Your early home computer memories
- Thread starter DBT85
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My first pc or family pc was a Mitsubishi apricot from PC retail chain many moons ago.
ZX 81 with 1k of memory, I then bought the 16k ram pack but had to do the blu tac mod to stop the infamous "Ram Wobble" 
Then in about 83 I upgraded to a 48k ZX Spectrum, wonderfull computer and it wasnt until 88 that I upgraded again to an Atari 520 STFM, in 1990 I made the slight upgrade to an Atari 520 STE and then in 91 came the Amiga 500, in 93 (iirc) i bought an Amiga 1200 (loved that machine) I eventually had a 120mb hard drive and 2 external floppys and a 2mb fast ram upgrade, I ended up swapping it for a playstation which I had for about 3 months, which I flogged and put the money towards my first PC in 95 a 5x86 AMD@133mhz 1gb hard drive, half meg graphics card (lol) and 16mb ram, I was the envy of my mates at the time.
Then in about 83 I upgraded to a 48k ZX Spectrum, wonderfull computer and it wasnt until 88 that I upgraded again to an Atari 520 STFM, in 1990 I made the slight upgrade to an Atari 520 STE and then in 91 came the Amiga 500, in 93 (iirc) i bought an Amiga 1200 (loved that machine) I eventually had a 120mb hard drive and 2 external floppys and a 2mb fast ram upgrade, I ended up swapping it for a playstation which I had for about 3 months, which I flogged and put the money towards my first PC in 95 a 5x86 AMD@133mhz 1gb hard drive, half meg graphics card (lol) and 16mb ram, I was the envy of my mates at the time.
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Amstrad CPC 464 Even had a Mannesmann tally MT81 printer (sad that I can rememebr!) and the colour monitor, cost parents an arm and a leg.
Amiga 600, I sold my CPC464 to buy a portyable tv to run it on
Then PC's. My first was a 386 16mhz beast! Then a 486 which I started upgrading through a saturday job at the local markets. Got £20 a day, saved up for a soundcard, (wow! sound!) then it was a quad speed cd reader (which had to be plugged into the soundcards IDE port). I had a Citizen swift 24 pin dot matrix printer (colour!) to go with them both. All running Windows 3.1
Then it was PC's proper with my first job, a Pentium 200MX with 32Mb ram (It came with 16, but I upgraded it before buying it) that was from Special Reserve. Used to get their magazines every month. Oh, It was my first overclock too, without knowing what I was doing, or what I had done. I saw it had DIP switches to select the processor speed, so I switched it to see what would happen and got a P233(MMX) out of it. I was amazed it worked at the time, and left it like that.
Then I started building my own! At some point had a 800mhz Duron, a thunderbird (1.6ghz?? but it wasnt really) then went to a HP gaming laptop.
Amiga 600, I sold my CPC464 to buy a portyable tv to run it on
Then PC's. My first was a 386 16mhz beast! Then a 486 which I started upgrading through a saturday job at the local markets. Got £20 a day, saved up for a soundcard, (wow! sound!) then it was a quad speed cd reader (which had to be plugged into the soundcards IDE port). I had a Citizen swift 24 pin dot matrix printer (colour!) to go with them both. All running Windows 3.1
Then it was PC's proper with my first job, a Pentium 200MX with 32Mb ram (It came with 16, but I upgraded it before buying it) that was from Special Reserve. Used to get their magazines every month. Oh, It was my first overclock too, without knowing what I was doing, or what I had done. I saw it had DIP switches to select the processor speed, so I switched it to see what would happen and got a P233(MMX) out of it. I was amazed it worked at the time, and left it like that.
Then I started building my own! At some point had a 800mhz Duron, a thunderbird (1.6ghz?? but it wasnt really) then went to a HP gaming laptop.
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An Amiga 500+ here (the Batman Pack to be precise)! I remember my parent paying something like £100 for a 512k ram upgrade (to take it upto a might 1mb).
Then we got a 486SX (not one of those fancy DX 66's
) and i remember doing a lot of schoolwork on that and games like Magic Carpet, Alone in the Dark.
3 big memories for me are my mate bringing games round to my house becuase "i had a PC with a SOUND CARD!!!"
And my mum using the keyboard lock key to stop me from playing it at like 6am in the morning. One bent paperclip later the keyboard was unlocked
Finally, when it came to our first upgrade, myself and 3 friends had the PC open on the dining room table and we changed the motherboard, Ram and processor ourselves (giving my mum a fit, as she had spent all this money on the stuff and here were 4 school kids messing about with it! )
Oh and the Processor was a CYTRIX (damn those pentiums were too expensive)
Then we got a 486SX (not one of those fancy DX 66's
) and i remember doing a lot of schoolwork on that and games like Magic Carpet, Alone in the Dark.3 big memories for me are my mate bringing games round to my house becuase "i had a PC with a SOUND CARD!!!"
And my mum using the keyboard lock key to stop me from playing it at like 6am in the morning. One bent paperclip later the keyboard was unlocked
Finally, when it came to our first upgrade, myself and 3 friends had the PC open on the dining room table and we changed the motherboard, Ram and processor ourselves (giving my mum a fit, as she had spent all this money on the stuff and here were 4 school kids messing about with it! )
Oh and the Processor was a CYTRIX
(damn those pentiums were too expensive)