First computers or pre PC computer history

[Stottie Girl]

Probably one for the oldies like me.

What were the first computers you had/used before the modern PC?

My first computer was the Commodore Vic-20 (though I used a BBC Micro and Acorn computer at school). After my Vic-20 came my Sinclair Spectrum 48k+, then the Commodore C64 and Commodore Amiga 500. My friend had an Amstrad machine. It was a good while before I got my first pentium computer with windows 3.1 on it.

Takes me back some. I think I was basically there from the dawn of home computing.

[ChrissyRyan]

I have an abacus.  Not expensive.

[Stottie Girl]

I have an abacus.  Not expensive.

Fingers are cheaper!

[Charlotte Kitty ✅]

My first was a PC but an old 386 machine. It'd play Doom, Prince of Persia and such. Also used for mynschool work and graphics.

[Lori Dee ✅]

I built "computers" using various IC chips, including the 8088 processor. My first mass-production computer was an Atari 800 with a whopping 48k of RAM. No hard drive, no modem. It had a tape drive that stored programs on cassette tape. Eventually, I upgraded and got a modem (300 baud) and a floppy disk drive (5.25-inch).

I thought I was state-of-the-art when I upgraded my modem to 14,400 baud!

I started programming in Atari Basic, then learned DOS 3. After DOS 5, I took courses in FORTRAN, COBOL, Pascal, and BASIC. By then, Windows had changed everything for home computers. I hated using a mouse. I realized I could not keep up with all the new languages coming out, like Java and C. So I switched my major from Computer Science to Electronics Technology and began focusing on hardware instead of software.

From computer hardware, I got into Systems Analysis & Design, which was fun. Then expanded into Robotics and Industrial Controls. While in the service in Germany, I turned down two job offers from IBM. They were great offers, but not good for an active duty soldier who was married with kids.

[Stottie Girl]

I built "computers" using various IC chips, including the 8088 processor. My first mass-production computer was an Atari 800 with a whopping 48k of RAM. No hard drive, no modem. It had a tape drive that stored programs on cassette tape. Eventually, I upgraded and got a modem (300 baud) and a floppy disk drive (5.25-inch).

I thought I was state-of-the-art when I upgraded my modem to 14,400 baud!

I started programming in Atari Basic, then learned DOS 3. After DOS 5, I took courses in FORTRAN, COBOL, Pascal, and BASIC. By then, Windows had changed everything for home computers. I hated using a mouse. I realized I could not keep up with all the new languages coming out, like Java and C. So I switched my major from Computer Science to Electronics Technology and began focusing on hardware instead of software.

From computer hardware, I got into Systems Analysis & Design, which was fun. Then expanded into Robotics and Industrial Controls. While in the service in Germany, I turned down two job offers from IBM. They were great offers, but not good for an active duty soldier who was married with kids.

Wow! Quite the tech pioneer Lori! My Spectrum had 48k and a tape drive. Programming was possible in BASIC. I started a course at uni in C++ but I quickly realised it wasn't for me. I think we had a 10 week module and at the end we had a program that did Ohms Law! Seemed like an awful lot of effort for little reward to me! When I was in school I had a calculator that had 32k! Amazing what could be done with so little back then.

[Lori Dee ✅]

I thought 48k was a lot.
My profile pic is 340k.

Times have changed.

[Rochelle]

TRS-80, Commodore Pet, Commodore Vic-20, Commodore C64 and Commodore Amiga 2000.  Then started into 286 as first MS-DOS Windows 3.1  💚

[Stottie Girl]

Oooh, never heard of a Commodore Pet. Will have to take a look at that.

[Pema]

TRS-80

[Rochelle]

Now that I think about, the 286 was bought/mail ordered while I was stationed at RAF Lakenheath.

[BlueJaye]

The first computers I ever used were the Apple IIe computers my elementary school had. The first computer my family owned was in the early 2000s. I don't remember the specs, but I think it was Packard Bell and was like a Pentium 90 or something. It was a used computer my dad bought from some guy he knew. I had just finished college. I remember wishing we'd had one sooner, because I could have really used it in high school and college. I had to rely on friends or the school computer labs to access computers for school work.

[KathyLauren]

Well, I started out, around 1971, stealing computer time on some of the lab computers at the university after school.  The best one was a PDP-8 (mini).  When I went on to university, I did my degree in computer science, and used the PDP-8 legally, as well as a CDC-6400 mainframe.

My first personal computer was a PDP-11 from Heathkit that I built myself, in 1978.  I moved on the the run-of-the-mill 286s, 386s, 486s, etc.

[Lori Dee ✅]

CDC-6400 mainframe

Was that a punch card or magnetic tape?

In high school, we had to use punch cards, but the seniors got a plastic card like a credit card.

[Dawn Kellie]

My first computer was a ti90. No real memory and you had to use your tv. Not popular with my parents. My school had apple 2. That was the last apple product I liked

[Dawn Kellie]

Was that a punch card or magnetic tape?

In high school, we had to use punch cards, but the seniors got a plastic card like a credit card.

I rebuilt a control system that,used punch cards to mix animal feed. The cabinet was 5' tall, 8' wide and 3' deep. It was full of wires that looked like a pasta factory exploded. I put a GE plc terminal blocks and still had over half the cabinet left. Program took .e 2 weeks to write.
I did the entire,engineering,design and build. That was,a fun job

[Lori Dee ✅]

@Jessica_Rose posted a photo of an IBM 360 memory core over in Photography.

https://www.susans.org/index.php?topic=246894.msg2328940#msg2328940

[KathyLauren]

Was that a punch card or magnetic tape?

Punch cards.  Most of us computer science majors learned to keep a rubber band around our assignment programs in case we dropped them.  Except we'd keep our account/password cards in our shirt pockets so they wouldn't get stolen.  When running the program, we'd slip the account/password card into the deck, submit it and then retrieve the card when we got the deck back.

[Sarah B ✅]

Hi Everyone

My first computer was a TRS-80 Model I, a home computer from Tandy Corporation with a Zilog Z80 processor running at about 1.77 MHz and typically 4 KB to 16 KB of RAM, expandable to 48 KB. It used a monochrome green screen with a 64 column text display and loaded programs from a cassette recorder using BASIC commands like CLOAD. I used it to run simple games, including a space shuttle landing game that updated frame by frame using basic text or line graphics.

I then had a 486 machine with a VESA graphics card, a dot matrix printer and a large 17 inch multisync CRT monitor, which gave me flexibility with different display modes and resolutions.  It had about 4 MB of memory and a 256 MB hard drive, along with a tape drive for backing up system files.  I also had both a 5.25 inch floppy drive and a CD-ROM drive, which at the time felt like a big step forward.

I used this system for work, mainly doing CAD drawings and for university studies.  With the dot matrix printer, I was able to print A3 drawings, which was very useful for technical work.  The main software I used included WordPerfect, which was an excellent word processing program and AutoCAD.  Like many people at the time, I also used other software that I downloaded and licensed using key generators.

To get the most out of the system, I configured my own AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files to maximise available memory, which was essential for running larger programs under DOS 5 and DOS 6, as well as Windows 3.1.  This setup allowed me to switch between environments efficiently and run a wide range of software.

I also spent time programming in several languages including assembly, C, Fortran, Java, Lisp and BASIC, using the system both for development and learning.

For games, I played classics like Doom, Commander Keen and Prince of Persia, which all ran well on that setup.  I had a 14,000 baud modem and connected to the internet through dial up and bulletin board systems, which was how most online access worked back then.

As for Linux distributions, Slackware, released in 1993, was one of the earliest I used. It packaged the Linux kernel with tools and utilities that followed traditional Unix design. Getting device drivers working, especially for cards like Creative Sound Blaster and similar hardware, was often a real pain.

Looking back, it was a very capable machine for its time and handled both work and entertainment surprisingly well.

So yes, definitely a big step step.

Best Wishes Always
Sarah B
Global Moderator
PS  I worked on the IBM 360 it was a class assignment and we had to write programs on punch card, oh boy that was fun.  In addition while at a community college (think trade school) I used the famous PDP 11.

[Paulie]

My first mass-production computer was an Atari 800 with a whopping 48k of RAM.
I realized I could not keep up with all the new languages coming out, like Java and C.

I hate to tell you this Lori but, C was around a good 7 years before the Atari 800 came out.  Compared to COBOL and Fortran it's a relatively new language.  It was around long before JAVA, perhaps you're thinking of C#, which came out shortly after JAVA.

My first experience with a computer was in Basic on a Vic 20 we had at home, when I was a kid.  Multiple computers and languages since then.  The last 30 years were primarily C with a little C# thrown in.

That all ended yesterday.  I'll probably never write another line of code. 

Funny this subject came up today.  I retired Yesterday, the 31st of March.  Seven days after turning 69.  At a little after 8 pm, I was the last one out of the building, left my badge on my manager's desk.