When do you first remember using a mobile phone or computer?

Computer - mid 80's, my dad bought an Acorn Electron to do accounts (complete with the Plus 1 and a printer).
Many fond memories of Chucky Egg, Moon Lander and some fond but frustraiting memories of trying to enter a program in basic from a book.

Mobile Phone - probably about 95 or 96, I used to give my brother in law a lift to the local comic fair as he sometimes ran a small comic stall (I think it was at Stantonbury Campus*), one of his slightly dodgy friends had one of the old BT Cellnet analogue phones that he'd had chipped so it gave him infinite credit, at the time the PAYG balance was recorded on the phone and the chip basically reset it to £20 every time he pulled the battery or something.


*I think it was called collectomania (or that's what it rebranded as), and is now "Showstars", at the time it was basically a couple of dozen dealers and about the time I stopped going they'd just started to get actors in for autograph sessions (I vaguely remember David Prowse or Kenny Baker being the single big guest).
 
Ah the days of the speccy, black and white printer, tape recorder, joystick, copying games out of the magazine. Chuckie Egg, Donkey Kong, Harrier Attack, Spellbound, Manic Miner and many more. I still play those games now and again on an emulator. Smashing keys in Daley Thomsons Decathlon. And how could you forget Sabre Wulf.

This guy coded JSW & MM.

 
Can remember when the local dealers had pagers! They only people who got mobiles were drug dealers, the first time one of our friends got a mobile we all took the p.... Out of him for ages, because he thought he looked like a drug dealer!

Funny old days hey, most primary school kids I see wakling home have mobiles now days.
 
First computer must have been a BBC Micro at primary school in the 80's. They had a LOGO turtle too and we were taught how to program it along with being taught BASIC. Everyone was also taught to play chess. Brilliant school and I'm eternally grateful to the amazing teachers there for the head start in logical thinking. :)

Granny's Garden, Chuckie Egg, Repton and so on were fun too in breaks.

First phone must have been in 1995ish although I had a Vodafone pager before it. I think the phone was a Nortel and one of the first phones to be available after the Motorola flip phones everyone had on one 2 one. Not many of my circle had a mobile then and now I realise that I had to use an AtoZ to find my way around London.

I preferred it when people actually talked to one another rather than being lost in their frigging phones all the time.
 
Last edited:
Depends what you are classing as computer.....

Either my Dads Philips G7000 or Brothers Commodore C16 about 1984

Phone, when i started college in 1997
 
I think the first computer would be a ZX80... or I have a feeling there was something before that... in around 1981/82?

The first mobile phone I had was 1994ish and I think it looked like this, but black -

cda097f4fae2250eb0be40da8f816e12.jpg
 
First computer would have been a BBC B in the mid 80's.
First PC at home would have been an IBM XT 286 (6MHz! ... and ours was a loan machine from my Dad's work with a beta motherboard) a few year later.
My personal first PC was a 486DX33/4MB/250MB which I got for Christmas '93 when I was in my first year at Uni. Had this my entire time there but it ended with quite a bit different spec than what it started.

First mobile phone would have been some time in '98 when I went oncall for work
 
I can remember my first PC my partner got it from her work, I have no idea of the make or model but I am positive it had Windows 98 on it that would have been in the early 90's and I would have been in my 40's.
As for phone I feel the name Trium might be related to this but not sure, still have the same number though.
 
First computer

Early 70's. My school actually had a "Computer room" with a PDP8 and teleprinters, later a dec10 tape drive

In due course it was replaced by a room full of commodore pets, far more capable machines at the time at a price point that meant the whole room full cost less than one years DEC service contract, but a lot less fun. Having said that I understand that the PDP8 architecture was later put onto chips and survived for some time as such because they were just right for controlling CNC machine tools.

First phone.

Early 80's, the Vodafone "Sherpa" (I cant remember exactly what is was called but "Sherpa" was a good name because you needed one to carry it around for you)

Basically it was the one that was about the same size and wight as a small car battery with a separate handset and curly lead. The batteries only lasted about 4 hours so you needed to change over at lunchtime and recharge both over night.

Interestingly I still have it and a couple of years ago I charged it and fired it up. To my surprise the signal strength bars lit up, obviously I could not get a line, but I am curious as to what it was receiving.

I ordered it after seeing my first "Do you want to be in when you are out" advert and had to wait because the network hadn't reached my neck of the woods yet. My original Ac no was something like XX00003.

The damn thing cost about £1500 in the early 80s money but it transformed my business and despite the horrific price was well worth it.
 
First computer i played with was an IBM 8086. Then a 386 what i played lotus esprit turbo demo on.

First phone was a Motorola Flair which i ran a £430 phone bill up on and never paid :D
 
Our first PC was from Time in 1998 (deservedly now defunct) - it was appalling. Had so many problems with it, refused to take it back for repair but eventually they did and refunded my dad's deposit by cheque.. twice :D

I do remember it came with Fifa 97, Draughts and Trivial Pursuit!
 
First phone was a Nokia 5110, as pictured above, as a hand me down from my parents in about 2000, so I'd have been 13. Soon switched to a 3210 at probably my next birthday.

First computer is more fuzzy. We had a 286 at home for as long as I can remember, so at least since 1992 (born 87, not going to claim any memory before I was 5 :p), but the first I had in my room that I remember anything about was a 486 at... Maybe 40mhz? After my dad bought a Pentium for his office downstairs.

There were semi working spectrums and z88s kicking around the house too, but I never really used them. Also used BBCs and apples at school and my dad's work, but I don't remember which came first.
 
My first memory of using a computer was I believe around 97. I was still in junior school and we used to have a computer we could use in the classroom. The only game we could play though was Hercules.

I believe I'd had a computer at home before this though, I just don't really remember that much about it.
 
First time using a computer was around late 1980's at primary school, would have been a 186 in a cheese colour. Then moved onto the 286/386 early /mid 1990's at secondary school programming in Turtle :D

First phone i used was a motorola 3200 around 1993, it was huge and my parents phone. First phone I bought for myself was the Siemens SL10 with a slide cover...amazing piece of kit for its era.

Kids don't know they how lucky they are
 
First computer I borrowed from work around 1996 a 286 I don't where it went, but some I lost the OS :D
First mobile was a Nokia ??? 2000
 
Orionaut said:
First computer

Early 70's. My school actually had a "Computer room" with a PDP8 and teleprinters, later a dec10 tape drive

In due course it was replaced by a room full of commodore pets, far more capable machines at the time at a price point that meant the whole room full cost less than one years DEC service contract, but a lot less fun. Having said that I understand that the PDP8 architecture was later put onto chips and survived for some time as such because they were just right for controlling CNC machine tools.

First phone.

Early 80's, the Vodafone "Sherpa" (I cant remember exactly what is was called but "Sherpa" was a good name because you needed one to carry it around for you)

Basically it was the one that was about the same size and wight as a small car battery with a separate handset and curly lead. The batteries only lasted about 4 hours so you needed to change over at lunchtime and recharge both over night.

Interestingly I still have it and a couple of years ago I charged it and fired it up. To my surprise the signal strength bars lit up, obviously I could not get a line, but I am curious as to what it was receiving.

I ordered it after seeing my first "Do you want to be in when you are out" advert and had to wait because the network hadn't reached my neck of the woods yet. My original Ac no was something like XX00003.

The damn thing cost about £1500 in the early 80s money but it transformed my business and despite the horrific price was well worth it.
Click to expand...

are You thinking of one of these?

https://www.phonearena.com/news/Did-you-know-what-was-the-first-Nokia-phone-ever_id61638

Nokia or moberia senator. My first memory of a mobile phone is one of these, then nothing for a good few years.

My first computer was an atari 130xe, although I recall earlier machines owned by my dad
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom