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My first PC was a 2x360k XT. I still prefer working like that, but have since moved to using a solid state drive instead of floppy only. I've got a largish collection of vintage computers. Here's my favourite. A 5150 with a single 360K drive and a cheap green TV monitor from the same era just to give it character.
More on that project here: https://voxigo.wordpress.com/
That was the last one running on XTs because 3.1 needed 1 MB to run. I had 2 XTs, one with a turbo button later model and put win 3.0 on them. The hard drives were 20 and 30 MB respectively.
I just found some old dial-in credentials, and the phone number is still active
Compaq presario Laptop
Do the holders of that number know what a modem sounds like? Are they about to find out?
Spectrum 128K
I had an Acorn Electron - so 1Mhz and 32k (which still took forever to fill off tape).
I was so glad when I got my Amiga A500 (from Evesham Micros - remember them?)
According to http://problemkaputt.de/zxdocs.htm#zx80zx81models, the specs were:
CPU: NEC P1X108-144 D780C-1 (Z80 compatible) 3.25MHz
The clock frequency is gained from a high tolerance 6.5MHz
chewing gum, not exactly a quartz oscillator, in fact, my
oscilloscope tells me that my ZX81 is running at 3.33Mhz.
Effective CPU Speed in SLOW mode (when Display is enabled)
For 50Hz Display Refresh: 0.804600 MHz
For 60Hz Display Refresh: 0.536400 MHz
Custom: FERRANTI ULA 2C184E 8147
Combines the ZX80 video circuit in one chip, plus NMI-generator
Video Tech Data
Video: 32x24 Characters (256x192 pixels), 64x48 Dots Block Graphics
Characters: 64 Characters, defined in ROM area
Attributes: Normal and Inverted (separately for each char)
Memory
8 Kbytes ROM
1 KByte RAM built-in
Expanision RAM: 16KBytes (most popular) up to 56KBytes
I believe that the CPU that 'powered' the ZX81 was then used in washing machines to control the different programs etc.
The ZX81 was the start of my path to geekdom, followed by the Spectrum 48k, the +3 (disk drive), Amiga 600, some huge 386 box, IBM55SX and then into PCs as we know today.
Well, to remember, I first used the PC in 1997/1998 with MS-DOS, but only got my own one in 2001-2002. It was a used 486 with Windows 98 (n-hand, since PC is really precious in my town :-P) but I was very happy with it. I started learning Pascal programming with it and still did not think programming is my (current) job. Still remember the reason which I learnt programming is to be able to discover special techniques in PlayStation games
This topic is really sweet IMHO. Thanks for creating this :-)
Commodore 16 around 1985... then an Amstrad CPC 464 ... Amiga 500/1200 and first PC was a 386 I think, 25mhz or so, 20MB HD. Cost a bomb.
ZX Spectrum
yeah, long nights in 1983 with my osborne
No, it was under $300!
i cant even remember my first computer, and why would i even want to? things are much better now.
I got one 486..
Nostalgia, knowing how we got from A to B etc etc.
AMD 1.1Ghz , 40gb HDD , 128mb ram in 2003
For certain values of better.
Nostalgia is indeed good to nourish. It's human. How we got from A to B, and history of computing in general, is just a matter of understanding computers. I'm often taken aback by the lack of understanding of the general field by those who actively ignore reality. As an example, I like to point out just how much industry uses "old" technology. Except it's not old, because they're using it and making money from it. It is indeed current. Machines using floppy drives used in CNC is a common example. In fact one can even still buy punched tape! Why? Because it's not gone yet. A professional IT expert may well be required to handle that stuff. Of course one can't know everything, but in my opinion wilfully ignoring stuff isn't too smart from a professional point of view.
dafuq...
Actually, since my CIP is dead since the nineties, I have been looking for an identical machine second hand, but it looks like all died of the same disease, only newer versions are available, some with 256k ram running msdos, which I do not want.
I think emulators are ok for the purpose, but I have very serious stocks of moded and own games I would like to be able to load some day, and those were all saved with the special format to save tape. They do not load on any other actual machine i tried as well as converters for emulators. That was my first lesson of vendor locking in and probably created my horror of similar situations which i try to avoid first thing before even thinking to use some technology.
Yes, the technology is antiquated, but we encountered it when we were young and it shaped the way we are thinking even today.
http://sinclairzxspectrum.elite-systems.co.uk/index.php
Still too expensive for me, and it is not really a clone, it would be a nice toy for old timers, though.
MOST things are better, but SOME things are worse. Progress is not linear, certainly not in the ICT field.
Today, most hardware is difficult to service or upgrade in the same easy, cost-effective way that was common years ago. Portable hardware may even be designed with a weak point. See the latest Microsoft Surface: the screen cannot be removed without breaking the glass, so the computer will be discarded when the battery will fail. See the special tools needed to open Apple products.
On the software side, a common practice is to sell half-backed, broken code to the customer, then fix it on the field trough software updates later. It used to be different in the past. Also: enterprise custom code was usually written with the goal to be serviceable for several years. Today, it is often hastly written by some outsourced third party and any significant change may actually means a full rewrite.
A samsung with a 8086 cpu and with 8 mb ram, afair. It was more than 20 years ago...
got my first pc on senior high school and it still win98 can't remember what spec,
but the only thing I can remember is after few years, never winter night released and played everyday, hahaha...
A Legend (today's Lenovo) PC, PII 400, 64M SDRAM, 4GB HDD, WIN98...
First one was the Vic20, then came the infamous Commodore 64, then a (rather slow) Windows DOS computer who was upgraded to Windows 3.1 soon enough. After that, my 'home computer' was upgraded a few more (more like a dozen) times, eventually turning into the PC I use today, replacement after replacement. (basically something that doesn't take 9000 hours to install software on)
dont remember but should be mmx with 128 or 64mb ram.
I still remember running Windows 286! I think i still have the original install disks if i recall... Deskmate was awesome back in its time...
AMD K6-2 200 with SIS mainboard
You're right. It "was" good at the time.
(emphasis on was)
Showing my age:
Circa 1983
Apple IIe
Specs:
¹ Text can be mixed with graphic modes, replacing either bottom 8 or 32 lines of graphics with four lines of text, depending on video mode
² effectively 140×192 in color, due to pixel placement restrictions