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Mine had a name, but... it most likely wouldn't get past the auto-censor... .phinds said:My first computer didn't have a name...
Lol... sometimes it had several names !
Mine had a name, but... it most likely wouldn't get past the auto-censor... .phinds said:My first computer didn't have a name...
Something like that for me, as well. Probably an IBM of some kind. I took a programming class in which we used PL/C, a subset of the PL/1 programming language. Same deal with the punch cards and 17" wide fan-fold paper for output.jtbell said:The first computer I ever worked with was an IBM 1130 at my undergraduate alma mater, c. 1972. FORTRAN IV programs and data input were on punched cards, and output was via a line printer.
I don't remember what I paid, but I'm sure it was nowhere near $5K. Maybe they had been out for a while when I got one. As I recall it was somewhere around 1980.Mark44 said:And they were quite expensive at the time, somewhere around $5000, based on my memory of ads in computer magazines back then (~1982). I didn't get a hard drive until my 4th computer, a PC clone with a 386 CPU around 1987 or so. It came with a whopping 30 MB HD that I thought I would never fill up. About a year later, I upgraded to a 120MB drive.
In 1991 I paid about $3.5K just for a monitor. That was a NEC 6FG with a 21 inch diagonal, which was the best monitor one could get at that time.phinds said:I don't remember what I paid, but I'm sure it was nowhere near $5K. Maybe they had been out for a while when I got one.
And what did you use it for?Janus said:First computer I ever owned was a TRS-80 pocket computer. The first one I ever used(in a high school programming class) was "Valentine", it was a Hewlett-Packard 9830-A, with 4Kb of memory, a 32 character LED display, and a built-in tape drive. It had the optional thermal printer.
Before the day of microprocessor chips, it used 7400-series gates, shift-registers and decoders for its logic boards.
Janus said:First computer I ever owned was a TRS-80 pocket computer. The first one I ever used(in a high school programming class) was "Valentine", it was a Hewlett-Packard 9830-A, with 4Kb of memory, a 32 character LED display, and a built-in tape drive. It had the optional thermal printer.
Before the day of microprocessor chips, it used 7400-series gates, shift-registers and decoders for its logic boards.
I still have my very first ZX Spectrum. The only computer I've ever kept.Janus said:Years later, when the school was holding a garage sale, I could've bought it for a cheap price. But it would have just been for sentiment's sake, and it probably just ended up gathering dust in the attic.
which one. the TRS-80 or "Valentine". The TRS-80 wasn't much more than a toy. You could write a few simple BASIC programs for it, but that was about it.I like Serena said:And what did you use it for?
The TRS-80 came after the ZX81, and on a ZX81 I could program Space Invaders (just within 1 KiB!)Janus said:which one. the TRS-80 or "Valentine". The TRS-80 wasn't much more than a toy. You could write a few simple BASIC programs for it, but that was about it.
Valentine was used to teach programming In BASIC, Though I do remember that the instructor also used it for keeping sports statistics for some of the School's teams.
The "pocket computer" version I had was limited to a 1 line, 25 character display, unlike your ZX81 which output to a CRT screen. You needed to buy an additional interface to store your programs on tape or to print (on a strip of paper that was like that from an adding machine). At the time, just getting the "computer" involved spending more than I should have splurged on, so getting the extras that would have made it a bit more useful was not in the cards.I like Serena said:The TRS-80 came after the ZX81, and on a ZX81 I could program Space Invaders (just within 1 KiB!)
I could choose to either track high scores or add a special bomb, but not both, since then I'd run out of memory.
In high school we had a TRS-80 which was nice, but nowhere near as much fun!
Janus said:The "pocket computer" version I had was limited to a 1 line, 25 character display, unlike your ZX81 which output to a CRT screen. You needed to buy an additional interface to store your programs on tape or to print (on a strip of paper that was like that from an adding machine). At the time, just getting the "computer" involved spending more than I should have splurged on, so getting the extras that would have made it a bit more useful was not in the cards.
I was able to pick up a regular TRS-80 and monitor at the same garage sale where I saw Valentine, and for 25$
Sheepishly raises hand...RonL said:How many of you people can go out to your shop or store room and pull out your first computers ?
I went in halfsies with my brother on a "Sol", but it ended up being his, as I was in the Navy at the time, and only got to play with it when I was on leave. That would have been between 1977 and 1980. [ref to what a "Sol" was](I can ) mine was an 8088, then in 1984 a 286 running windows 3.0 .
If my memory is right the 8088 ran at a speed of 4.75 Mhz
Edit: The years didn't seem quite right, I checked and it must have been 2.0, the memory gets fuzzy after that many years ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2.0
The pocket computer version had 1.5 KB of RAM ( I had the PC-1 model, which did not have the option to add memory) , so it had ~50% more memory, but that was it. The zx81 was at least expandable up to 64KB.I like Serena said:I seem to recall that the TRS-80 at least had significantly more memory than the 1 KiB the ZX81 had.
That allowed for some 'real' programs to be written, which were more than about 10 lines of BASIC code with peeks and pokes before running out of memory.
Still, without the CRT display, that was indeed quite a different ball game.