Blast from the Past: What Was Your First Computer?

I didn’t get a computer until I was midway through high school – that was 1994. It was a hand me down from a family friend, a Macintosh SE/30. While I don’t remember the specs, I do remember its squat and compact design and its black and white screen. All I ever did on it was write papers, which were printed on a dot-matrix printer mind you. It wasn’t until my parents got me a proper computer when I started college in ’96 that I realized just how cool computers were.

That was the Toshiba Infinia 7200. I picked it because of its rad monitor design, which featured built-in speakers, a stereo-style volume knob, and even telephone perks. Yup! It wasn’t quite VoIP, but since we were all using dial-up at the time, when the phone line was connected to the Toshiba desktop and you got a call, you could answer it via the computer and talk over speakerphone. Pretty innovative at the time.

I used that computer until 2001 or 2002, when I bought myself an iBook with my own money. I was so damn proud of that purchase. I’m on my third Apple laptop and can’t imagine going back to a PC. What was your first computer?

After the jump the story behind the computer pictured above...

That's Joey Harrison's first computer. He writes, "It was 1983 and computers were the latest, hottest thing. I was terribly excited about getting one. I paid $1800 for my Apple IIe. It had 64 kb of ram. Was there software available? I don't remember any. The Web was still a decade away. I took a class in Basic programming. With a great deal of effort, I could add sums. After about six months, I sold it and returned to my typewriter. Three years later I bought a Commodore 128. By that time, there were rudimentary word processors available. I dabbled on the Internet (the Web was still a few years off) and found little more than brief text conversations that reminded me of CB chatter. My how things have changed."

photo: Joey Harrison

A gateway... 64mhz I believe. It was one the first Pentium chip PC's available.

posted by jzh797s on March 26th 2009 at 10:49am
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a commodore pet and an apple ][ back in 1977

posted by campari on March 26th 2009 at 10:58am
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commodore 64

posted by art on March 26th 2009 at 11:19am
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Apple IIe -- I seem to remember we had a small tv as the monitor. I still miss playing Lode Runner.

posted by Michelle of Montreal on March 26th 2009 at 11:42am
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TRS-80 Model III in 1980 or 1981.

It had 16K of memory (yes, that is Kilobytes) and I added on a cassette player/recorder for program storage. I did 2 major hardware upgrades - increasing memory to 64K and inserting a 5.25" floppy disk drive.

Good Times.

posted by sfmitch on March 26th 2009 at 12:43pm
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The first one I remember strongly was an IBM PS2 Model 30 probably from 87 or 88. 286 architecture with 640k ram and a 20mb or 40mb hard drive MCGA graphics and some version of DOS. Spent many an hour playing various Ultima rpgs, King's Quest iterations and other such games. I vaguely remember something from Radio Shack (I think it was) that connected to the tv set that had a keyboard and I think an external floppy drive of some sort and some sort of cartridge slot also.

posted by bordjon on March 26th 2009 at 1:11pm
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a Kaypro II; I still have it and it still works, and Wordstar is still the best word processor ever.

posted by lloydalter on March 26th 2009 at 3:18pm
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atari 400.

http://oldcomputers.net/atari400.html

posted by mscot on March 26th 2009 at 4:08pm
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I also had something from Radio Shack that connected to the TV. But my first "real" computer was an IBM PC Jr.

posted by jyw on March 26th 2009 at 4:26pm
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Exactly that one, Apple IIe , with two 5 1/2" Drives. My Monitor was bigger, green monochromatic. 1985, I was 10.

posted by Valencia on March 26th 2009 at 5:12pm
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My sister and I got a Timex Sinclair for Christmas one year... technically, it was a computer. Around 1984? We probably spent a grand total of 2 hours on it - not including the time loading games from the tape drive, of course.

Next computer: 1996 G3 Beige Tower.

posted by bakerboy on March 26th 2009 at 7:05pm
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1998, I meant.

A home-built i386 with an 80Mb hard drive!

posted by smasher on March 26th 2009 at 10:51pm
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Apple II GS, limited addition with "Woz" signature. Dream Zone anybody?!

posted by Baxatax on March 27th 2009 at 9:20am
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1986 Tandy Color Computer III. Got the monitor, an extra disk drive, and the multi pack interface.

Huzzah!

posted by LHFixer on March 27th 2009 at 9:32am
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Yes! Glad to see someone else had a Tandy... Ours was a bit more advanced than that '86 though, I believe my parents bought it in the early-mid 90's.

Loved the blue screen with the yellow plaques (brings back fond memories), and I played the hell out of a PacMan type game on it (with the shark level, anyone with me?). I thought I was a computer whiz busting out some DOS on that baby!

posted by mspants on March 27th 2009 at 10:21am
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Oh how I wanted an Apple //c, an Apple //gs...a Mac...

My first computer predates those though. It was a Timex Sinclair 1000, with the optional 16k add-on.

Eventually I graduated to a Kaypro 2 that was inherited. To this day I swear HTML is just an advanced form of Wordstar printer commands.

Typing on a 24" iMac 27 years later it's easy to forget how much progress has been made.

posted by RJHD3 on March 28th 2009 at 12:43am
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The first computer I was ever allowed to use was one my father and his friend hacked together out of discarded computer parts from their office (computer programmers/manufacturers at the time). It ran at 33mhz (I think the chip was a 386) and had DOS in 1987. It was soon followed by a succession of faster and better computers, one of which lasted only 6 months before faster technology was available.

posted by Sekai on March 30th 2009 at 12:07am
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