When do you first remember using a mobile phone or computer?
- Thread starter Geano
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Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2012
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well it seemed kind of old hat even when i saw it.
bit off googling has this:
http://www.roamer-educational-robot.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Classic-Roamer.jpg
ours didn't have eyes, possibly worn off
First computer, using my friends Spectrum 48K in the mid 80's. First "use" of a mobile - trying to get my sister's first phone working in 1995 before she started at uni. It was faulty though and required replacement - a Motorola on Cellnet but I can't remember the model. I didn't get my first mobile until 1997 when I started at uni myself and that was a Nokia Orange 5.1.
Very similar. Mine has the handset vertical at one end rather than on top. Not sure what the exact model was. would have been the first badged Vodafone one though.
I think because it was so revolutionary at the time. Bit like you remember where you were on 9/11. Before that you had to use a phone box, or send smoke signals, carrier pigeon etc.
Soldato
First home computer was a Tandy TRS-80 Model I in 1977, but we had access to the local Uni's mainframe also...quick fact, the hard disc on the mainframe used to take a week to spin up to speed, and then a week to slow down again (Happened once a year for maintenance IIRC)
First mobile phone was a Panasonic one, can't remember model number, around 1995
First mobile phone was a Panasonic one, can't remember model number, around 1995
Soldato
Probably in primary school playing grannies garden on the bbc micro in 1983. Not soon after got a Commodore vic 20 for xmas.
Man of Honour
ZX-81 in 1981. My parents bought it for me, with a wobbly 16KB rampack too. Top stuff. Taught myself to program in Sinclair BASIC by typing in programs from magazines and tracking down the mistakes I'd made. Apart from the mistake of pressing slightly too hard on the "keyboard" (which had no keys - it was a solid surface with no feedback), which caused the rampack precariously plugged into the back to wobble and thus crash the computer. There was nothing to be done about that mistake.
First PC was a second hand 386 in the late 1980s IIRC. 1MB of memory (a whole megabtye!), 2 5.25" FDD and a 40MB MFM HDD about the size of a couple of bricks.
I've never used a handheld computer. I would have been all over one when I was a boy. Proper Star Trek stuff. But I was relatively old when they came out and so tiny screens coated in a rotting slurry of organic material and constantly running out of charge didn't seem like a particularly fun toy to me then and not worth being constantly monitored like some sort of criminal with an ankle bracelet.
First PC was a second hand 386 in the late 1980s IIRC. 1MB of memory (a whole megabtye!), 2 5.25" FDD and a 40MB MFM HDD about the size of a couple of bricks.
I've never used a handheld computer. I would have been all over one when I was a boy. Proper Star Trek stuff. But I was relatively old when they came out and so tiny screens coated in a rotting slurry of organic material and constantly running out of charge didn't seem like a particularly fun toy to me then and not worth being constantly monitored like some sort of criminal with an ankle bracelet.
Mobile Phone - 1996, a colleague sold me a Nokia 2110 for a one time fee. Whilst I filled out the contract, I feared the source was rather questionable; even though the item was completely new, boxed etc. I think I made about three calls in total (2 were test calls) during the duration of the 'contract' and never received a bill? I was terrified that I would incur horrendous fees and be arrested. 
Computer - 1991 a Packard Bell 386. Computers were considered mystical objects, and my Dad bought a PC with the aim that I learn and then teach the rest of the family. My parents took one look as DOS and fled.
Taught myself completely from scratch. I was seriously computer illiterate having never owned a computer up until that point. I remember investing in a sound card, speakers and a CH Flightstick all to play Aces of the Pacific. Imagine my horror when installing, Aces did not work! With much head scratching and messing about working out himem.sys and EMS memory; it burst into life. Words cannot describe the moment - Just epic.
Computer - 1991 a Packard Bell 386. Computers were considered mystical objects, and my Dad bought a PC with the aim that I learn and then teach the rest of the family. My parents took one look as DOS and fled.
Taught myself completely from scratch. I was seriously computer illiterate having never owned a computer up until that point. I remember investing in a sound card, speakers and a CH Flightstick all to play Aces of the Pacific. Imagine my horror when installing, Aces did not work! With much head scratching and messing about working out himem.sys and EMS memory; it burst into life. Words cannot describe the moment - Just epic.
Associate
Computer - 2003, (Weird Medion whtiebox thingy) My dad used to tinker with PC's (One of the reasons I got into computers) and he got a new Medion Pentium 4 tower PC complete with monitors and speakers. I remember he used to supervise whilst I went on various gaming websites but I was just happy to play flash games online.
Phone - 2006, (I think it was a Virgin Kyocera K325) My mum and dad got new phones so they gave me one of their old phones as an emergency one for when I was on trips (I just liked playing bowling on it)
Phone - 2006, (I think it was a Virgin Kyocera K325) My mum and dad got new phones so they gave me one of their old phones as an emergency one for when I was on trips (I just liked playing bowling on it)
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Soldato
Computer would be sometime around 1980 with the ZX80. Mobile Phone, sometime around the late 90s with a Sagem 815.
First computer I used was using mark sense cards at school to write very simple BASIC programs. We would spend a lesson filling in the cards, ship them off the Coal Board's computing centre in Cannock and get them back for next week, in my case usually with an error code of some form! I think the first 'modern' computer I used was either an RML 380Z or my Atari 400 around 1979, I can't recall which one I used first.
In terms of mobile phone I had a Mobira hand held phone I think around 1988/89 and then a Motorola company car phone in 1989/90.
In terms of mobile phone I had a Mobira hand held phone I think around 1988/89 and then a Motorola company car phone in 1989/90.
Associate
Early 80's Commodore 16. 
Associate
First computer i used was a Nascom 2 that my dad built in 1980. When i say built, the kit was a bare circuit board and he had to solder all the components onto it! My own first computer was a ZX81 that i got for Christmas in 1981.
First mobile phone i used was in 1991 which was hardwired into my bosses Sierra. I bought my own Sony 'Mars bar' phone in 1993. I still have it somewhere, minus the aerial!
First mobile phone i used was in 1991 which was hardwired into my bosses Sierra. I bought my own Sony 'Mars bar' phone in 1993. I still have it somewhere, minus the aerial!
Soldato
First phone was a Nokia 1011 on BT Cellnet. Must have been 1993? Analogue network and 50p a minute, rounded up to the next one!
Stuck with them ever since, apart from a Motorola I had on Orange in about 1994.
Typing this on a Nokia 6!
Stuck with them ever since, apart from a Motorola I had on Orange in about 1994.
Typing this on a Nokia 6!