Loosing Your Virginity - What's your first Computer Experience?

yustr · 01-19-2005, 07:55 AM

My first time:

My Mom worked for Big Blue (IBM) in the 60's. One day she took me to work (I was 12 or 13 at the time) and I got to see the "Brand New - State of the Art" IBM360 Main Frame. It took up an entire floor of a high-rise office building.

My first time using one was a punch card reader at college. Writing very simple programs (like solving a quadratic equation) in fortran.

The first one I owned was an IBM PC where I had to choose between a HD upgrade (20MB to 40MB) or twin floppy drive. I chose the floppies because “Who could ever fill up 20MB hard drive?"

**Jason** · 01-19-2005, 10:44 AM

I guess it would depend on what you call a computer.

I had an atari, and commodore 64/128. Then there was the 8088.

bry623 · 01-19-2005, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by danrak

I guess it would depend on what you call a computer.

I had an atari, and commodore 64/128. Then there was the 8088.

We had those too. Is the 8088 the same as the old Texas Instruments computer? Those things were "cool" cause you could hook up a cassette player to them for data storage.

95five-0 · 01-21-2005, 04:25 AM

I was three when my dad brought home the first edition on the commador 64. He designed the tester to test the sound card so we where the first one in the nieborhood to get one.

signol01 · 01-22-2005, 01:24 PM

i remember I was 5 when my dad got one of those new jetbooks with windows 3.1 installed. Good times then we got a pentium 100 mHz desktop and that bit the dust in 2000. I loved that machine it was my babysitter.

**Fox** · 01-22-2005, 01:39 PM

First computer I ever used was my dad's laptop running DOS. Then I expeienced mac's GUI, didn't like it because it reeked of lack of options. My dad bought the family a Gateway 2000 P5-120 in 1994 and I fell in love with that machine. It worked all the way up to this year- now it mysteriously won't detect the hard drive (a diehard WD Caviar 1-gig), through I've tested the drive in a different computer and it works perfectly.

A couple of years later, I bought a Commodore 64 from my friend's teenage brother. I was under the impression that it was made for games (much like the Atari I had bought a year earlier, which had no keyboard), but when I read the manual, which had basic instructions for programming, I found out that it could do a lot more. In 1997 my dad bought another gateway, this one with Windows 98, a faster processer, and a larger hard drive. In 1998 or 1999 my dad brought home his old Toshiba 460CDT laptop after he got a new Dell one, and gave it to me. I liked that machine a lot, but two years or so afterwards it fell out of our van while my mother was putting something in and never worked again. A year ago after moving to NJ I built my own system. That one has given me some problems, but it's still running well, and is bearably fast.

Torinir · 01-22-2005, 02:40 PM

C64's, Trash-80's... those bring back memories... some fond, some painful.

F153JUE · 01-22-2005, 03:32 PM

I remember using an Acorn BBC Master back in about 1985 when I was in class two at primary school.

My mother was a typing instructor at the time so I was well used to keyboards and wordprocessing. It was a thing of simple amazement for me that words wrapped round the screen when you got to the end of a line. I think that was in a WP prog called Folio which was stored on a 32K EPROM on the motherboard.

My first home machine was a beautiful Acorn A3000: 2MHz 32-bit Arm RISC processor, 1mb Ram, 800K floppy, no HDD, max screen resolution of 800x600 in 8 bit, stereo sound with 8 channels, running RISC OS 2, on four 512K ROMS on the main board. What a computer!

The last proper computer I ever owned was in made in about 1994: The Acorn Risc PC. 110 MHZ Arm StrongArm processor, RISC OS 3.7, 12 MB RAM.... What a machine - took about 10 seconds to start up because the OS was in ROM. Beautiful drag and drop windows environment, really well-written apps just the mutts nuts really.

If you want to know where the Windows filer, task bar, desktop, in fact pretty much all the best bits of Win 95 came from then look no further. We even trialled a little app that behaved just like the Windows Start Menu but the whole thing was really cumbersome and was dropped in favour of proper file system and a three button mouse that made things a real breeze to use.

Can't believe we're in the 21st century and the world is still using MS Windows!

Hmm those were the days. It all went wrong when ARM changed from 'Acorn RISC Machines' to 'Advanced RISC Machines' and you couldn't phone the people who wrote the OS by phoning techsupport in Cambridge.

Oops, sorry, got a litle off topic there.

**STINEHART** · 01-27-2005, 05:49 AM

woops.. my very first computer experience. I was in 6th grade and took a programming class on those old apple onepiece computers.
I programed graphics like fish tanks. I was kicked out of the class for umm.. replicating code from other students before class.

Volt-Schwibe · 01-27-2005, 07:08 AM

that's funny, in 3rd grade they taught us how to use LOGO with the TURTLE.

lol

that was on the apple IIc (one peice not including monitor)

also played alot of oregon trail on it.

**Fox** · 01-27-2005, 12:27 PM

LOGO...what was that all about? They did that with us too, in third grade.

Oregon Trail did rock though, we played ours on the Power Mac 75's.

CopperFire28 · 01-28-2005, 06:18 AM

My Father was a data programer for a major insurance company here in the windy city... he "persuaded" me to take a computer class sometime in the early 90's. It was a DOS based class and the only thing I took away from that class was how to "boot" the pc... (sigh)... In the late 90's I took a "Creative Writing" class. I was excited and went out and bought a ton of paper and note books, pens and pencils, even a word processor... The first day the teacher took us down to the "lab"... I was confused and lost.

I had no idea how to get past the Boot Process. The teacher kept talking about "Word" and the "path to access Word"... Half an hour into the class she came walking arround to see how we were all doing and she found me sitting at my desk with tears running down my face...

I was on the desktop with my pointer trying to type my paper... Never having used a PC I was quite at a loss. I did not know what "Word" was or even what "Windows" was. I did not want to seem like a fool so I said nothing... Needless to say I ended up getting an A in the class and now am at a point where I can work on my own PC, installing software, hardware and can even help others when their PC has issues...

I won't profess to know everything... but I do know more than I did in 97... I vowed never to feel that helpless again when dealing with TECH stuff... Now I manage a Camera Store and teach ppl how to use their Digital Cameras and feel much more confident... I am not afraid to ask for help!!! I hope this story has made you all laugh... I still do when I look back at it!!! Have a great day and PEACE to you all!!!

-Kari

ramwire · 01-31-2005, 05:41 PM

ahhh memories...

I still remember my first PC ever, which was actually given to my dad at work (his boss's old PC basically) but dad gave it to me :)

At those days I felt lucky, it was a 16Mhz 286 CPU with I think 1 or 2mb ram and a 20mb harddisk ( I almost wrote gb :) ) and the monitor, 12" EGA. I had no mouse and one heavy keyboard. I also got a Panasonic dotmatrix printer :)

But honestly, I miss those days. When everyday there was a new command to learn in dos or a new keyboard shortcut to learn in Windows 3.1 ... PCs are boring nowadays in comparison to that time.

I kept that PC until last year when I finally had to get rid of it :(

Oh well, life goes on :)

Ciao for now.

eliander · 02-04-2005, 05:04 AM

Hehe,
the first time was when I infected with the STONE virus my mom´s coworkers´computer. I was 9 and had borrowed a dos game from a friend,
For months thought that computer viruses pass from computers to people and that I have been infected gravely. Was pretty depressing at the time thinking you will die any time

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Good old time of DOS

jackel · 02-05-2005, 02:58 PM

i can't remember my first time

i can't remember what i did last week

The_Black_Mage · 02-07-2005, 06:23 PM

hmmm... i was about 4 or so. my dad had his ownage 5 hdds with aroung 600mb each, 640k sysmem and an 18inch monitor(MAG Innovision) thats older then me, and im using it right now :D

we played doom together all the time. he ran, i shot. prolly some of the best memories of me with my father.

01-19-2005, 07:55 AM	#1 (permalink)
yustr Asst. Manager, The Conversation Pit Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Connecticut shore Posts: 6,061 OS: XP Pro My System	Loosing Your Virginity - What's your first Computer Experience? My first time: My Mom worked for Big Blue (IBM) in the 60's. One day she took me to work (I was 12 or 13 at the time) and I got to see the "Brand New - State of the Art" IBM360 Main Frame. It took up an entire floor of a high-rise office building. My first time using one was a punch card reader at college. Writing very simple programs (like solving a quadratic equation) in fortran. The first one I owned was an IBM PC where I had to choose between a HD upgrade (20MB to 40MB) or twin floppy drive. I chose the floppies because “Who could ever fill up 20MB hard drive?" __________________ If there are lawyers or politicians involved, logic may be a very poor tool for reaching a conclusion.

01-19-2005, 10:44 AM	#2 (permalink)
Jason Faugh a ballagh Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Pasco, FL Posts: 8,486 OS: Windows Vista My System Blog Entries: 2	I guess it would depend on what you call a computer. I had an atari, and commodore 64/128. Then there was the 8088. __________________ Posting Tips \| Advice for New People \| Common Fixes \| Agus na damnaithe fágtha gan focal Glaoigh ormsa i measc na naomh

01-21-2005, 04:25 AM	#4 (permalink)
95five-0 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Corinth, TX Posts: 1,339 OS: 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008	I was three when my dad brought home the first edition on the commador 64. He designed the tester to test the sound card so we where the first one in the nieborhood to get one. __________________ "If it's really a supercomputer, how come the bullets don't bounce off when I shoot it ?" <<PC Pitstop>><< AVG Free>><<Spybot>><<Everest 2.0>><<Trend Micro House Call>><<HijackThis How-to>>

01-22-2005, 02:40 PM	#7 (permalink)
Torinir Installing Beer Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 80 OS: Win2K (Work) WinXP (Home)	C64's, Trash-80's... those bring back memories... some fond, some painful. __________________ Tech Support Rep at an outsourcer. Caffeine would be better if it was delivered by direct injection.

01-27-2005, 05:49 AM	#9 (permalink)
STINEHART Aut viam inveniam aut fac Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Norman, OK Posts: 2,178 OS: OS X 10.6.1 My System	woops.. my very first computer experience. I was in 6th grade and took a programming class on those old apple onepiece computers. I programed graphics like fish tanks. I was kicked out of the class for umm.. replicating code from other students before class. __________________ Free 10MB Image Hosting \| Streaming Catholic TV \| -Smilies.- \| Report Suspicious or Suspected Terrorist Activity Here Last edited by STINEHART; 01-27-2005 at 05:51 AM.

01-22-2005, 01:24 PM	#5 (permalink)
signol01 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 4 OS: Win XP Pro	i remember I was 5 when my dad got one of those new jetbooks with windows 3.1 installed. Good times then we got a pentium 100 mHz desktop and that bit the dust in 2000. I loved that machine it was my babysitter.

01-22-2005, 01:39 PM	#6 (permalink)
Fox TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: NJ Posts: 7,752 OS: XP Pro, CentOS My System	First computer I ever used was my dad's laptop running DOS. Then I expeienced mac's GUI, didn't like it because it reeked of lack of options. My dad bought the family a Gateway 2000 P5-120 in 1994 and I fell in love with that machine. It worked all the way up to this year- now it mysteriously won't detect the hard drive (a diehard WD Caviar 1-gig), through I've tested the drive in a different computer and it works perfectly. A couple of years later, I bought a Commodore 64 from my friend's teenage brother. I was under the impression that it was made for games (much like the Atari I had bought a year earlier, which had no keyboard), but when I read the manual, which had basic instructions for programming, I found out that it could do a lot more. In 1997 my dad bought another gateway, this one with Windows 98, a faster processer, and a larger hard drive. In 1998 or 1999 my dad brought home his old Toshiba 460CDT laptop after he got a new Dell one, and gave it to me. I liked that machine a lot, but two years or so afterwards it fell out of our van while my mother was putting something in and never worked again. A year ago after moving to NJ I built my own system. That one has given me some problems, but it's still running well, and is bearably fast.

01-22-2005, 03:32 PM	#8 (permalink)
F153JUE Registered User Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: St. Ives, Cambs, UK Posts: 74 OS: 'Doze XP Prof	I remember using an Acorn BBC Master back in about 1985 when I was in class two at primary school. My mother was a typing instructor at the time so I was well used to keyboards and wordprocessing. It was a thing of simple amazement for me that words wrapped round the screen when you got to the end of a line. I think that was in a WP prog called Folio which was stored on a 32K EPROM on the motherboard. My first home machine was a beautiful Acorn A3000: 2MHz 32-bit Arm RISC processor, 1mb Ram, 800K floppy, no HDD, max screen resolution of 800x600 in 8 bit, stereo sound with 8 channels, running RISC OS 2, on four 512K ROMS on the main board. What a computer! The last proper computer I ever owned was in made in about 1994: The Acorn Risc PC. 110 MHZ Arm StrongArm processor, RISC OS 3.7, 12 MB RAM.... What a machine - took about 10 seconds to start up because the OS was in ROM. Beautiful drag and drop windows environment, really well-written apps just the mutts nuts really. If you want to know where the Windows filer, task bar, desktop, in fact pretty much all the best bits of Win 95 came from then look no further. We even trialled a little app that behaved just like the Windows Start Menu but the whole thing was really cumbersome and was dropped in favour of proper file system and a three button mouse that made things a real breeze to use. Can't believe we're in the 21st century and the world is still using MS Windows! Hmm those were the days. It all went wrong when ARM changed from 'Acorn RISC Machines' to 'Advanced RISC Machines' and you couldn't phone the people who wrote the OS by phoning techsupport in Cambridge. Oops, sorry, got a litle off topic there.

01-27-2005, 07:08 AM	#10 (permalink)
Volt-Schwibe Asst. Manager, Automotive Forums; HJT Trainee Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Behind you, watching you as you type. Posts: 7,372 OS: Click "My System" to view details My System	that's funny, in 3rd grade they taught us how to use LOGO with the TURTLE. lol that was on the apple IIc (one peice not including monitor) also played alot of oregon trail on it. __________________ <signature> TSF is funded by our Admin's pocket, care to help? Power Tip: Subscribe to your thread (Thread Tools) to receive an instant email notification when you get a reply. New Members: Creating a single new thread in the correct section is the best way to assure your thread will receive a reply. </signature>

01-27-2005, 12:27 PM	#11 (permalink)
Fox TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: NJ Posts: 7,752 OS: XP Pro, CentOS My System	LOGO...what was that all about? They did that with us too, in third grade. Oregon Trail did rock though, we played ours on the Power Mac 75's.

01-28-2005, 06:18 AM	#12 (permalink)
CopperFire28 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Chicago Area Illinois Posts: 4 OS: ME	My Father was a data programer for a major insurance company here in the windy city... he "persuaded" me to take a computer class sometime in the early 90's. It was a DOS based class and the only thing I took away from that class was how to "boot" the pc... (sigh)... In the late 90's I took a "Creative Writing" class. I was excited and went out and bought a ton of paper and note books, pens and pencils, even a word processor... The first day the teacher took us down to the "lab"... I was confused and lost. I had no idea how to get past the Boot Process. The teacher kept talking about "Word" and the "path to access Word"... Half an hour into the class she came walking arround to see how we were all doing and she found me sitting at my desk with tears running down my face... I was on the desktop with my pointer trying to type my paper... Never having used a PC I was quite at a loss. I did not know what "Word" was or even what "Windows" was. I did not want to seem like a fool so I said nothing... Needless to say I ended up getting an A in the class and now am at a point where I can work on my own PC, installing software, hardware and can even help others when their PC has issues... I won't profess to know everything... but I do know more than I did in 97... I vowed never to feel that helpless again when dealing with TECH stuff... Now I manage a Camera Store and teach ppl how to use their Digital Cameras and feel much more confident... I am not afraid to ask for help!!! I hope this story has made you all laugh... I still do when I look back at it!!! Have a great day and PEACE to you all!!! -Kari

01-31-2005, 05:41 PM	#13 (permalink)
ramwire Registered User Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 8 OS: Multi	ahhh memories... I still remember my first PC ever, which was actually given to my dad at work (his boss's old PC basically) but dad gave it to me :) At those days I felt lucky, it was a 16Mhz 286 CPU with I think 1 or 2mb ram and a 20mb harddisk ( I almost wrote gb :) ) and the monitor, 12" EGA. I had no mouse and one heavy keyboard. I also got a Panasonic dotmatrix printer :) But honestly, I miss those days. When everyday there was a new command to learn in dos or a new keyboard shortcut to learn in Windows 3.1 ... PCs are boring nowadays in comparison to that time. I kept that PC until last year when I finally had to get rid of it :( Oh well, life goes on :) Ciao for now.

02-04-2005, 05:04 AM	#14 (permalink)
eliander Registered User Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 24 OS: winXP	passing the virus Hehe, the first time was when I infected with the STONE virus my mom´s coworkers´computer. I was 9 and had borrowed a dos game from a friend, For months thought that computer viruses pass from computers to people and that I have been infected gravely. Was pretty depressing at the time thinking you will die any time ------------------------------------------------------------------- Good old time of DOS

02-05-2005, 02:58 PM	#15 (permalink)
jackel Registered User Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 17 OS: xp	i can't remember my first time i can't remember what i did last week

02-07-2005, 06:23 PM	#16 (permalink)
The_Black_Mage Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13 OS: Win XP Pro	hmmm... i was about 4 or so. my dad had his ownage 5 hdds with aroung 600mb each, 640k sysmem and an 18inch monitor(MAG Innovision) thats older then me, and im using it right now :D we played doom together all the time. he ran, i shot. prolly some of the best memories of me with my father.