First computer

[Elbmek]

Re: First computer

-ditto -

[Shirl]

Re: First computer

Did you know that next week is the 40th Birthday of the Computer.

[HG]

Re: First computer

Did you know that next week is the 40th Birthday of the Computer.

Computers have been around longer than 40 years, do you mean home computers?

[tyrellcorp68]

Re: First computer

I had a Dragon 32, I pestered my parents for months before christmas and once I had it I quickly realised how disappointing it was.

[Kiop]

Re: First computer

I had a Dragon 32, I pestered my parents for months before christmas and once I had it I quickly realised how disappointing it was.

But were you kind enough not to tell them?

[Paulos]

Re: First computer

My stepfather has always been a gadget man and so we were very lucky in the 70's to be some of the first people in our street to have things like computers, microwaves and video recorders.
He also is a electronics fanatic and used to always be building Maplin kits, our Pong machine was from a kit, our electric piano a kit and our first computer was also a kit. It was a thing called a UK101, I remember having to write in streams of basic programming out of magazines to get some ramdon generating program called "Spider and fly" in which you have to guess which window pane the fly is going to land on. I also remember a bought tape of basic games, one with a space invaders type game where the invaders were just keyboard graphics such as a heart or a diamond and another game called "Taxi".

[Paulos]

Re: First computer

Also one of my first computer experiences was as follows:

10 print "My name is Paul"
20 goto 10

and then running around the room shouting "Look, look my name is on the telly!"

[Fatboy]

Re: First computer

My first computer was back in 1982-1983. It was a Dragon 32. I can remember that they were not the most popular of the different makes, Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore were the most popular in my opinion. I can remember the Dragon 32 costing £175 in the Coop, this would have been a HUGE amount back them.

Here's some info/pictures on/of the Dragon 32:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_32

[Elbmek]

Re: First computer

Forgetting the ZX and the Commodore c64, my first proper desktop was in the early 90s and, by todays standards, was a right rip off.

HDD 108MB
RAM 8MB
Video Card (miniscule)
Sound: Creative Labs
Floppy
No CD
Win 3.1.1

£900 approx

[tonyfinster]

Re: First computer

First home computer i ever saw/played on was a sharp MZ80 that my dads work mate had and i loved playing those monochrome blippy games.
The next one was a commodore pet which was the school computer.
The first one that turned up at our house was a zx81, that was fun for a while but along came the spectrum,

it started as the 16k version
upgraded to 48k internally,
got a kempston interface and joystick
wore out about 5 membranes so a Fuller electronics FDS keyboard kit was bought, the whole spectrum minus the top sat inside,
A modulator kit was fitted to send the sound through the TV
A crappy ZXprinter appeared along the way, only for a short while, black on silver wasnt easy on the eyes
A microdrive was bought which was fantastic, half the time of tape loads.
then a spectrum+, then a spectrumII with built in tape deck.
plenty hours on manic, pyjamerama, skooldaze, trashman, atic atac, lunar jet man,
eventually we got an IBM PC and the game "Doom" arrived, happy days.

[Richard1978]

Re: First computer

In 1991 my Family got a PC with a 30MB Hard drive, 16 colour VGA & no windows for about the same price.

[darren]

Re: First computer

my first computer was the vic 20.
and from what i hear it became the commodre 64.
either that or commodre bought them out.

[barry21]

Re: First computer

My first computer was the ZX81 with added memory which boosted the memory to 16k!!!!
I then upgraded to the Spectrum 128+ 2a

[darren]

Re: First computer

the 2a speccy had the bonus of being able to attach a tape recorder.

[Wil]

Re: First computer

My stepfather has always been a gadget man and so we were very lucky in the 70's to be some of the first people in our street to have things like computers, microwaves and video recorders.
He also is a electronics fanatic and used to always be building Maplin kits, our Pong machine was from a kit, our electric piano a kit and our first computer was also a kit. It was a thing called a UK101".

The UK101 was our school's first computer. It came in around '79/'80 and we used it to write the end credits of a film we made on the school's first video camera (b&w!).