First Computer Ever Used/Owned?

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The first computers I used were an Apple II at school and a 286 at home.

The first computer I owned was a 486/66-DX2 machine with Windows 95 OSR2.5 and Plus!.
I had a second computer running Windows 3.11 for awhile, I think it was a 386 of some sort.

Very cool! I love the Apple II! We had a some in my elementary school when I was young. That's neat you had a 286 for your first computer! The first computer I ever bought was a small Acer laptop that I wanted to use for school. It had no cd drive and had Windows 8. I remember Windows 3.11! They had some computers in my Middle School library that were running it. I also have memories of going over my cousins house when I was younger and playing Doom on his Windows 95 computer. I wish I could remember the brand name but can't for some reason.

Back before the IBM device appeared, I wrote software for the first Australian designed small computers: CMAD 2022, ERA 50 and 80. For the CMAD machines, we had COBOL with database, enquiry language onto the database feeding word processor. All home grown, back in the very early 80s. For the ERA machines, sadly obsolete as soon as the PC appeared, I wrote assembler, linker, librarian packages for 8085 and 8086 that handled Digital Research and Microsoft macro languages, while my team worked on multitasking OS.

But the IBM 360 was the first I programmed, many years before that. Tape drives that would occasionally swap the two halves of a byte…

Very cool! Thank you for sharing. I will have to look up those computers to see what they looked like My Pastor at my church I used to attend passed away sadly in April and was a Physics and Math major in college. He told me stories of using a big mainframe computer on campus. He mentioned COBOL too. I'd love to learn more about it!

Does anyone remember DOS Shell?

When I was about 8 years old my dad bought me an Amstrad CPC6128. It was one of a handful of 8-bit microcomputers that were popular in the UK in the 80s (Spectrum, Comodore 64, BBC were some others). We were pretty well-off at this point in time. I don't know why he bought it for me because he'd get annoyed when I spent time with it.

Then we got poor and the whole 16 bit era passed me by - the Amigas and Ataris just weren't an option, but I messed around with the Acorn Archimedes machines that were in schools. At home I was still using the Amstrad well into the 90s.

A relative died in 1994 and left me some money and I used it to buy my first PC. A 486 running Windows 3.11. I've never not had a PC since.

Very cool! I will have to look up the Armstrad! Something about the name sounds familiar to me. I remember Windows 3.11! Our middle school library had computers that were running it. It wasn't a bad Windows system. It just reminded me but one of the games I loved playing in our middle school computer lab was "Deer Hunter". Most of the time I missed I kind of miss that game now.

I'm not sure if it counts as a computer but we got a used Vic 20 in the late 80s. It used game cartridges that were on cassette tapes and hooked up to a TV for the screen. It only did games, not other computer functions, and they were very primitive.

The first computer I owned for myself was a Macbook in 2006 and the very first computer I ever used was a Commodore 64.

Very cool! I always wanted a Macbook. One of my friends in high school had a iMac G3 I think it was. Mac's are awesome That's cool you had a Commodore 64! My best friend in high school said he had one growing up too. They look like neat computers. Also welcome back to WP!

EDIT: My friend in high school had a iMac G4 not a G3. Had to look it up

Last edited by Brian0787 on 25 Aug 2024, 1:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

I will have to look that up I'm sure it probably was a computer since it did some games. I saw some systems used to use cassette tapes for that too!

EDIT: It definitely looks like a computer and was sold by Commodore!

Sinclair ZX81, around 1983. After a year or two I got a Sinclair Spectrum.

Very cool! I heard of the Sinclair before as it sounds familiar! Thank you for sharing

The first computer I remember owning was an IBM PS/2 286 my father gave me. In all honesty, I think he was trying to buy my love, but the computer did get a lot of use.

My first windows computer was a Gateway (I don't remember the model) and I once bought a Macintosh clone back when those were a thing. I lost interest in anything having to do with the Macintosh architecture after Apple stopped licensing it, plus I was somewhat disappointed as it seemed much more primitive than I expected (except possibly for the graphics) and not very versatile. However, in its defense, it was the first computer on which I did any Java programming, because of the 32-bit word size. Running Java on DOS computers was a challenge at first.

Very cool that you remember owning a IBM PS/2 also! I remember Gateway computers! They made some good computers back then too! I always wished I owned a Mac when I was younger. I remember my Elementary school library had a Macintosh with a CD-Rom drive and on it there was a small animated video about the Dinosaurs going extinct. I thought it was really cool at the time! I think it was a Power Macintosh 5200 looking through the images.

Sinclair sold home micro computers in the USA under the name Timex. Don't know if they were exactly like the UK ones. I remember a memory-expansion box that they marketed as offering a "breathtaking" 16k of RAM.