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

Texas instruments ti 99 4a

Toshiba msx hx 10

Amiga a500

Lost interest after that and moved over to consoles

Sega Mega drive Jap import

Super famicom again jap import
 
We had a Atari, tape cassette loader thingmajig.

Not sure of the exact model, I remember playing kickstart and up n down.

We had about 100 pirate cassettes but none worked.
 
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..Beauty.

Still have mine - this photo shows a Dutch model?
 
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Awful pong game, played until the controllers went jumpy
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ZX81, loved this, even have the book detailing the Z80 ROM code.
Eventually had a couple of the posher Memopak expansions and a printer

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I guess not many had one of these, another Z80 but ran Forth, programs ran about 4 times faster
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Another Dragon 32, bought simply because it had a keyboard!
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Atari 800XL, bought simply because it had a floppy drive.
Many happy hours spent writing database programs using the floppy as a store.
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Acquired this 8088 laptop from somewhere
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Original IBM, left behind at my last job but it was still working
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I bet nobody has one of these :)
Enterprise 128K, 8MHz Z80 based but with primitive networking

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ZX81, then a Spektrum 48K. That was later converted to a Spektrum+ by putting the new case on it.

Then I borrowed a Commodore 128 for a few years, so got to play things like Last Ninja and Cybernoid with music that blew my mind - and still does.

When it went back I was mortified, but soon after I got an Amiga A500. I had that until the A1200 came out, and I kept my A1200 (which had a 211MB HDD and a 68030 accelerator) until 1997 when I bought and built my first PC. My 1200 was the first computer I browsed the web on with my Demon internet dial-up account, but Ibrowse or Aweb weren't very good browsers compared to Netscape 2 that my mate was running on his 486.
 
Muban said:
My first was an Atari 800XL. The computer club had a bunch of C64s and it was BBC model Bs later on at school.

Thinking back I remember there being this weird security device (I can't remember if it was on a computer or console). It was a black piece of plastic with a clear window in the middle. You bent it into a U shape and held it against your monitor to reveal a code you had to enter. Can't remember what it was called! Anyone?
Click to expand...

Nah - have no idea.

(sorry - not very helpful :( )

Atari 800XL - posh.

My introduction to computers was the CompuKit UK101 - my elder brother built it from a kit.
 
My cousin had an Atari XE when I had an Amstrad CPC - I seem to remember Draconius being a good game.
 
2bit said:
Nice always like this one. How did programs run four times faster?
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Forth was a complied language instead of an interpreted one like BASIC, and because it was heavily stack orientated it was very suitable to efficient compilation.
They reckon it was 10x faster than a ZX81 but it sort of depended on what you were doing, certainly any maths programming flew.
 
bitslice by the way you're talking about these ancient steam driven contraptions, you were a little more than a kid when they came out :p
 
bitslice said:
Forth was a complied language instead of an interpreted one like BASIC, and because it was heavily stack orientated it was very suitable to efficient compilation.
They reckon it was 10x faster than a ZX81 but it sort of depended on what you were doing, certainly any maths programming flew.
Click to expand...

Why was 'stack orientated' very suitable to efficient compilation.?
 
2bit said:
Why was 'stack orientated' very suitable to efficient compilation.?
Click to expand...
When you think about Z80 machine code you have a couple of registers, to do anything with them you load them with some values, push them onto a stack, run the required operation, then pop off the result into another register.
That's almost exactly how a Forth program is written :)

Zefan said:
bitslice by the way you're talking about these ancient steam driven contraptions, you were a little more than a kid when they came out :p
Click to expand...
I had the ZX81 when I was I think 15? :cool: My cousin already had the ZX80 :(

The ones I remember lusting after at the time were single board computers like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangerine_Microtan_65 which became the Oric.

Or the Compukit UK101
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compukit_UK101

They were just too expensive :(
 
I joined the bandwagon a little late really, never had a CPC464 or C64 although a few friends did.

My first three:
Atari ST-FM
Amiga 600
Pentium 60 (my first over clock... jumper on motherboard to 66Mhz!)
 
Amiga 500 for my 7th birthday in 1991

Project one was the first game I ever played -

http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=3467

An amazing game that is very unknown.

I also got a few games with it that I still remember well -

Hollywood collection -
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Power Collection -
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Shadow of the beast and a few other games came with it too

Games used to be so much better in the 90s. How good was Amiga music! ...

 
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