAC." I started on a trash 80 in like 5th grade. And although I did a lot of programming and games on 8086s, it wasn't until I got a 286 in middle school that I really considered a machine "Mine".

TI-99/4A

[breadlord]

Used to do my FORTRAN homework in BASIC, get it working then translate back into FORTRAN at UIC. Ran upstairs from the basement screaming and danced my mom around in circles when I got the modem working. After many months, I simply neeeded to cross pins 2 & 3 on the serial cable. Yeah, I was a lamo.

Coleco Adam

[DanCentury]

I'd used Trash 80's and Apple ][e's in school, but my first computer was sadly the Coleco Adam (Bomb). It lasted, oh, about a week.

KIM-1

[Engdy]

My first was a KIM-1 [6502.org]. The level of excitement I experienced playing Hunt the Wumpus has rarely been matched since.

Re:Commodore 64, baby!

[Anonymous Coward]

> I also did a lot of work on the TRS-80 when I was in junior high (yikes...just dated myself there).

and I'm sure you did then as well.

Must be Monday...

[errxn]

...close to 100 comments and not ONE that goes like this:

"The first machine I ever OWNED was your Windows box."

C'mon, slashbots! Wake up!

Re:You made me a programmer

[Angostura]

Ah yes,

They joy of finding the odd things you could do by POKEing numbers into the system variables (nicely documented in the manual). I also spent an awful lot of my time using dodges to save memory.

I seem to recall that using a real number in Basic took 4 bytes, so rather than using LET A=A+3 people used stuff like LET A=A+INT PI since that only took 2 bytes.

Also you could make some damn fine music* by placing your transister radio next to your ZX81 while it executed different types of FOR/NEXT loop. The more statements inside the loop, the lower the note. Map different loops to different keys and you've got a synth baby.

Happy days.

* I lie, it was dreadful.

Re:Uh, like what?

[tomhudson]

So it was like 5th grade? Was it 5th grape,

No, its like, you know, he was just chillin'' with the California Raisins. No sour grapes :-)

Re:Mac 128K

[daveschroeder]

Hmm, after re-thinking this, perhaps the bigger news here is that I found a wife.

Slide Rule

[aquatone282]

No batteries required!

Re:Commodore 64, baby!

[a803redman]

C64 that damn thing caused me not to get laid will I was in my late teens. Who needs girls when you have Mars Saga and Basic.

Re:You made me a programmer

[ozbon]

Yeah, I started off with the ZX-80, then "upgraded" to an -81. Now there's a scary concept - upgrading to 1K of RAM...

Re:First encounters with modems is more interestin

[nganju]

What would really be funny is to see if you could run your 2400 baud modem over the VOIP connection to Sydney :) .

Re:Uh, like what?

[Bloke down the pub]

Whatever. Like, get over it or something.

Re:Commodore 64, baby!

[flyingsquid]

Yeah, well, I graduated to the Vic 20 from my Timex Sinclair ZX-81. Take that!

Why, in my day we had to carry our ones and zeroes six miles uphill through the snow. And each bit weighed eight pounds so a byte weighed sixty-four pounds and it took you three hours to get it there. But dammit, it was good for you, kept you fit as a mule and taught you to be an efficient coder. Not like the kids these days, with the hair, and the clothes and the rock music. Everything's going to hell.