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[tedtropy]

i think the moral of this thread is that you were still living with your parents and they were still paying your bills and buying you stuff when you were 30

I'm guessing you don't excel at math.

Was out the door when I was 19, broke around 22 or so and had to move back in for abit and then on my own at 23 again, thank you very much.

 

[radioheadrule83]

I remember my infants / primary school having a couple of Acorn Computer BBC Micros as well

They had a pretty bad ass MUD-esque educational RPG installed if I remember rightly

 

[Doc Holliday]

I wanted one of these so bad, don't what the hell i was thiniking lol

 

[Dead Prince]

a gateway computer in 1999. heck we still have it along with the 17" CRT lol.

 

[jon_irenicus]

The best pic I could find. I actually had a slower model (8/16MHz) but the case design was essentially the same as shown below:

 

[miked808]

Played games on audio tapes.

 

[Doc Holliday]

Speaking of old computers, I wish SGI still made cool shit...

 

[Burger]

Acorn Electron.

You loaded 'programs' with a cassette player. Seriously, the thing had a headphone input.

 

[Carton]

Pentium 200 MMX
8MB hercules stingray 2d/3d
32MB of RAM
4.3GB hd
Soundblaster AWE64

Just citing those specs fills me with nostalgia: I'm getting flashbacks of quake 2, diablo, starcraft, total annihilation, warcraft II, interstate 76. And, ah, the sounds of the HD seeking, the BIOS beeping and the modem screeching.

 

[dudeworld]

Chances are there's been threads along these lines but...the search function and all.

My first computer was this little beauty...

In particular, it was an IBM Aptiva 2144 that my parents bought for me in late 1994/early 1995 (I just turned 29) at a McDuff's electronic store (they were owned by Tandy, the Radioshack folks) in a mall that now looks like the set for a post-apocalyptic zombie movie.

This was shortly before they started bundling Win95, so I had myself a beast of a Win 3.11 box with a 486SX/33MHz processor, 4MB of RAM, (surprisingly it could max at 128) a 2400 baud modem (shitty even for the time) and I believe around a 200MB HD. I eventually spent what I recall was well over $100 to eventually up it to 8MB. Prior to that I had to make a custom bootable floppy to free up enough extended memory to run Doom 2. To round it out we got a 14" high-resolution CTX monitor.

A few years later I had the option of upgrading the processor to a Pentium 83MHz Overdrive processor or the 486/DX4 100MHz. My naive young mind opted for the one with more megahertz in the name, but either way it was a hell of a bump at the time. I can remember a beautiful heyday of DOS first-person shooters and AOL 2.5 (which my parents made me quit for a few months when I charged close to a $300 bill before they went flat-rate), the death rattle of the system more or less signified when I tried to run the Quake 1 multiplayer test and the turtle icon (less than 10fps) constantly appeared in the corner of the screen.

Shortly after that my dad let me pick out a Compaq Presario 4000 tower with a bitchin' K6-2/233 from Best Buy. I shoved a PCI Riva 128/ZX in it and my 3D accelerated era began...but that's for another pointless thread.

For a kid that was always abit more tech/dork oriented I actually entered the computer age pretty late in the game - alot of friends around my age started out on Commodore 64s and the like, but I'll always look back fondly on those days of technowonder, before working in the IT field eventually crushed most of the awe for me.

Let's be nostalgic together, GAF.

wow, I had one of those. My brother and I always used to play this game called "Magic Theatre"

 

[Blackace]

Played games on audio tapes.

press play, go outside and play some hoops... come back make a sandwhich and wait about 15 mins then play forbidden forest

 

[iAmMaximus]

i'd be thuggin with AOL.

 

[Burger]

i'd be thuggin with AOL.

Hotlinking, and stealing avatars.

So wrong.

 

[tedtropy]

The best pic I could find. I actually had a slower model (8/16MHz) but the case design was essentially the same as shown below:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tkm9v4opN...MR6LvYlY/s1600/Everex+386+flyer+from+1989.jpg

Dude, zero wait-state operation AND a real-time alphanumeric status display?!

 

[Viewt]

I had an old Apple II and an IBM something-or-other when I was really young, but the first computer that I can remember in detail was a Gateway that we got in the late 90s:

It basically looked like this. Pentium III processor, 64 MB of RAM, 14 GB HDD. Ran like ass, but it ran Diablo II like a damn dream, I'll tell you what.

 

[cyclenut]

Commodore64.jpg

*high-five*

 

[sooperkool]

Speaking of old computers, I wish SGI still made cool shit...

My uncle used to work for SGI .he had an Indy.

My fist computer was an

The first one I used was

 

[Doc Holliday]

I remember spending an entire day typing a program that was printed in a Family computing magazine only to delete it by accident. It was a 16 color drawing program in "High-res" graphics mode.

 

[∀ Narayan]

Can't remember the name of the system itself, but my first computer used a version of Windows 3.1x. Played the Hell out of Carmen Sandiego on that thing. Computer after that was a Hewlett-Packard Pavillion that had a whopping 6 GB hard-drive and a Pentium 1!

 

[Zapages]

a 486 Packard Bell Computer with Dos and Windows 3.11

Good times playing EF 2000, Street Fighter II, Street Fighter, Mega Man, Mega Man 3, MegaRace, Doom, Wolfstein 3D, Darker, chess, Ski game, Solitare, some racing game, and bunch of quirky games from back then.

 

[LuCkymoON]

Compaq Persario (forgot exact model)
Purchase in 1998

500Mhz PII
20GB HDD
DVD-Rom drive
ATI graphics 4MB vram
56k/V.92 modem

 

[SpacLock]

Some old IBM, most likely made between 1990-1994. Ran 3.1 on that girl and skied free.

20mb of free space. Could barely run Doom, which was the bench mark game back then.

I feel bad for the people who got a Dell for their first computer. That shit's sad.

 

[Hung Wei Lo]

vic20->C64->Atari 1040ST ->Amiga ...The good ol' days

load"*",8,1 or something like that

 

[MetalAlien]

VIC-20

Mine was this, had a really crappy pacman clone for it. My next PC after that was a throw away someone gave me in 2004 I think. Then I actually purchased another computer in 2008.

 

[Fusebox]

A couple of fellow old bastards! I was starting to feel like the only VIC-20 owner here.

 

[NEOPARADIGM]

Barely remember anything about it. But yeah. There it is.

 

[flyover]

Apple IIe, circa 1982
Monochrome screen
Floppy disk drive
64k memory
5000 lbs.

Yup. Same here. Or maybe it was an Apple II+. Still weighed 5000 pounds, either way. First game: Akalabeth (precursor to Ultima).

 

[Muffdraul]

Same here. Fond memories of using it to play Parsec, Munchman, Chisholm Trail, Tunnels of Doom... and then learning to program in Extended Basic and writing my own games, including a Return of the Jedi speeder bike two player thing I was very proud of. Saved on cassette tape, probably still in an old box in the garage.

 

[tedtropy]

Some old IBM, most likely made between 1990-1994. Ran 3.1 on that girl and skied free.

Sunk so many hours into that game. When I found the secret of the F key my mind was blown...

 

[Reseil]

VIC 20 with a datasette +1

 

[LCfiner]

Family never had enough money to afford a computer while I was in elementary or high school (early 90s).

First computer was a custom built thing I got for university in 97 (had to take out a loan for it, heh)

Pentium 166 Mhz w/ MMX
8 GB HDD
not sure about RAM or video card...
15" CRT monitor
Beige box
Windows 95

Over the years, I then upgraded that box with a new motherboard, a celeron 300a (OC to 450, of course) new hard drives, new video cards, more RAM, 19" monitor, windows 98, then 2000, then XP.

Then it finally gave up the ghost around 2005. so.. around 8 years later

 

[Ribbon]

Jill of the Jungle every day after school

 

[dragonflys545]

COMPAQ

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Looked like the above.

I don't remember the specific model number (I was like 7 at the time, cut me some slack.) but it was a 25mhz 486SX Packard Bell with 4MB of Ram (Which I later upgraded to 8MB), a 200MB Hard Drive and a 2x CD-Rom. Windows 3.11 and Packard Bell's awesome "Home" UI option.

I believe it was later 1992 because it was when CD-Roms were becoming a big deal and it came bundled with a bunch of multimedia software including King's Quest VI.

Wish I still had it.

 

[Threi]

386 + Windows 3.1 (launched from DOSHELL)

 

[Moppet13]

My first computer, I went through so many I can't even remember which one it was. I went through about 4 computers that ran Windows 98 up until about 2004 when I get a Dell Dimension whatever and finally built my own. The good old days when 32mb of RAM was all you needed.

 

[Snuggles]

Don't remember the specifics, but it was a PoS Macintosh and I played a lot of Mechwarrior on floppy. One day the floppy got jammed in the disc drive and it got all fucked up for some reason.

Never owned a PC of my own until a couple weeks ago, though.

 

[MetalAlien]

A couple of fellow old bastards! I was starting to feel like the only VIC-20 owner here.

I begged for one after the movie Wargames came out. I guess I was planning on getting in some trouble.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Fuckin' memories.

 

[Drkirby]

Some horizontal base that you sit the monitor on that was running DOS and Windows 3.1.

 

[Eaten By A Grue]

IBM PS/1 (model 2133) Type Personal computer
Release date 1992
Discontinued 1993
Operating system PC-DOS 4.01
CPU Intel 80386SX @ 25 MHz or 80486SX @ 20 MHz or 80486SX @ 25 MHz
Memory 2 MB ~ 16 MB (2-4MB on-board)

 

[gwarm01]

I'll never forget it. A Compaq Presario something or other.

200Mhz Pentium MMX processor!
16MB RAM!
2GB hard drive!

And the coup de grace, a 16MB Diamond Monster VooDoo 2!

All I ever did was play MechWarrior 2 and TIE Fighter (complete with constant stack overflows).

 

[radioheadrule83]

Same here. Fond memories of using it to play Parsec, Munchman, Chisholm Trail, Tunnels of Doom... and then learning to program in Extended Basic and writing my own games, including a Return of the Jedi speeder bike two player thing I was very proud of. Saved on cassette tape, probably still in an old box in the garage.

I remember renting a book on BASIC (might have been GL BASIC) programming that taught you how to make a sprite editor and how to read the sprites in your own programs... I used that knowledge and a bit of line drawing to make a programmed Stargate-esque animation -- sprites and crap speech bubbles with thick MODE 40 text, and a rotating pyramid shape moving through space. I wish I still had it, I remember being really proud of it. I must have been about 10 or 11. I was actually way better at that shit then than I am now.

 

[plainr_]

My first computer was a second hand Packard Bell.

Specs:
400mhz Intel Celeron
64mb ram
20gb hard drive
640x480 max resolution monitor

 

[Vanillalite]

Pretty sure I had the same comp as my 1st as well!

 

[AbsoluteZero]

Okay now I'm tempted to install Windows 3.1 in a Virtual PC using Parallels for shits and giggles.

 

[Rayven]

Gateway2000 P90.

Here's a P75...

Mine looked like this, but was a no-brand generic.

Got it in 1990 or 91

Trying to remember the specs:
386 DX
2mb RAM
128?mb HDD

 

[Death Dealer]

I was always jealous of the Commodore 64 and the Amiga. I remember looking at those Three stooges screenshots with so much hate.

Cinemaware games were godly. <3 Defender of the Crown and Rocket Ranger

I wanted an Amiga too. The Cinemaware games looked similar on IIGS and Amiga. The IIGS had the best sound out of all the 80s 16 bit systems, but the Amiga did all the arcade/action sprite scrolling games so much better.

 

[Salsa]

Commodore as well

 

[Giard]

The first I used, I barely remember it, was an old Atari computer, on my dad's knees while he was playing some submarine game.

The first one I remember using a lot was a old portable Macintosh, black and white I think. I played Cosmic Osmo on it. It bugged at one certain point in the game I think, where some grandma squashed a fly. My memory might not be very reliable at this point.

My first very own computer is one I built myself, Windows XP, 1gb of ram, first series of Core 2 Duos.