Atari 800... 8 bit CPU running at 1.7 MHz, 48K of RAM, 128 colors when hooked up to the TV through the RF connectors.

2 external drives - 1 cassette drive, 1 5.25" floppy drive (when they held 160k)... to save money on discs we used to flip them over, cut a notch in the other side, and continue.

Used its own BASIC & DOS (ver. 2.5 when we got rid of it)

Had an "intelligent" peripheral expander that actually had its own processor & lightened the load on the main box - to this we connected our modem (300 baud!)...

Below - The modem (left), and the peripheral expander..



So what was your first setup? Google image if you have a sec.]

[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 11:08 PM. Reason : ...]

[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 11:12 PM. Reason : ...]

12/23/2008 11:06:51 PM

[IMG]

12/23/2008 11:07:15 PM

i still have my red x, i upgraded the ram & cpu though

I'm Big Business and i approved this message.

12/23/2008 11:07:52 PM

quit saying red x, nobody anywhere has a red x anymore

12/23/2008 11:08:27 PM

technically not a red X if there isn't one

and i so want to post 'first FAIL ever', but that isn't likely the first fail

12/23/2008 11:08:56 PM

12/23/2008 11:09:15 PM

for realz. This was my first PC. IBM PC XT 8088

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_XT

12/23/2008 11:09:19 PM

12/23/2008 11:09:35 PM

12/23/2008 11:10:24 PM

I can use internetz!!!!

12/23/2008 11:13:50 PM

First useful one:

Which is still a great machine and still in use after 17 years. Unfortunately it doesn't have the math coprocessor so no MP3 decoding, but otherwise a solid media PC.

12/23/2008 11:14:17 PM

some old Gateway full tower with a P75 and 16 MB RAM
pretty quick I slapped another 32 MB of RAM in that sucker
it also had an 8 gig HD in it which was pretty pimp
later I put a P90 into it

it was the first PC that belonged to me and the first box that I ever edited audio with... I used to be very patient

12/23/2008 11:14:43 PM

My older brother had a Commodore. I can distinctly remember playing Temple of Doom.

12/23/2008 11:14:48 PM

This guy used to work with my cousin... he's got a TON of old computer stuff cataloged and listed on the net: http://www.electricgypsy.net/computers/
I thought it was pretty cool to look through.

I can't remember what the first computer I had was, though I know we bought it from another cousin of mine in like 1991. It was a huge notebook style PC. I'll have to see what I can dig up in the basement. We threw that thing away years ago, but some of the papers are still in a box down there somewhere.

12/23/2008 11:15:30 PM

haha I used to play Gorillas on my Dad's old Lynx until it got stolen from his trunk in NYC

12/23/2008 11:16:32 PM

^^^ that or The Temple of Apshai?



[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 11:17 PM. Reason : d]

12/23/2008 11:17:16 PM

12/23/2008 11:18:57 PM

OMG. HOLY CRAP.
That's it!
I knew it was Temple of something.
You rock!

12/23/2008 11:20:16 PM

loved that game, played it all the time


that and Impossible Mission

"Stay a while... stayyyyyyy FOREVER!"

[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 11:23 PM. Reason : d]

12/23/2008 11:22:55 PM

Dude, I remember sitting in the kitchen playing that game on a fucking B&W television.

omg. i am so old.

12/23/2008 11:23:54 PM

Corona "portable" with green-screen monochrome 9" monitor


Also had a Commodore 64 at the same time; I don't recall which one my dad got first, since I think they both came out around when I was 3.

12/23/2008 11:40:30 PM

12/23/2008 11:43:22 PM

mine looked just like this

12/23/2008 11:45:42 PM

and



[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 11:51 PM. Reason : dad worked for data general so we got all their scraps]

12/23/2008 11:49:59 PM

I was relatively old before I got my first computer, so it's not that vintage. But I had a video game system that was quite a bit older than me, and as it was all I had I played the crap out of it.

12/23/2008 11:58:16 PM

12/24/2008 12:00:25 AM

12/24/2008 12:03:00 AM

12/24/2008 12:06:51 AM

ABACUS, BITCHES

12/24/2008 12:11:44 AM

ours was some form of tandy that my uncle put together for us

i had centipede on that thing and played the snot out of it

12/24/2008 12:12:53 AM

I can't remember clearly, but I believe it was an Atari 400:



I am pretty sure I remember the membrane keyboard being on it. Other than that, it's quite fuzzy.

12/24/2008 12:15:11 AM

I've searched around on the net, I really don't remember what my first computer was, nor can I find pictures of it. It was some type of console pc, no hard drive, and the floppy drive was built in on the right side of it. I want to say it was 5MHz with a 7 or 8MHz turbo mode. Pretty sure the monitor was a Tandy CM5 though. Oh yeah, we bought it used from my cousin in like '90 or '91.

First "real" pc was a "custom" built by CompUSA. 50MHz 486DX2, 2MB RAM, 250MB HD, with Win3.1.

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 12:28 AM. Reason : more]

12/24/2008 12:19:11 AM

hahaha ours had a turbo button too

12/24/2008 12:20:09 AM

I know that my first *real* computer was a Gateway and ran Windows 3.1

12/24/2008 12:20:30 AM

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 1:01 AM. Reason : man, how i miss that keyboard]

12/24/2008 1:00:17 AM

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 1:54 AM. Reason : grrr red x]

12/24/2008 1:51:38 AM

red x city

I'm Big Business and i approved this message.

12/24/2008 1:52:52 AM

classic

12/24/2008 1:53:30 AM

I'm surprised there isn't a version of gorillas for wii with all the mini game packs they come out with

12/24/2008 1:54:35 AM

12/24/2008 2:00:06 AM

Kaypro II. Ohhhhhh yeah.

12/24/2008 2:09:39 AM

Quote :

""

Aah.. I remember that shell. I had an old IBM PC that only had Word Perfect for DOS installed. One time I remember discovering the "file explorer" feature. Seeing all of these "documents" that I didn't remember typing up, I proceeded to delete everything, including all the system files and folders, leaving only the Word Perfect documents left. I tried fixing the computer by going through the BIOS setup and changing settings around to no avail. Nothing could get rid of that "System Halted" error when it booted up...

12/24/2008 2:45:00 AM

Commodore 64c hooked up to an old TV

then a PC clone made by some company named Dramen. 386, later upgraded to 486.

had a Macintosh for a while (mom's idea). I think this was the first one that had internet access (AOL dialup)

then my highschool graduation present (1998) was a Compaq Presario. Pentium II, had a CD-ROM drive, Windows 95. Can't remember if it was 256 or 512MB of RAM. Think it had about a 20-30GB hard drive. It was an absolute leap ahead of any computer I'd used at that time. I think it ran at somewhere around 333 MHz (maybe a little faster...I can't remember).

I continually upgraded that computer (first more RAM), then bought a powered case, motherboard, and CPU, and built a significantly more powerful PC (Athlon, 1.6 GHz, I think) with the rest of the parts cannibalized from the Compaq. I upgraded it several other times over the years, eventually ending up with about a 2.2 GHz Athlon, 2GB of RAM, dual hard drives mirrored with RAID (can't remember if they were 30 or 60 GB each).

It finally died again about this time last year (hard drives were failing), so I pulled the hard drives out of it, backed up the data I wanted, and sold the rest of the tower for $50...then bought a Gateway laptop for $350 after rebates, minus another $75 or so from a Best Buy gift certificate. It has a DVD-RW, Pentium Dual Core, 2 GB RAM, Vista, and I believe a 160 GB hard drive. Not the most badass laptop around, but quite adequate for what I use it for, and DIRT cheap.

[Edited on December 24, 2008 at 3:11 AM. Reason : asdfasd]

12/24/2008 3:10:27 AM

12/24/2008 4:41:02 AM

12/24/2008 5:51:46 AM

VIC-20

my brother's Commodore 64 PORTABLE is still upstairs somewhere......

12/24/2008 6:02:17 AM

The first computer bought and paid for with my own cash:

12/24/2008 9:46:23 AM

Tandy 386.

Looks similar to the Tandy 5000 posted above, but it had a 2x CD-ROM drive

12/24/2008 9:47:54 AM

Tandy 1000 TX.

The clerk at Radio Shack gave me a bootleg copy of Space Quest 1.

I really miss that old computer.

12/24/2008 10:12:16 AM

theduke, that's pretty impressive. i wouldn't have pegged you for a guy capable of overhauling your computer hardware

12/24/2008 10:16:42 AM