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First Computers (yours or mine, not of all time)
Moe Fwacky
Right Here, Right NowDrives a BuickModerator mod
Right Here, Right NowDrives a BuickModerator mod
We all remember those first computers that made their ways into our homes all those years ago. For most of us, the technology in those machines wouldn't be fit for a graphing calculator. Regardless, back then it was probably the most advanced piece of technology we had seen. So this thread is dedicated to those old machines, talk about yours and what you used it for.
Mine was a Franklin ACE 2100, a clone to the Apple IIe which eventually got Franklin sued. I used mine mostly for games. When I was told it was broken, I took that to mean that I could take it apart (as I did with most everything I could find at the time) and I messed the thing up so badly, it could never be repaired ever again. That was fine by me, as the machine was already pretty old at the time (we were using the IIGS's in school and I had recently seen my first IBM computer with an internal hard drive and wonder why we didn't have that). After that machine, we ended up with an older IBM, one of the first home PCs, in fact, about 10 years after they're debut. I don't remember what my parents (and by parents I mean my father, as my mother didn't know how to turn a computer on until about 3 years go) used it for, Here's some details about the machine I found on old-computers.com.
So, what was your first computer?
Mine was a Franklin ACE 2100, a clone to the Apple IIe which eventually got Franklin sued. I used mine mostly for games. When I was told it was broken, I took that to mean that I could take it apart (as I did with most everything I could find at the time) and I messed the thing up so badly, it could never be repaired ever again. That was fine by me, as the machine was already pretty old at the time (we were using the IIGS's in school and I had recently seen my first IBM computer with an internal hard drive and wonder why we didn't have that). After that machine, we ended up with an older IBM, one of the first home PCs, in fact, about 10 years after they're debut. I don't remember what my parents (and by parents I mean my father, as my mother didn't know how to turn a computer on until about 3 years go) used it for, Here's some details about the machine I found on old-computers.com.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=769old-computers.com wrote:The ACE 2000 series consisted of three computers the 2000, 2100, and the 2200.
The 2000 had no disk drives, the 2100 had one disk drive, and the 2200 had two disk drives. All featured a detachable keyboard, the same 1.02 MHz 65SC02 processor, the usual scattering of expansion slots around the motherboard and the half-height case.
Graphics modes and sound capabilities were in line with the Apple ][e. On the front panel, it had a row of LEDs for Power, Diagnostics, Double-high-res Graphics Mode, Hi-res Graphics Mode, and CPU Activity.
The back panel featured RS-232 serial ports (2), 1 DB-25 parallel port, 15-pin RGB video, and the power cable. The case and power supply had integrated fans. The case had the indentations for areas of expansion cards to poke out and provide new connectors; however, these expansion slots were not located in a nice row, 1-6. Slot 1 was missing (this was the parallel port on the back), slots 2 and 4 were combined into one slot (it was one or the other set via a jumper, not both), slot 3 was located near the rear and ran left to right, not from to back, slot 5 was located on the right side of the case and faced outward towards a screwplate covering the connector face and ran perpendicular to slot 3. Slot 6 was also missing, as it controlled the two disk drives.
Low-res graphics mode provided 16 colors in a 320x200 array, with a 2-4 line 'text window' at the bottom of the screen. Hi-res graphics gave you 512 x 384 pixels at either 4, 6, or 7 colors (depending on which software was used). There was supposedly another graphics mode, dubbed 'Double-High Resolution' which was supposed to give you 16 colors at 512x384, but there was a dearth of information about how to program in it.
The Franklins could run AppleSoft BASIC and DOS 3.3, but they shipped with the Franklin DOS 2 floppy FDOS 2. This allowed for such things as programmable function keys. Otherwise, there wasn't a whole lot different.
FDOS and BASIC were the keys to the enhanced graphics modes. If you had it, you could run Integer BASIC through a convoluted process. Booting Integer BASIC had an interesting secret: if you 'peeked' and 'poked' enough, you'd find the memory address for a reset. When Integer BASIC was reset, it displayed 'Apple ][' across the top of the screen. There were also numerous references to 'S. Wozniak' and 'S. Jobs' embedded in many of the programs Franklin delivered for it.
The Ace 2000 series was in fact the last Apple II compatibles made by Franklin. (~ 1987). Franklin then tried manufacturing PC clones before finally devoting themselves to pocket translators.
So, what was your first computer?
Moe Fwacky on
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I was three at the time, so sorry I am not remembering all that well.
I remember one time I figured out how to change the command prompt, but I only changed it a small bit, but this freaked out my mom who thought I did something funky to the system and I had to change it back.
The next computer was a 486SX that had Windows 3.1 on it, wow what a change.
I still own one, though not my original. Lovely computer with a great OS.
Same here, those were really nice.
It had a cartridge slot in the back. Most of the cartridges we had were games, like Gorf, Radar Rat Race, Frogger, and Q-bert. Operating the system without a cartridge allowed the user to program in BASIC. My brothers and I had a few kiddie programming books, so we would make ASCII rockets fly around the screen, and do other stuff like that.
"Welcome to Macintosh, home of the Johnsons."
I thought the computer was so smart because it knew we lived on Macintosh Rd. Silly me...
I remember the most awesome thing was this art program on the computer, and you could erase your work in a number of ways. Like exploding the pictures, or something, I don't even know.
After that we got an ancient Compaq Presario with a 133MHz Pentium and probably 8 or 16MB of RAM, but my mom upgraded the memory to the hilt. It took EDO SDRAM, which I kept because my aunt still has an old Packard Bell that could use it.
Note that the one I had didn't have the second floppy drive, so only sat about half as tall. And yes, that is a shitty IR wireless keyboard, though mine had the infamous "chiclet" keys. It also had a mouse of all things, though an external serial port add-on. It was the shit.
Actually, it was just shit. But it was free, and it got me into both computers and BASIC programming. I had many good times with that computer. But within a year or two I had moved on to an old IBM XT (it had a hard drive of all things), and then shortly thereafter to a 386 which was my first "real" computer (as in, not entirely outdated by the time I got it).
Ditto.. Learned programming on it with Amigabasic and then AMOSPro.. I've still got my manual for AMOS, and flipping through it makes me all teary eyed. I even had a game in a magazine under the readers section (though it was a bit shit).
It has just occured to me that I threw the magazine out when I disposed of my ridiculous Amiga Format collection about a year ago.
The Mac had a 60 MB hard drive, and was kept underneath the Mac itself. To this day, my brother and I can imitate the sounds of it starting up: "Whiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....HUMMM HUMMM, CHUKCHUKCHUKCHUKCHUKCHUKCHUK"
Seeing that PCJr. brings back memories. I used those in elementary school.
Then came the 486SX 25MHz that my dad got grifted on. First computer I ever bought for myself was an Athlon 1700+ as it was a while before I could afford my own computer (It replaced a P133 that my mom had bought me in high school).
Basically the keyboard flipped up onto the screen section and locked in with clips. The other side had a huge leather handle bolted onto it. You could use Procomm Plus to dial into the metro library service (to access the card catalog) where I lived, which was just a glorified unix shell. You could actually back out of the program and run a Lynx browser and run telnet from inside of that. It took them about 3 or 4 years before they realised people were using the system for free internet access for basically a free local call. Even then so few people actually used the service that they probably didn't even change it purposefully since they were upgrading all of the systems.
I got a lot of solid hours of free MUDding courtesy of the local library.
Ah, just like every old printer I ever had. So distinctive.
I happen to have my dad's first computer, which was a Tandy Color Computer...the model number escapes me at the moment. There are emulators for it all over the place, so I'll feel like a moron when someone points the name out to me. 32K of RAM and an external 5.25" floppy drive. Plugged into the TV. I've also still got some floppies that go with it - paint programs and such.
Played Wolfenstein on that thing so much, good times.
My first PC was a 386-25SX IIRC. I think it had a 43 meg harddrive.
Fun times were had with this machine.
Looks like it. That's one nice setup on the Wiki page there.
I still have many of the old DOS games I played. Dangerous Dave, Castle of the Winds, Lode Runner, then never ones like Rayman, Interstate '76 with Nitro Pack, Logic Quest, Myst, and Riddle of the Sphinx.
It had a whopping 108 mb hard drive space and 4mb RAM. I proceeded to teach myself how to use DOS (having learned quickly that Windows 3.1 was too resource intensive to run reliably and quickly), and ended up making a bunch of QBasic programs and games while tooling around. Thus began my descent into nerddom.
Castle of the Winds is a Windows game. In fact, it was created by its author for the express purpose of learning Windows' API. :P
Oh, right. It was included on this CD titled "250 Best Arcade Games" which consisted of mostly DOS games and a few Windows-only.
On a different note, I did at one point come into possession of a Poqet PC. Like, the first palmtop ever. It ran DOS and it had one memory/SD-whatever card for storage. The other was conspicuously missing. I loved that thing even though I had no idea how to use it. Its mysterious loss still dogs me.
I kind of hosed it though, because I was an inquisitive fellow, and I wondered what would happen if I copied the system files from the computer my friend loaned me when he went to New Zealand for a year, which had DOS 5 on it, to ours, which had DOS 4 I believe.
Bad things is what. Fortunately it still booted off the Tie Fighter boot disk. I was so proud of myself at the time for making batch files allowing me to input 1 letter to start any of my games.
When connected to our Okidata dot-matrix printer I would make hella banners for school.
Really quite a poor Computer, even for 1983, but it did at least let me learn BASIC and more importantly, play Elite.
I was so jealous of you C64 owning bitches.:P
YES. CGA Zaxxon was the shit.
I think everybody had an Okidata dot-matrix printer. They sent them out with boxes of Tide.
Also VESA conflicts when installing or running just about anything on early VGA systems. Loved that one.
Dear lord the nightmares...
If anyone nowadays thinks that they have trouble installing anything in their computers, try installing one of these. They sometimes took enough force that was likely to snap the board (alot of times due to shitty PCB fabbing). Couple that with some of the worst-designed, standards-less, sharp-cornered cases. I'm lucky to still have fingers now that I think about it.
Ah yes, I remember it well. Oh, the horrible old days.
EDIT: No, wait, they were ISA. I think VESA was before my time. ISA was pretty aweful too though.
There were tricks to it, IIRC. Like easing just the back corner in, then slowing bringing it down (easing again for each new corner of the segmented connector). Of course, you had to bend the fuck out of the little tab on the front (back?) so that it would still seat coming in at an angle like that so you could screw the thing down once you got it in. But yeah, lots of fun.
Or pulling my first processor (which was not in a ZIF socket) without realizing that a certain level of finesse was involved. Oh, the bent pins. So many bent pins. Luckily you could simply put it in with the same motion and the pins would bend themselves back, which is what we had to do when we installed it in my friend's computer (who I was passing it along to).
After that I knew that you had to use a screwdriver, and carefully wedge it under each of the four sides ever so slowly so they'd come out evenly. Of course, eventually I just got a motherboard with a ZIF socket, which is the kind of thing the kids these days just take for granted.
EDIT: VESA wasn't a physical card standard. It was the standard "driver"-type-thingy used for interfacing with your video cards. It was basically the standard that governed things like resolution, bit depth, and refresh rates. Or at least, I'm pretty sure that's what it was. Still in use in some capacity today, I believe...I know that because Linux (at least open-source drivers) doesn't like my video card, I end up having to use the VESA driver for "standard" SVGA output.
EDIT: And yes, ISA could be horrible. Especially 16-bit ISA, which is what I believe the card pictured is (8-bit only had the front (back?) two segments of connectors).
Ah, so I wasn't completely on drugs then.
Aye, and I remember having a 16-bit ISA sound card. I think it was an old Soundblaster. I can't remember what kind though. I want to say Soundblaster Pro 16, but I can't remember for the life of me now.
So wikipedia tells me that there were in fact VESA cards, and that the one pictured is one of them. It was an addition to an ISA port, or some such. 16-bit ISA apparently just added the second portion of the connector. But yes, VESA was also a BIOS extension which is what I always thought of it as.
And the first family computer was a used 386SX 25MHz with 4MB RAM and I think a 120MB HDD. It had a bunch of games in the HD, including Wing Commander... And that made me the gamer I am today.
Then my dad bought my older sister's 486DX2 66MHz. So awesome. It had 8MB ram and I can't remember how much HD. It had a VLB video card, a 14.400 USR Fax/modem and we added a MULTIMEDIA KIT to it. Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 ISA (not pnp), 4x CD-ROM drive (that plugged into the sound card), two speakers. It had a game bundle that included Wing Commander 2 (woot!!!), Ultima VIII, Syndicate Plus and Strike Commander. So much gold. I even bought Wing Commander III to play on it, 4 fucking disks!
Then I bought my Pentium 233MMX, with 16MB RAM (or was it 64? I think it was 64), and later a Voodoo3 3000.
Later I had an Athlon 1.3, another Athlon 2.8 (that's my wife's now) and now I have an A64 3000+ with 2GB RAM and a 7800GS.