A Little Computer Nostalgia

[toobfreak]

Probably my first computer I used was actually a Wang. My much older cousin's husband sold Wang computers and I was just a kid and he had one at the house that looked very much like this. But it had a cable that ran down to the floor with a "brain" there. Or maybe is was memory storage. This was long before the home PC and mouse.

Wang mostly built big computing mainframes and stuff for business and industry.

 

[Captain Caveman]

I wondered how many old people might be here that started with the early consumer computers (not pdp-11s or 360s). I started with a VIC-20 as soon as it was released here in the US. Those first ones were $300 in 1980 - still cheaper than Radio Shacks TRS Model 1. Of course there was the Apple I, the Atari 400 and 800 and The Commodore Pet - all MOS 6502 machines. Maybe you started sooner with the Altair and IMSAI S100 bus machines with the Intel 8080 or Zilog Z80.

So, what did you start with and when did you go over to the dark side (IBM PC/Clones)? I got my first PC clone in late 1983.

Cheers

I think the Vic 20 had 3k of memory.

I started on the 16k rubber keyboard Spectrum, which received a memory upgrade to 48k, then a final upgrade to a push button keyboard.

I then bought a 128k spectrum and also had the Sinclair QL.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I wondered how many old people might be here that started with the early consumer computers (not pdp-11s or 360s). I started with a VIC-20 as soon as it was released here in the US. Those first ones were $300 in 1980 - still cheaper than Radio Shacks TRS Model 1. Of course there was the Apple I, the Atari 400 and 800 and The Commodore Pet - all MOS 6502 machines. Maybe you started sooner with the Altair and IMSAI S100 bus machines with the Intel 8080 or Zilog Z80.

So, what did you start with and when did you go over to the dark side (IBM PC/Clones)? I got my first PC clone in late 1983.

Cheers

I started out going to Radio Shack in the 1970s, when the first TSR-80 came out, and playing with it in the stores. Shortly before I graduated from High School,, in 1981, my parents bought an Apple ][, with which I spent a great deal of my time, writing various programs.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Commodore 128
1985
Remarkably ahead of it's time. Dual booted with 3 different operating systems.
And the below keyboard... was the whole computer.
No big giant box.
I can't tell you how much I loved this thing.
But then came the Amiga... at least 10 years ahead of it's time also.

 

[Karen Brandon]

Atari 800 was what I had at home - at work I had an IBM PC with 20 mg hard drive and two 5 1/4 inch floppy drives

WordPerfect 4.0 disk in left drive - data in right - yeehaw

 

[Ringel05]

 

[iamwhatiseem]

That new fangled gadgetry?

Why I used these....

 

[Mac-7]

So, what did you start with and when did you go over to the dark side (IBM PC/Clones)? I got my first PC clone in late 1983.

The c64

I still have one

 

[iamwhatiseem]

The c64

I still have one

I had the c128
Indeed, one of the saddest outcomes of the computer wars was Commodore losing.
They were so ahead of everyone else, the list of "firsts" that was done on the lowly Commodore computer is loooong.
And the Amiga OS was hands down the best OS for at least 15 years. Just about first in anything that matters with an operating system.

Look at the Amiga OS of 1982:

Gee... look familiar?? Wow... looks strangely just like Windows doesn't it. Only Amiga came out with theirs 3 years earlier.