How old were you when you got your first PC?

[ElliorR]

My first pc used the 486dx 33 cpu which had recently been released so it was sometime in 1990 and I would have been 22. Before that I had an Amiga 2000. I dread to think how much I’ve spent on this gaming hobby since I bought my first computer, Atari ST, in 1985.

 

[Roughneck]

15 back in 1986 it was a 286 if i remember

 

[OspreyO]

486 33dx and a Apple LCll around the same time. Was after I graduated college anyway. I was flipping between CAD and 3D stuff on the PC and DTP and graphics on the Mac. I assume 92-93 ish.

Kinda miss the computing buzz from that era.

 

[rids57]

My first PC was in 1992 which would make me around 35. It had an SX33 CPU and was the only fully built computer I've ever bought.
I did have a string of home computers before this though, Dragon 32, Sinclair Spectrum, Acorn Electron, BBC Computer, Amstrad CPC, an Amiga 500 and an Amiga 500+, so quite a busy 10 years or so.

 

[DEL 707]

Would have been around around 1995, so would have been about 15, we got it as a Christmas present. 486 with 4mb RAM and a double speed CD-ROM!
Had a fantastic time with Doom 2 and Command & Conquer.

Had various other computers before that, Spectrum +2, Commodore 64 and an Amiga 1200.

 

[ianh]

Early 90's is the best I can guess, a 486 hand-me-down from a well off uncle to replace my Spectrum +2 but it wasn't until about '97 that I bought one myself, IIRC a 233Mhz AMD something or other.

 

[lurkio]

I built my first PC (was the first I personally owned) when I was 23, think it was a PII 350Mhz based system

My first computer I got when I was 10 (commodore VIC-20)

 

[Frubeling]

Not 100% sure
Between 5 and 7 years old because it came with Age of Empires and not Age of Empires 2

 

[GR63]

24 in 1990... but obviously owned 8 bits and Amiga/ST before the PC

 

[bainbridge]

Athlon xp when I was 23.

 

[ebilcake]

1997 I believe? Prior to that was using Amiga's and even had a ZX Spectrum, also a Sam Coupe if anyone remembers that.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

It was 1988 so I was 40 - a 386SX20 with 4 meg of RAM.
before that I had Spectrums, BBC and Atari ST's.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

I was 24 (2002). It was Amigas up until that point.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

First computer I ever owned was an Acorn Electron after being introduced to bbc micros at school somehow I scraped together my pocket money and bought it then the expansions (floppy, extra ports) but wasn't happy as its was always slow and limited finally sold it and upgraded to a full fat BBC Master 128K and even splashed out on a dual 5 1/4" floppy drive kit official which also doubled up as a stand to put your monitor on! Cost a bomb but it was a lovely bit of kit still have fond memories of that and the beeb. Couldn't afford the monitors too expensive and too small so had first a 14" and then a mahoosive 16" portable TV that doubled up as the monitor as it they had RGB and got the soldering iron out and some bits of plugs and cables from maplins and wired up a cable for it! Worked great too and could watch TV in my bedroom on them as well! Later owned a second hand A3000 and monitor nice machines but software availability was an issue

First proper PC was an Athlon Duron 700mhz machine from someone who built and sold them from his home found him via an advert in the friday ad bought a used monitor as well, much cheaper than buying from a shop. "Why AMD?" Cheaper than Intel I was told and works just as well. Ok. Later swapped it for a Athlon XP from the same guy. Had a bit of crisis when I discovered you couldn't play games without a dedicated graphics card - whats a graphics card?! What do you mean I don't have an AGP graphics slot on my PC and what the heck is that! Paid to have the motherboard upgraded to have one of those, who knew?! Bought a gfx card and took it to him for the upgrade watched him take out 4 screws and the side off push it in the slot and say "that'll be £20 please!"

Twenty quid for that? Surely I can do this myself in future and that was the last prebuilt PC I owned since then everything I've owned since I put together myself that must be 20 years ago now...

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

I had a 2nd-hand BBC Micro in 1986 aged 8. It was my main computer until 1998 but I still have now.

First PC was in 1999 aged 20, so I was late on the bandwagon. It got given to me as part of a grant similar to Access To Work but for uni students instead. Pentium II 350MHz, so it wasn't anything fancy specs-wise as it was meant just for uni work. It had Lunar (screen magnifier) and Read & Write Gold. It was also good for playing Age of Empires II and I was hooked on that for ages!

 

[Freefaller]

My own one was probably very early 90s.

 

[LuckyBenski]

My first couple of PCs were beyond hand-me-downs - more like ones my uncle and neighbour were throwing away. An RM Nimbus from 1985 (I was born in 87 and given it in 1998!). MS-DOS and Windows 1.1, but I learned my first command line skills and played some old Epic games.

Then an IBM PS/2 486 with 320MB and 80MB hard drives, this one had a mouse! Still a basic experience but I got to try Windows 3.1.

Then aged 12 in 2000 I bought the literal cheapest used PC I could find - Compaq Deskpro 5133 with a Pentium 133MHz. This was the first PC I really felt ownership of and I loved it, I mean loved that PC. It was my first CD-ROM drive. First sound card. First start menu (Win 98). Eventually it was my first internet connected PC. The HDD still houses all my awful teenage memories, MSN messenger chats with first girlfriends and all sorts.

That PC is at my mum's in one piece and I ought to rescue it really.

 

[m@rty]

I think about 13 or 14, was a Pentium 4

 

[almoststew1990]

I was about 16 so 2006 and bought a £400 laptop from currys. It was a 1 point something GHz single core 1GB RAM jobbie with Vista squeezed on it. Very unpleasant but it was quite a bit better with XP installed. I basically used it to play GTA San Andreas on the Intel graphics GMa950 (I think it was).

But I'd used the family PC since I was about 5.

 

[Angilion]

"first kind of computer" would be 1981 for me, when my parents bought me a ZX-81. With the wobbly 16KB rampack, so it was the high end model.

First PC would be 1980-something. 1987, I think. Bought second hand for a wad of cash. 386. Running at 20MHz IIRC. Something like that. 1MB RAM. Giant case with 5 drives. I've seen smaller suitcases. Two 5.25 inch floppies, a 3.5 inch floppy, a 20MB HDD and a 40MB HDD. Each HDD was close to the size (and weight) of 2 housebricks. My first tinkering was to change the 2 digit segment display on the front panel of the case from the actual clock speed to 99. It was controlled by a bunch of jumpers behind it, but many people didn't know that and thought it read and displayed the clock speed. I temporarily kept a straight face when I told them it was using a prototype CPU running at 99MHz. The fastest PC CPU that existed at the time ran at 33MHz, so 99MHz was amazing. If I'd known about overclocking at the time, I might have claimed a 300% overclock instead.