1980s / early 90s kids - what computer did you have?

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Soldato
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Just thought I'd fire up a nostalgia post for us 30-somethings :-) If you had mates living on the same street as you, chances were that you each had a different make of computer. C64, ZX81, CPC464, Atari and so on.

I had a BBC Micro model B+. 2MHz, 32kB RAM. Max number of colours was 8 at 320x200 resolution IIRC, although drop it down to 2 colours and I think you had 640x512. Had the dual-5.25" floppy drive, so copying a disk was simply a matter of typing *backup 0 1. Loved playing Repton, Elite/Exile and it replicated the coin-op arcade games quite well such as Frogger, Space Invaders and Mr. Do. I still got this Beeb actually but the CRT monitor started showing a blurred image from last year onwards. I think the tripler inside has gone bang. Will have to investigate on converting the graphic output signal to a standard PC monitor as I know that the CRTs are scarce.

So, what did (or do) you guys have?

Personally, I would loved to have had my mitts on an Amiga 1200. Exceptional computer at the time. A shame they went bust and Microsoft became victor in the windows-style OS market. In the end, I kept my Beeb as my main machine until 1998 then went straight to a Pentium II 350MHz.
 
Spectrum 16k (quickly upgraded to 48k RAM). Spent a good amount of time on my mate's C64 too. Also got the Spectrum+3, should have been an awesome machine with a disc drive to replace the awful cassette loading, but for some reason it wasn't backward compatible with a lot of the spectrum games.

In the 16 bit age I had both an Atari ST and an Amiga, then my first PC was a 486 SX 25Mhz.
 
BBC @ School, always on it. C64, Amiga 600, 1200 (Always played Elite <3) iirc. First complete PC was by a company called 'Highscreen' that was a 486 33mhz? Awesome PC, not sure what the Turbo button ever did though, can't recall other specs not sure if it had one of those humongous Voodoo gfx inside, or if that was in a later PC. Ah the memories! :cool:
 
C64C

The one in the nicer looking case. I remember buying the game mags every week with the tapes on the front packed full of demos... those were the days :D

I wore joysticks out playing:

Sensitive: http://www.c64.com/games/1133

Blue Max: http://www.c64.com/games/376

Turrican 2: http://www.c64.com/games/368

and Uridium: http://www.c64.com/games/166

Still got it all boxed up in the loft :D


Had a SNES after that, and a PC (DX2 50MHz) later on when Doom came out (convinced my parents I simply had to have a PC for my school work so I could use Encarta :D ).
 
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Monserrat said:
I think you had 640x512.
Click to expand...

Think you mean 640*256, 512 would have required interlacing or a multi-sync monitor. I was always jealous of the BASIC and inline assembler.


So, what did (or do) you guys have?
Click to expand...

I started with a Commodore 64 and moved to an Amiga 500, then eventually a A1200 with processor expansion board. Happy days. :)

EDIT: Could be wrong about the resolution, just noticed you said B+ ... of which I know little.
 
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Wanted an Amiga 500, Dad decided an Acorn Archimedes A3000 was more educational.

Looking at Wiki the price in 1989 was £799 ouch!
 
First computer was a VIC 20. Then got a Spectrum +2. Then an Atari STE. Then an Atari Falcon, before getting my first PC, a 486 SX25.
 
Didn't get my first computer until I was about 13 or so. It was a 286, 16MHz and 4mb RAM, 20mb HDD. I think I had dos 3.3 on it!

All my friends had commodores and other Atari and amiga types a lot younger - I was very jealous.
 
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Atari 2600 and C64 in the 80s followed by an Amiga 1200 in the early 90s. I think my first "PC" was some Packard Bell with Windows 95.
 
Amstrad CPC 464 with a colour screen. I say colour. You could count the colours it had on your fingers and toes.

Still, Live and Let Die was an awesome game on it :D
 
I had a Video Genie (a Tandy TRS-80 clone of sorts) that ran Microsoft Level II BASIC, then an IBM-compatible of some kind running a fairly early MS-DOS version that was donated to me when my uncle upgraded to a new PC.
 
When I was about 4 (I think) we had a BBC Micro, and later one of the 'integrated' ones with its own screen and dual floppy drives.

After that it was a 'Fountain' 486 with a staggering 16mb of memory. Later, a 'Time' PC :D Was really good, that, though...
 
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