Mike Casey
Postmaster
Reged: 11/11/04
Posts: 5919
Loc: Pasadena CA
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 What was your first “real” computer?
In 1985 I purchased my first real PC. Here are the specs:
AST Premium 286 - 10 MHZ
640K RAM
20 Meg Hard drive
1.2M Floppy drive
$3,500 new
I had first purchased a Radio Shack PC2 pocket computer in 1983. With an extra memory module, it had 1,200 bytes of RAM. Ran at about 1.2 KHZ. $300. I learned pocket BASIC on that little machine.
Then an Atari 800. I forget the specs on the little box, but I first learned MS BASIC on it as well as wrote some rudimentary programs using Player/Missile (sprite) graphics.
I still consider the AST my first real computer though.
What was yours?
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Mike (tVA)
All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand.
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rboe
Numbfinger
Reged: 03/16/02
Posts: 39669
Loc: Phx, AZ
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Packard Bell 486 33MHz. Ran Windows 95, OS/2 Warp 4, Solaris and Linux on it.
Spent $600 for a 16MB simm and I refuse to get rid of it! 
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Ron
NS11GPS
Pronto
16" dob
15X70 Obies
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LivingNDixie
Lord of Ferrets
Reged: 04/23/03
Posts: 15790
Loc: Hoover, AL
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Apple IIc. It was a gift from my parents, I think I was in the 1st grade
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Preston
Celestron 11" Nexstar GPS XLT
Lunt LS60T/Ha 60mm f/8.33 (on order)
It’s not finishing something when your tank is empty that makes you a stronger person. It’s brushing yourself off and refacing the foe that defeated you with the same determination and willingness to fight that you had when you began your journey.
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Albie
Post Laureate
Reged: 02/22/05
Posts: 3519
Loc: Alberta,Canada
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Amd Athlon 800mhz with windows ME.It was given to me from my friends' wife.What a learning curve that was.The computer's display would blank out after a few hours of uptime.Drove me halfway insane 
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Skywatcher 10" f/4.7 Dob with Moonlight CR1
Televue 2x barlow and 5T6,7T6,9T6,16T5 and 26T5 Televue Naglers.
SkyMaster 15x70,Regal LX 8x42 and Noble 10x28
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dgs©
Postmaster
Reged: 03/29/04
Posts: 13892
Loc: West Monroe, Louisiana
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Zenith 8088 8MHz with 256k RAM, two 360k (5¼" Floppy Drives), Hercules monochrome graphics. No hard drive, no mouse, certainly no sound board. 
The keyboard is so heavy, it feels like the back plane is a ¼" steel plate.
Later I added a Plus 20Mb Hard Card, another 512k of RAM, 8087 math coprocessor, and a Logitech 3 button mouse.
That 20Mb hard drive held: DR-DOS opertating system, WordStar, Lotus123, dBase III+, Fortran compiler, Turbo Pascal compiler, Autocad 2.17b, and most of the files I created with those packages, plus Tetris. Amazing what could be done in so little space before Windows came along.
I remember, during the court goings on over Microsoft and their "monopoly", I was using that computer at work with absolutely no Microsoft content.
I still have it at home, and last time I hooked it together, it still worked.
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- david
8"Ø Newtonian on SVP, Moonlite CR2, Telrad
PST Oberwerk Ultra 15x70 Orion Ultraview 10×50
Hand-me-down Sears Refractor (Discoverer) 60mm×900mm
"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world, remains and is immortal." --Albert Pike
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Victor Kennedy
Pooh-Bear
Reged: 05/22/03
Posts: 9836
Loc: Slovenia
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Franklin Ace 100 (not 1000), the first Apple clone.
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To err is human; to moo is bovine.
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rboe
Numbfinger
Reged: 03/16/02
Posts: 39669
Loc: Phx, AZ
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At work I use a Zenith data systems AT style keyboard built in January 1991. It has this wonderful feel to it - as close to the old IBM keyboards I've been able to find. 
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Ron
NS11GPS
Pronto
16" dob
15X70 Obies
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Hillbilly_Gazer
Court Jester
Reged: 11/17/04
Posts: 1775
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It was a Commodore 64 which ran at 1.023 mhz. Man, I got hours of fun from that thing! As I did when I made the move to the Amiga 1000 and later the Amiga 2000 (which ran at a blazing 7.14 mhz and had 1 whole megabyte of RAM!!).
I still have all of those machines. Sometimes I miss playing around with them.
IMO, the Amigas were ahead of their time, and I'd like to know where the technology would have went if they had really caught on.
My first "modern day" computer was a used 486 given to me by a friend. It was not very long before I felt the need for speed and bought a moderately speedy (for the time) 400 mhz HP.
A few years ago, the same friend who set me on the path built me the 1.5 Ghz computer that I am still using to this day.
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Orion XT-8
Orion Scenix 10x50 WA Binoculars
And not a whole lot else!
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Tom L
Reged: 01/07/04
Posts: 29817
Loc: Sunny Oregon
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TI-994A was my first computer. First PC was an IBM PC, the original, with 2 floppy drives! WooHoo! I upgraded it to an IBM PC XT, which added a 5MB HDD running at 4.77 MHz, 64K system memory... I am a 'C' and assembler programmer and a whole slew of other languages and could make a DOS-based PC sit, roll over and play dead! 
After that I started going through TI PCs (since I worked for Texas Instruments and yes, we did have PCs...Rod Canion of Compaq fame was my department manager at TI at the time....)
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Tom 
Tele Vue 102mm f/8.6 on an EzTouch
Vixen 80mm f/5 A80SSWT on a grab-n-go mount
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kfred
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/11/03
Posts: 2001
Loc: Dayton, Ohio
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No name brand computer - 1994
486 DX2 (100MhZ) w/math co-processor
850mb Hardrive
6.0mb of RAM
Fred
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River Cam - Cambridge England
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John Kocijanski
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 08/22/03
Posts: 1487
Loc: Monticello, NY
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A Macintosh Performa 6200. It had a Power PC 75mhz with 8mb of ram and a 1gb hard drive. It is considered to be a "Road Apple" for its poor design but it served me well.
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John
Deep Space Observer 10 * SPC-8 * C102 HD f/10 * XT 4.5 * AT1010N * PST *
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dgs©
Postmaster
Reged: 03/29/04
Posts: 13892
Loc: West Monroe, Louisiana
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Quote:
I am a 'C' and assembler programmer and a whole slew of other languages and could make a DOS-based PC sit, roll over and play dead!
Especially the play dead part.
 Whoah!
Kind of left yourself open there.
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- david
8"Ø Newtonian on SVP, Moonlite CR2, Telrad
PST Oberwerk Ultra 15x70 Orion Ultraview 10×50
Hand-me-down Sears Refractor (Discoverer) 60mm×900mm
"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world, remains and is immortal." --Albert Pike
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David Knisely
Postmaster
Reged: 04/19/04
Posts: 6777
Loc: Beatrice, Nebraska
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I don't know about a "real" computer, but other than a programmable calculator, the first one with a keyboard was a Timex/Sinclair 1000 (early 1980's). I even got the memory extension and the thermal paper printer! I had fun learning to program a bit in its rather odd-ball form of BASIC, but I did manage to create some astronomy software for precession correction, Newtonian telescope layout, Jovian radio burst predictions, and a few others. One satellite tracking application that I got from AMSAT took over 4 minutes to load from the casette, but did allow me to get good predictions for satellite access. It was several years after that when I finally got a "decent" computer (a "Leading Edge" model "D" IBM-PC clone that didn't even come with a decent manual). Clear skies to you.
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David W. Knisely
Hyde Memorial Observatory
http://www.hydeobservatory.info
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s58y
Post Laureate
Reged: 12/12/04
Posts: 4850
Loc: Eastern NY
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First Computer owned -- Timex/Sinclair (1980?)
First Computer operated -- IBM 1130 (1967)
First Computer used -- IBM 7044 (Quicktran) (1966)
First Computer seen -- IBM 705 (1958)
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Hutech 30D, SBIG ST-402 autoguider
SV80S, SV66 guidescope
AP900, G-11, Barndoor tracker
http://www.pbase.com/s58y
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Tom L
Reged: 01/07/04
Posts: 29817
Loc: Sunny Oregon
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Quote:
Quote:
I am a 'C' and assembler programmer and a whole slew of other languages and could make a DOS-based PC sit, roll over and play dead!
Especially the play dead part.
Whoah!
Kind of left yourself open there.
Just for you to pick it up, David! 
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Tom
Tele Vue 102mm f/8.6 on an EzTouch
Vixen 80mm f/5 A80SSWT on a grab-n-go mount
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Paul Rix
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/06/04
Posts: 2923
Loc: Zanesville, Ohio,USA
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My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81 with 1K of RAM. My father bought it for me in 1983 I think and we upgraded it with a 16K RAM Pack. A little later I was thrilled to get a Sinclair ZX Spectrum with 48K of RAM which served me well right up until the early '90s. A couple of years with an Atari ST were fun then I entered the PC world with a 486SX 25 Mhz machine wih 4mb of RAM and 160MB Hard Disk. Most of my computer upgrades were motivated by wanting to play the latest flight sims. I was young and foolish back then .
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Climbing the Learning Curve
Meade 10" LX200 Classic: WO 66SD.
Philips SPC900NC, DMK21AU04.AS, Meade DSI Pro and DSI Pro II.
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Rusty
Postmaster
Reged: 08/06/03
Posts: 16396
Loc: Brooker, FL
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The first I owned was a Commodore 64; then a C64 SX (portable, with an actually-usable 5" color screen).
The first "IBM Clone" was a Mitsubishi 286/8, with a screaming 40 Mb HD with 28 ms access time!
The first computer I programmed on was a Univac, and the major advances were FORTRAN's supplanting GOTRAN, and the punch cards putting in an extra 8 rows so if you dropped 'em, the sorter could put 'em back into the right order....
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N11GPS Fastar
TOA-130S
MK66 Std
Vintage C5
Megrez II 80mm ED Triplet APO
SolarMax 40
NJP Temma II
Sirius EQ-G
ST8XE/CFW-8(LRGBHa)/AO-7/DF-2/STV Dlx/ST237a/350D (Unmodded)/Mallincam Color Hyper Plus/DSI III Color/DSI II Pro
Two not-spoiled Golden Retrievers - Maggie and Casey
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering. - Arthur C. Clarke
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Tom L
Reged: 01/07/04
Posts: 29817
Loc: Sunny Oregon
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I used to walk around with my box of cards for my fortran programs and a diagonal magic marker line down the top of them...sure was nice to move to magnetic media...8" floppies!
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Tom
Tele Vue 102mm f/8.6 on an EzTouch
Vixen 80mm f/5 A80SSWT on a grab-n-go mount
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Macavity
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 02/10/06
Posts: 792
Loc: Oxfordshire, UK
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Punched cards certainly trained you to TYPE accurately. Or maybe I was too shy to ask the (rather intimmidating) "cogniscenti" how to correct typos?
As a working System Manager, I guess I didn't like to take my work home too much - But I did enjoy using my Atari STE. I don't think e.g. the *programming* documentation has ever been equaled - And certainly NOT in my latest leisure foray, PalmOS. But the latter does have some "homebrew" appeal! 
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Chris
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basel10
scholastic sledgehammer
Reged: 07/15/05
Posts: 805
Loc: TN
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Mine was a dell 486 sx 33 with 16 megs of ram. I kept it virus free like all computer since and I learned how wonderful Windows is. Wow all the software I could run to enrich my life. Windows has gotten better and better. Now not only can you run many many programs for all purposes it is rock solid stable. I love Windows!
The above computer is the only computer I have bought. The rest I built.
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www.knoxvilleobservers.org
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HubbleO
super member
Reged: 07/28/04
Posts: 122
Loc: Livonia, MI
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My college, Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken NJ, was the first college in the US to require incoming freshmen to purchase computers in 1983 (or so we were told...I never heard different).
The PC was a Digital Equipment Professional PC 350...which was to "lovingly" become known as the "digital doorstop". I'm not sure of the processor but I believe it had 640K of RAM and a 10 MB hard drive. It ran the Professional Operating System..."POS" (insert your own joke here). It came with Word 11 which I think was a precursor to MS Word. The floppy drive (4in) was not able to format diskettes so you had to buy preformatted ones.
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Jim
btw...HubbleO...not the HST, its a nickname.
C8-SGT
80GT
Oberwerks 11x56
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imjeffp
Senior Space Cadet
Reged: 09/30/03
Posts: 4420
Loc: Cedar Park, Texas
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Quote:
A Macintosh Performa 6200. It had a Power PC 75mhz with 8mb of ram and a 1gb hard drive. It is considered to be a "Road Apple" for its poor design but it served me well.
I had a 6220, and it may or may not have been a "Road Apple," but it played CDs, had a TV tuner, and a speakerphone. I loved the small form factor (I'd get another one that size) and the IR remote control.
But my first PC was a TRS-80 with a cassette drive. Anybody else remember "cload?"
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Blog
ST80 • AT80EDT/LXD650
ETX-90/DS-2000 • 10" LX200 Classic ("The Quarter-Meter Telescope at the Heritage Park Observatory")
SPC900NC • DMK21AF04 • Digital Rebel XT
  
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Greg K.
Reged: 12/11/03
Posts: 9971
Loc: Clifton Park, NY
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1981, Atari 400 - membrane keyboard, 16K RAM, no cassette drive or floppy drive, any programs I wanted to write I had to type in every time.  It wasn't long before I got the casette drive and then later the floppy drive. I also piggyback-soldered in 64K RAM chips to upgrade the memory. I had a lot of fun with that thing.
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NexStar 11 GPS
Orion SkyView Pro 8EQ w/ Autostar
15x70 Celestron SkyMasters
Orion 90mm Mak
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Commdore Pet, and I didnt buy it, it suddenly appeared in my room along with tape drive.
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StarWars
Postmaster
Reged: 11/26/03
Posts: 11621
Loc: At The Movies
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apple 2 plus 32k + 16k (48k) dual 5.25 drives
with a dot matrix printer. 
(and I still have it)
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Sony Digital Media player..
MX 460 earbuds
15x70 ETX125AT
FireBall XL5
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half meter
Postmaster
Reged: 05/05/04
Posts: 12517
Loc: Great Lakes
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Radio Shack Color Computer (1982). I advertised in Color
Computer magazine to sell a "software spooler" I wrote and
sold for $14.95. I wrote it in assembler and it was basically
a ring buffer that stored printer output and used timer
interrupts to feed the very slow Radio Shack 600 baud dot
matrix impact printers of the time. "No more waiting for
your slow printer", I recall the ad read... I sold over 200
of them on cassette tape
First program written: 1968 on a GE timesharing service teletype.
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oldsalt
Astro Philosopher
Reged: 02/12/05
Posts: 7958
Loc: Pa - between starparties
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Abacus
Slide rule
Timex Sinclair
C-64 I still haveit and it works
Amiga 1000 still have it still works
PC
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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c64 was the first machine I owned. I loved that thing. I had the 1541 floppy and a BW tv. rock on!
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llanitedave
Humble Megalomaniac
Reged: 09/26/05
Posts: 10459
Loc: Amargosa Valley, NV, USA
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Atari 800. I learned BASIC on it, had had hours of fun.
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"S.O.E." (Sauron's Other Eye) 16" Royce conical mirror: A permanent work in progress.
10" Homebuilt dob, old Coulter mirror
Next Project: The "Eye of Sauron" Observatory!
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stevecoe
Reged: 04/24/04
Posts: 2129
Loc: Arizona, USA
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Apple II plus, 2 5.25" floppy drives and 64K of RAM, what more could anyone want???
Below is a photo of my 286 machine, 256K of RAM, 10 Meg Harddrive and two big floppys. I was on top of the world that machine only did what I told it to do, ah DOS 3.3; those were the days. AND, all the color display you could want, I picked amber, you could also have green. I think I took this for insurance purposes, you think I could get anything for it if it was stolen today?
Steve Coe
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150mm 6" f/8 Celestron Refractor on Sirius Mount
80mmED 3" f/7.5 Orion Refractor
Author "Deep Sky Observing" Springer-Verlag
Author "Nebulae and How to Observe Them" Springer
New Canon Xt astrocamera with Hutech modification
Edited by stevecoe (03/12/06 11:56 PM)
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BRCoz
sage
Reged: 10/21/05
Posts: 250
Loc: Moreno Valley, CA
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