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Your first computer.
- Thread starter tedtropy
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A Black Falcon
Member
My family's first computer at home was a Gateway 2000, 20Mhz 386SX desktop PC (not a tower, the kind that went under the monitor) which we got in early 1992. It had 4MB of RAM, a 100MB hard drive, and 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" floppy disk drives. It did have a Turbo button so that you could run it in very slow mode if you wanted, though I can't remember ever using it. 14" Gateway CrystalScan monitor. No sound card, just PC Speaker audio, and no CD-ROM drive. DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0, though we later updated DOS to 6.2 (and maybe the RAM, it may have initially had even less than that). We also Doublespaced the hard drive for more space, because 100MB filled up. That wasn't a great monitor, either, both small and iffy quality -- it'd flicker or something with even slight power interruptions that other monitors never notice...
It came in those awesome Gateway cow-spot boxes. The Gateway keyboard was really cool too, 120-something keys with both vertical and horizontal sets of F-keys, some programmable keys, a full eight way set of arrow keys (that is, it has diagonals on it) with an additional spacebar button in the center of the arrow keys, and more. Such a strange keyboard, but I certainly liked it at the time, it took some getting used to after we got our next computer and the arrow keys didn't have diagonals anymore.
I thought it was pretty nice at the time, it was my first gaming platform and I used it heavily for years... I do remember that by 1994 though it was definitely getting dated, I wanted a sound card and CD-ROM. We got a newer computer in early '95, which had a soundcard, CD, Pentium processor, etc. I remember having just the old Gateway for a long time, but it was just three years... funny how memory goes. We did keep it around for years afterwards, though, until its floppy disk drives both broke down in the late '90s. We didn't keep it after that, sadly. The computer had a joystick port, but I didn't get one until after we got our next machine, so I played keyboard and mouse only. I have lots of good memories of playing games on that computer. I remember playing a lot of freeware and shareware games, particularly... the Apogee, Epic, etc. classics (from that period, most notably the Keen games, Dark Ages (great game!), and a few others), and lots of other stuff too - the Hugo trilogy, CaveQuest (old CGA probably Rogue-inspired dungeon-crawler action-RPG), clones of arcade games, Tetris clones, Risk clones, etc. Arcade Volleyball was cool, fun little game. Bananoid... a freeware game, VGA? Wow! Star Goose was cool too. Castle Adventure was probably my favorite ASCII game. And others (Sherlock, the puzzle game, was good). Our local library had some 5 1/4" disks with older freeware games on them you could borrow, I got all of those.
I don't think I remember most of those games, though, unless CaveQuest and Castle Adventure came from there. I had retail games too, of course. Some I know I played on that machine include SimCity, The Lost Vikings, the PC "Mega Man 3", Lemmings, etc. My overall favorite game from that era though was the first Commander Keen trilogy. Such a great game...
The first computer that was entirely my own (as in not shared with the family) was the computer I got when I went to college in fall '01. I still have the machine, and it still works. It's a Dell 8100, with a Pentium 4 1.5Ghz CPU, 128MB RAM (Rambus RDRAM) that I expanded to 384MB in '02, and a 40GB HDD that I added an 80GB drive to a few years later. It also had a DVD-ROM drive (could choose between CD-RW or DVD-ROM with no burning, I chose the latter and it was a good choice), but that drive broke in '06 and I replaced it with a DVD-RW drive. It also has a Zip 250 drive and a 3.5" floppy drive. Nice black and silver case with black (17" Dell CRT) monitor, broke the "beige box" design and I liked that. Oh, and only GeForce2 GTS 32MB video card, one of the system's weaknesses for sure, and Windows Millennium. I still think WinME was okay. Bad in some ways, certainly, but hey, the computer still works, and it's never had a reformat or major failure (hardware or software). That's more than can be said for a lot of machines the same age. And you can get into real DOS mode if you want. My main issue with it is how crash-happy it is, but I do think it's a decent OS. I've never regretted not upgrading to XP... I play a lot of older games, and like to play them natively, not in an emulator, if possible. Losing DOS compatibility would be worse than gaining better stability (and probably worse performance). And indeed, when I finally did get a newer machine, which runs Vista, while mostly I thought it was certainly an improvement or ME, my biggest complaint probably was that I couldn't run DOS games natively anymore and now have to do everything in DOSBox.
It came in those awesome Gateway cow-spot boxes. The Gateway keyboard was really cool too, 120-something keys with both vertical and horizontal sets of F-keys, some programmable keys, a full eight way set of arrow keys (that is, it has diagonals on it) with an additional spacebar button in the center of the arrow keys, and more. Such a strange keyboard, but I certainly liked it at the time, it took some getting used to after we got our next computer and the arrow keys didn't have diagonals anymore.
I thought it was pretty nice at the time, it was my first gaming platform and I used it heavily for years... I do remember that by 1994 though it was definitely getting dated, I wanted a sound card and CD-ROM. We got a newer computer in early '95, which had a soundcard, CD, Pentium processor, etc. I remember having just the old Gateway for a long time, but it was just three years... funny how memory goes. We did keep it around for years afterwards, though, until its floppy disk drives both broke down in the late '90s. We didn't keep it after that, sadly. The computer had a joystick port, but I didn't get one until after we got our next machine, so I played keyboard and mouse only. I have lots of good memories of playing games on that computer. I remember playing a lot of freeware and shareware games, particularly... the Apogee, Epic, etc. classics (from that period, most notably the Keen games, Dark Ages (great game!), and a few others), and lots of other stuff too - the Hugo trilogy, CaveQuest (old CGA probably Rogue-inspired dungeon-crawler action-RPG), clones of arcade games, Tetris clones, Risk clones, etc. Arcade Volleyball was cool, fun little game. Bananoid... a freeware game, VGA? Wow! Star Goose was cool too. Castle Adventure was probably my favorite ASCII game. And others (Sherlock, the puzzle game, was good). Our local library had some 5 1/4" disks with older freeware games on them you could borrow, I got all of those.
I don't think I remember most of those games, though, unless CaveQuest and Castle Adventure came from there. I had retail games too, of course. Some I know I played on that machine include SimCity, The Lost Vikings, the PC "Mega Man 3", Lemmings, etc. My overall favorite game from that era though was the first Commander Keen trilogy. Such a great game...The first computer that was entirely my own (as in not shared with the family) was the computer I got when I went to college in fall '01. I still have the machine, and it still works. It's a Dell 8100, with a Pentium 4 1.5Ghz CPU, 128MB RAM (Rambus RDRAM) that I expanded to 384MB in '02, and a 40GB HDD that I added an 80GB drive to a few years later. It also had a DVD-ROM drive (could choose between CD-RW or DVD-ROM with no burning, I chose the latter and it was a good choice), but that drive broke in '06 and I replaced it with a DVD-RW drive. It also has a Zip 250 drive and a 3.5" floppy drive. Nice black and silver case with black (17" Dell CRT) monitor, broke the "beige box" design and I liked that. Oh, and only GeForce2 GTS 32MB video card, one of the system's weaknesses for sure, and Windows Millennium. I still think WinME was okay. Bad in some ways, certainly, but hey, the computer still works, and it's never had a reformat or major failure (hardware or software). That's more than can be said for a lot of machines the same age. And you can get into real DOS mode if you want. My main issue with it is how crash-happy it is, but I do think it's a decent OS. I've never regretted not upgrading to XP... I play a lot of older games, and like to play them natively, not in an emulator, if possible. Losing DOS compatibility would be worse than gaining better stability (and probably worse performance). And indeed, when I finally did get a newer machine, which runs Vista, while mostly I thought it was certainly an improvement or ME, my biggest complaint probably was that I couldn't run DOS games natively anymore and now have to do everything in DOSBox.
Forsete
Gold Member
My father bought us our first PC in 1994/1995. Then it cost 18000 Swedish Kronor (translated in todays dollar, about $2800), very expensive at that time.
It was a CPS (I think the brand was) 486 running at 100MHz, it came with 16MB RAM which we expanded to 48MB some years later. I dont remember the harddrive size, but we did upgrade it to something like 500MB a few years later. My first PC game was Jetstrike, it came on a CD-ROM which the PC was equipped with.
We upgraded that PC to Windows 95 Plus which my father had bought in the US. Also with him he had Need for Speed.
One of the last games run on that PC was Worms 2, then we upgraded to a Pentium 2 (DELL computer).
Sadly I no longer have the old 486, I gave it away to my sister when she moved out.
It was a CPS (I think the brand was) 486 running at 100MHz, it came with 16MB RAM which we expanded to 48MB some years later. I dont remember the harddrive size, but we did upgrade it to something like 500MB a few years later. My first PC game was Jetstrike, it came on a CD-ROM which the PC was equipped with.
We upgraded that PC to Windows 95 Plus which my father had bought in the US. Also with him he had Need for Speed.
One of the last games run on that PC was Worms 2, then we upgraded to a Pentium 2 (DELL computer).
Sadly I no longer have the old 486, I gave it away to my sister when she moved out.
Alex Connolly
Member
An old Amstrad PC. Blew my young mind. Had a version of Mean 18 by Accolade with it. Spent many an afternoon on the links.
This one for me. It was back in 1984 or 5. I was only couple of years old, but got into computers already, played tons of great (for its time) games like Raid on Fort Knox, Escape MCP, Omega Race etc., made a few of my own (though with help of some coding books). Oh the memories.Fusebox said:
$1148 Jack
Member
Loved the Last Ninja, Head over heels, IK+
WorriedCitizen
Member
C64 followed by a Amiga 600. My first PC was a Pentium 90.
First family computer? A hand-me-down TRS-80 Model 1:
32K extended memory, 80x20 black and white high-resolution graphics, special cassette drive for saving and loading programs. And, of course, it was awesome since I was a kid and this was a new world.
Favorite family computer? IBM PCjr -- the second revision that didn't have the chiclet keyboard. IBM gaming was nowhere near as good as the C64 world at the time, but the PCjr had enhanced graphics and sound. So the games that did come out -- all of the classic Sierra adventures, old-school awesome Electronic Arts, my beloved Thexder -- played way better on the PCjr.
First computer I ever bought for myself? Some generic Gateway. I'm thinking it was an original Pentium, but I don't really remember. Needed it for college, and I was broke, so I took whatever I could get.
32K extended memory, 80x20 black and white high-resolution graphics, special cassette drive for saving and loading programs. And, of course, it was awesome since I was a kid and this was a new world.
Favorite family computer? IBM PCjr -- the second revision that didn't have the chiclet keyboard. IBM gaming was nowhere near as good as the C64 world at the time, but the PCjr had enhanced graphics and sound. So the games that did come out -- all of the classic Sierra adventures, old-school awesome Electronic Arts, my beloved Thexder -- played way better on the PCjr.
First computer I ever bought for myself? Some generic Gateway. I'm thinking it was an original Pentium, but I don't really remember. Needed it for college, and I was broke, so I took whatever I could get.
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