Where did you begin?

[B_I_O_M]

Where did you, the forum members, start your journey down the path of computer education? What was your first computer? First game?

Myself, my first real computer was a IBM Thinkpad T30 from 2002...and I have been using it since mid-2009. But it wasn't until I met someone who blew my knowledge out of the water that I really began to become interested in computers, and then my current job which is completely on a computer started me down the path. Before I know it, I'm going to Def Con with more questions than I know what to do with. That was a month ago. Lol.

 

[hundredislandsboy]

Commodore 64

 

[jsc]

Overclocking since 1978 - Z80 (TRS-80) from 1.77 MHz to 2.01 MHz

 

[B_I_O_M]

Overclocking since 1978 - Z80 (TRS-80) from 1.77 MHz to 2.01 MHz

Wow...that's a while.

 

[Reynod]

jsc probably did crystal replacements with the soldering iron like I did back then.

I wrote primitive code on Apple IIE's and ours had a Zilog add on card in it ...
Gold star if you know what I am talking abut there.

I overclocked my XT Sperry back in the late 80's ... never looked back.

I overclocked every PC I touch ... albeit usually moderately if it is for someone else who is a n00b.

No point in creating unstable wormholes ...

Oh ... and wlecome BIOM !!

 

[B_I_O_M]

jsc probably did crystal replacements with the soldering iron like I did back then.

I wrote primitive code on Apple IIE's and ours had a Zilog add on card in it ...
Gold star if you know what I am talking abut there.

I overclocked my XT Sperry back in the late 80's ... never looked back.

I overclocked every PC I touch ... albeit usually moderately if it is for someone else who is a n00b.

No point in creating unstable wormholes ...

Oh ... and wlecome BIOM !!

Yeah, no gold star for me. Lol. A month ago, if you had asked me what the difference was between an Intel i3 and i7, I would have guessed that one came out in '03 and one in '07. Lol. I'm still pretty noob-tastic, but I think I've done exceptionally well for only a month in. Hell, I'm even beginning to give advice to my friends.

 

[Herr_Koos]

My first PC was a 386SX circa 1993, think it was clocked at 33MHz. My list since then reads:

486 DX2-66
486-DX4-100 (Whatta monster! It murdered the early Pentiums)
Pentium-150
AMD K6-166 (My first AMD chip: the start of a long-standing love affair)
AMD K6-333
AMD Duron 750
Pentium 3-800 (got this one on loan, used it during my varsity days)
AMD Athlon X2 5600+ (My current rig, in need of a refresh but still going strong).

My first game on the PC was probably Digger (played it on Mom's office computer), followed later by Wolfenstein 3D and Sierra's awesome quest game, The Dagger of Amon Ra, on my 386.

 

[LePhuronn]

Spectrum 128K +2 to start my programming and computer graphics days at age 6 (26 years ago).

Got into the hardware side of things at A-Level.

Still programming, still doing graphics, still building. Probably will 'til the day I die lol

 

[Shadow703793]

Intel Celeron D 315 @ 3.6Ghz on a cr@ppy motherboard using BSEL mod.

(This was my first "true" scratch build, as in I payed for the build). Before that got an AMDT-bird that was unlocked provided by my uncle. The good old days....

 

[Psychoteddy]

Pentium II 233 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 250 MB HDD

 

[hankki]

My first PC was a 386SX circa 1993, think it was clocked at 33MHz. My list since then reads:

486 DX2-66
486-DX4-100 (Whatta monster! It murdered the early Pentiums)
Pentium-150
AMD K6-166 (My first AMD chip: the start of a long-standing love affair)
AMD K6-333
AMD Duron 750
Pentium 3-800 (got this one on loan, used it during my varsity days)
AMD Athlon X2 5600+ (My current rig, in need of a refresh but still going strong).

My first game on the PC was probably Digger (played it on Mom's office computer), followed later by Wolfenstein 3D and Sierra's awesome quest game, The Dagger of Amon Ra, on my 386.

My pc's are quite similar, but first:

Vic-20 mid-80s
Sinclair zx spectrum around 86-87
Computer free from around 88-94
'94-'95 IBM PS-1 I think it was 16MHz with 2MB ram and 40MB HDD
'96 AMD 166MHz with 16 or 32MB ram and 1.2GB drive upgraded to 233MHz and 6.5GB
'98 AMD 400MHz 128MB ram and 13GB, internet from '98, minor upgrades
2001 HP Xe3 laptop 600MHz celeron 128MB and 10GB
2003 AMD Athlon xp 2000+ 256MB ram 40GB later upgraded with 512MB to 768MB
2008 AMD x2 5600+ 4GB and 320GB upgraded with 1TB 24" acer
dec 2010 AMD athlon II x2 250 4GB and 320 from older machine and 22" benq, this one is my current machine and the above is my wife's machine

 

[4745454b]

First real experience with hardware was when I was perhaps 6 or 7 and I helped my dad take a 286 board out of our computer and put in the 386 board he brought home from work. (DIE plastic standoffs!) I was hooked after that and started doing everything I could to learn more. That includes messing the bios up so the computer couldn't boot anymore as well. I've had nearly every chip after that. 486, pentium 1, 2, 3, Cyrix, AMD k6, Athlon, etc.

I didn't really do any programming until I got to college. Took a couple of semesters of VB and JAVA programming. (do my database classes where I learned SQL count?)

My deeper knowledge of CPU architecture come from a guy who doesn't post here anymore, and I'm not sure how kindly the staff take to him being mentioned so I'll refrain from doing so. He new more about making chips then I thought a "normal" person could. (He was a JJ real Brainiac.) In a good way he really stretched my knowledge, and I probably learned more in the 3-6 months he was posting then I had the decade before that.

 

[spyware]

When I was in college I had my first computer, configure quite low and speed slowly.

 

[geofelt]

My first computer experience was with an IBM 650. Some 50 years ago.

I knew that the color of the punched cards used for programming was irrelevant, but I was not so certain about the corner cuts.

 

[doive1231]

1st - Adamson Pentium 100 (wonder where they are now. How could they not survive with £1400 of my money for 8Mb Ram and a 1GB Quantum Fireball?)

2nd - AMD 400Mhz can't remember any more

3rd - AMD Duron 1Ghz Socket 754

4th - AMD Athlon 64 2.8Ghz still being used somewhere in the world

5th - Intel E6400 C2D, pesky ASRock chipset with only x4 PCI express slot

6th - i5 750, smoking CPU, I feel like a king, a king I tell you

Sold that. Now bumming around looking, unimpressed by Sandy Bridge.

 

[chillmelt]

Hey all, now that I have some time to spare around the computer community:

1st - Pentium 166

2nd - Pentium 2

3rd - Athlon XP 2200

4th - Sempron 2800 (the CPU died and just wanted to replace it... performance wise the 3rd and this were pretty much the same)

5th - AMD Phenom II 555 BE (unlocked to 4 cores, quite awesome)

6th - Phenom II X6 1090T

 

[dogman_1234]

My first computer was an Intel Pentium 4 631,( Netburst). My first overclock is an Intel Pentium Dual core E5700 @ 3.451 GHz.