What was your first (PC) computer, 286,386?

[NickK]

Does anyone remember those 486 computers with that turbo button, I do It was also my first computer before I got myself an AMD K6-2, but what was your first PC computer? ( DOS era onwards )

BBC Model A.

Actually my first PC I used was a 286 with CGA then EGA.. but the first I owned .. was a Acorn RISC PC with a 486SX second processor allowing it to run ms dos in a window..

 

[breadturbo]

I remember the good old days of being 16 moving into the flat above the local chippy, hanging out the window tapping into his phone line on a night with the hayes accura 28800
And Janes longbow!

 

[silversurfer]

Does anyone remember those 486 computers with that turbo button, I do

Fastest computer I ever owned, the modern generation will never know the exhilaration of pressing that turbo button. Like Knight Rider only better


Ok not really, my first below and I doubt anyone will beat me. It did double dragon, BattleChess, 3d Tetris and I think stuntcarracer with wireframe polygons! That last game still works on pc to this day and is unparalleled in its physics imo, a self taught programmer with physics as his major

Prince of Persia on a 1986 AMSTRAD PC.

Amstrad decided to make its first low-cost PC clone. It was a great European success, capturing more than 25% of the European computer market (impressive now and phenomenal then).

This cheap computer was, however, complete and offered more than some others did. The small power supply (57 W) was integrated into the monitor.

Eight models were offered: The PC 1512 SD/DD (with one or two 5.25" floppy disk drives) and two models with hard disk (HD10 with 10 MB hard disk and HD20 with 20 MB hard disk). FD and HD versions could be acquired with a monochrome or colour monitor.

The Amstrad used an "enhanced" CGA graphic mode, which could display 640x200 pixels with 16 colors (or grayscale). It was sold with MS-DOS 3.2, DR-DOS plus 1.2 (an operating system from Digital Research), GEM (a graphic interface, also used in the Atari ST, TT & Falcon), GEMPAINT and GEM BASIC.

Still working in 2005 I sold it for £20 , RIP

https://youtu.be/M5w8wUTyf6E?t=291

 

[GSXRMovistar]

This beast:-

286 8Mhz, 640K memory, and a whooping 20Mb hard drive.

Still managed to ran a full office suite and a copy of Autoroute.

 

[The_Dark_Side]

BBC Model A.

Actually my first PC I used was a 286 with CGA then EGA.. but the first I owned .. was a Acorn RISC PC with a 486SX second processor allowing it to run ms dos in a window..

Wasn't the Acorn RISC machine called the Archimedes?

 

[GSXRMovistar]

Wasn't the Acorn RISC machine called the Archimedes?

Yep, used to use them in secondary school.

 

[rodders]

Still have our BBC model B.

PC was an 086 or something. Our grandad gave it to us. 5mb Hdd, 16 colours. It run Gem. Something like that anyway, was a lot time ago... I remember a game called Sopwith though. Side on plane game.

 

[asim18]

Our first family PC was a Packard Bell with Windows 95, something like £2000 from Dixons IIRC (I was only 5 years old!). The day it got delivered is a highlight of my childhood. Absolutely amazing times we/I had on that computer. Out of anything my parents have ever bought for the family I cannot appreciate that first PC enough.

Does anybody watch computer chronicles? https://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerChroniclesYT

 

[Angilion]

All this talk of PC's less powerful than the phone in my pocket is making me all nostalgic. I remember the days when all my games suddenly wouldn't fit on my 2.1GB HDD and i had to upgrade to a 4.6GB one. It was amazing having *all* that extra space. Not to mention Voodoo/Voodoo2 graphics cards and the screech of a modem connecting. Those were the days.

Nobody use the phone!

You can listen to modem connection noises on videos on Youtube. The nostalgia of that makes me nostalgic for the loading noises on a ZX Spectrum and adjusting the tape heads with a tiny screwdriver to get more reliable loading. Eh, when I were a lad.

 

[Grimley]

It seems I'm not alone on here with owning a PC in the 1st part of the 90's.

1994 - 486SX 33, 4MB ram. 250MB HDD onboard graphics IIRC. It cost me the thick end of £1800 back then (Printer,14" monitor & 100 floppies to back up onto ) & I spent more on it by adding a CD & soundcard, an extra 4MB of ram in order to play DOOM a SCSI scanner & finally a DX4-100 overdrive CPU was popped in it to lengthen the lifespan during the 3 years I owned it.

W95 - Don't go there.

 

[Chojin]

Escom 486 DX4 100 with 4MB RAM and a 540MB hard disk. The CPU was apparently faster than a Pentium P60. I quickly upgraded the RAM to 12MB and added sound card and cd-rom. Lots of messing around with autoexec.bat and config.sys files back then.

That system lasted about two years until I did a complete overhaul. Funny to think I've had my current core system for 7 years and it's still fine (i7 920).

Just remembered I bought a Canon printer to go with it for around £350 in 1995 and that seems like a complete waste of money in hindsight.

 

[bscott]

My first PC was a Northstar Horizon with a 4MHz Z80 processor and a massive 64K of ram (yes, K) of which 8K was reserved. It came with 2 hard sector floppy drives each with a capacity of 180K.

I think the terminal was a Hazeltine 1500 attached to a serial port and the printer was a Tandy 132 column matrix printer attached to a parallel port.

I bought it in 1979 and ran CP/M and Microsoft Basic and Cobol compilers.

 

[koooowweeee]

My first was a 166mhz can't remember much about it but I remember it had MMX technology later down the line my mate overcloxked it to 200mhz and I then boight a voodoo 2

 

[Orionaut]

First experience with a computer.

PDP8E

First computer of my own.

Commodore 128.

The Commodore OS had all the "Windows" features (Mouse, Drag and drop, etc) a decade before MS got in on the game.

How Intel/MS became the global standard for computing is just one of those baffling things of history "Oh look, this is the worst product, lets go with that then!"

 

[Rilot]

I was late in to the PC scene with a Pentium 75 in 1995.
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81

 

[breadturbo]

Our first family PC was a Packard Bell with Windows 95, something like £2000 from Dixons IIRC (I was only 5 years old!). The day it got delivered is a highlight of my childhood. Absolutely amazing times we/I had on that computer. Out of anything my parents have ever bought for the family I cannot appreciate that first PC enough.

Does anybody watch computer chronicles? https://www.youtube.com/user/ComputerChroniclesYT

We had one of those too, with the £400 1x cd writer, and £400 for 10 blanks.

welcome to the Packard Bell navigator!

 

[Duke]

I remember Escom, they had a store in my town in the 90s but it wasn't open very long.

Yeah it went back for repair and they went into administration at the same time so had to get it back quick

 

[WoZZeR]

First actual PC was an IBM PS1 486 SX25 which got stolen from my car (a Renault 11 !!!), I replaced it with a custom built 486 DX2 80 from some small firm near Coventry. First 8086 was a Tandy 'Laptop' with mono screen, used to play PGA Golf from floppy disc on it at work. Replaced this with a Digital 486 Laptop which got binned when the screen cracked.

As above first home computer was a ZX81 with generic Rampack.

 

[DEL 707]

Had a ZX Spectrum +2, but my 1st real PC was a 486 built by a local company. Can't remember much spec wise, other then it had about 4mb of RAM, Windows 3.11 and a double speed CD-ROM!

After that we got a TIME PC, which was nothing but trouble from day 1, crashing, breaking down, can't remember how many times we had to send it back.
Still, it encouraged me to build my 1st PC, which was a Pentium II 350, loved those old slot CPU's, and a Voodoo 3 3000. We were going to buy a 2000, but it was out of stock, so I absolutely begged my mum to buy the 3000 instead.
That machine ran smooth as silk compared to that TIME piece of ****!

 

[Resident]

First PC: Amstrad 8086. 720k floppy disk drive and that was it.

Later upgraded by adding a TEN Mb hard-drive that used it's own power supply.