Your first computer, how did it change ur life

[gnappi]

When a decision changes your life, forever...




My first computer was a 1982 Osborne 1 with 64 kb (that's kilobytes) of memory, two 90k floppy drives, and a Brother serial printer.




At the time I worked at IBM's customer service division (later we called it the devision) and at a meeting management asked if anyone had experience using computers. When I was the only one to raise my hand I was told I was the new southeast Florida field service tech for the new IBM PC.




That job got me into the office of a R&D manager working on his early non production prototype PC and after we chatted he "pulled" me from the service division and hired me in the development labs. From there I became the "Entry Systems Division" "Fireman" where I traveled the world bringing up new or failing assembly lines. Now I'm a retiree and still enjoy the benefits of working there




My $1700 Osborn investment went a L-O-N-G way to making a career for me, one I'll be forever grateful that I made.

 

[AMD_man]

Well mine does not have such an interesting story, but it could certainly run Crysis!

 

[pete.i]

My first was a Sinclaire ZX80 (yes I am that old). This only had a Kb of RAM as standard but I stacked 4 x 1Kb chips up and got 6Kb. Then I progressed to a ZX Spectrum. As I couldn't program, not even basic, I had to read the magazine which did get a bit boring. After that I stopped computing until the Commodore 64 came out. Been computing regularly ever since.

 

[strollin]

My first was a 1984 IBM PC with 256K RAM and 2 360K floppy drives. I was a manufacturing manager for IBM at the time and I learned Lotus 123 on the PC and started doing macros which got me interested in programming so I took a C programming class. About this time IBM decided they needed to grow the software side of the business so asked for volunteers to be retrained as programmers. I volunteered and got accepted into the 6 month long training program where I learned Assembler Language programming on the IBM 370 mainframe. That was 32 years ago and I'm still working in software development.

 

[gnappi]

My first was a 1984 IBM PC with 256K RAM and 2 360K floppy drives. I was a manufacturing manager for IBM at the time and I learned Lotus 123 on the PC and started doing macros which got me interested in programming so I took a C programming class. About this time IBM decided they needed to grow the software side of the business so asked for volunteers to be retrained as programmers. I volunteered and got accepted into the 6 month long training program where I learned Assembler Language programming on the IBM 370 mainframe. That was 32 years ago and I'm still working in software development.

Wow, my first PC had the 16/64 MoBo, and it was a BEAR getting dips to populate it to 64 . I also took many coding classes, notably Pascal, and Assembly. Assembler was my love as it got me town into the lowest level of the machines where few knew WTF was going on!



Were you in Boca?

 

[Celery]

It all started with an Atari 2600 game console. My mom picked up a basic programming cartridge with two controllers that latched together to form a "keyboard"

It only allowed very basic commands limited to ASCII characters and sound but I was hooked. I have to have a computer to learn more about basic programming. My mom bought a TI 99/4A computer. I had 16K of mem, colors and sounds. Still ASCII characters/symbols for graphics.

I wrote my first poker game on it.

As I learned more into it I started running out of memory so I started saving up for a Commodore 64 as I was intrigued with it. Along with basic programming it has a fantastic graphic and sound chips.

I got it and wrote lots of video games. Later I got into assembly language and compiler languages. They added speed and control to my basic programs that they became commercial grade video games.

I sold one to Compute! magazine.

Later I got my first IBM, a 286 PC. The rest is history.

 

[strollin]

Wow, my first PC had the 16/64 MoBo, and it was a BEAR getting dips to populate it to 64 . I also took many coding classes, notably Pascal, and Assembly. Assembler was my love as it got me town into the lowest level of the machines where few knew WTF was going on!



Were you in Boca?

Nope. San Jose. Did Programmer Training at Santa Teresa Lab (now called Silicon Valley Lab).

 

[Trotter]

My first was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer II. It was in the early 80's.

 

[Legodude522]

My first memory was of a Commodore 64. This however did not last long since my brother dropped it down the stairs. I would have been around 5 or 6 at the time. My real experience with a computer was Christmas ~1997 when we got a Packard Bell Pentium 1 running Windows 95.

 

[Wallaby Dan]

My first was a Commodore 64. I didn't keep it long as i bought it used and it died soon after i bought it. It had games in it and some programs that were similar to windows office in it. Can't remember the name anymore. When my company went to computers i went to class to learn how to use the software. I used that for about 3 years. I got hooked then. I got a old 286 and 3.1 and off i went. it was a Motorola.It was a desktop model. It laid down and the monitor sat on top. and had a lexmark printer.