[Solved] What computers did you own in the old days? Share your story!

My first computer I got for Xmas when I was 5 in the late 90s was a PII @ 300MHz, 64MB SDRAM, and a 14GB HDD. I don't remember my first video card, but I remember having a ATi ALL-IN-WONDER card later on in that PCs life. It survived up until 2 years ago when I upgraded to a temporary thing, and then a new PC (my current one) last year. I also had a tray-loading iMac G3 for the longest time....

I remember I had a 486, too, also with a 512 MB HDD... seemed like a lot at that time! Had Windows 95 on it and really hated it, because by that time W2K was already out. I also had a 500 MHz Celeron rig with 3dfx Voodoo 3 16MB in it, but seeing people above with 5MHz computers suddenly makes Voodoo seem like yesterday, so I'll stop here =)

TI 99-4A, with 16K of ram...upgraded to an Amiga 1000 with 512k. Then got a 486SX-25 from Gateway...

Commodore vic -20 then the 64 then the 128.

My first semi-computer was an Intellivision II(gaming system) with an ECS computer component add on. Intellivision had 8k, and the computer component added 2k. However, you could only program basic language with the 2k on the computer component. My basic language programs would always go over 2k, and when you entered a numbered line of basic language past this, it would turn gray, indicated memory full. It had a really cool detached keyboard.

My first real home computer was an Apple //e with 128k of memory, followed by a 16bit Apple IIgs years later.

My first PC was a pentium 166, in 1996 when I finally retired my Apple IIgs.

i lived in the old days and there were no computers, i had to use an abacus to add up

I had this computer:
http://www.applefritter.com/files/ [...] 5309_0.jpg

I had a couple old computers back in the day, but the first one I built myself allowing me to remember what was in it, had an Athlon 64 3400+ Clawhammer, 3Gb ram, 300Gb hard drive, and a Geforce 6600GT.

My very first computer (not really mine, GenRad, Acoustic and Vibrations Analysis Division) was a PDP11. I was only 18 at the time, so I'm old, but not that old. A little later a Computervision CADDs4(X) (Nat Semi). Think 6 people on one shared cpu and a 300 MB drive that weighed a ton! And this is graphics, lots and lots of graphics, not word processing. I wrote my status reports on an old and very dumb chip tester! First PC was the very well know IBM (can't remember the model name) 8080 chip based PC. Then there was Apollo (Agis OS) on a token passing ring network (which beat the pants off the difficult to install Ethernet of the day) finally Sun Spark workstations (Unix B4.2). VI anyone?

Like everyone else, I have had one great new "NOW" PC "until it isn't" after another. Never thought I would complain about Multi-core X.XGHz chip speeds and 300mbps networks after sharing ONE 300 MB drive on what was essentially a time share 486 pc. Oh, I forgot the VAX and good old VMX! CRYPTIC. 7.5 inch floppies! Mag tape back-ups, oh joy! I'm a chip designer (ASIC's & Timing Closure?) so I love it all. Thanks for the good reading and the break. Does anyone remember Dungeons and Dragons when it was played on a dumb terminal - no pictures!

The Sandy Bridge is an engineering marvel. I am in love!

My first PC was a 386. I don't remember the clock speeds or anything, but I can remember the 40MB HDD. It was immense.

After that we got a 486.

Then the Pentium 1 was at the order of the day, at 333MHz with 64MB RAM (two 32MB sticks). This PC was insane. Sink Sub Pro anyone?

After that we got a Pentium 3, which basically sucked.

Then I got a Celeron 2.1GHz with 128MB RAM later upgraded to 256MB.

It sucked, so I got a Pentium 4 3.2GHz (awesome machine). This machine had a 40GB HDD, and people were all like "holy crap, you're never going to fill 40GB in your life". It had 512MB RAM and a GeForce FX5200 AGP card (later swapped for a PCI version).

That machine packed up and stopped functioning after a shortish while, so I got another one, this time the P4 3.0GHz with Hyper Threading. This PC I used to game on with a 7600GT for a long time, only getting more RAM (up to 2GB) and a GeForce 220GT graphics card until it became too slow.

Then I got my current PC, Core 2 Quad Q8400, 3GB RAM and a GTX460 1GB. Next upgrade will probably be my last and I wish it to be a Bulldozer rig

EDIT: I do remember these old games though. Ski was played until waaaay past the little monster, Lemmings was beaten and beaten again and I loved it. More games were Pacman, Tetris and several text-based games that made very little sense for me, but I kept typing commands and looked in awe at the screen that replied. Oh, and Age of Empires 2: Gold Edition was played on the P1. Multiplayer games, super-*** framerates and all-in-all fun and more fun. Need for Speed 2 SE also rings a bell. FZR2000 cheat car anyone? On the Pacific Spirit race track? :3

Not my first one but I had a Hewlett Packard HP-67 Programmable Calculator (pretty much like a computer) in 1975 I think and my friend had the earlier HP-65.They were easy and fun to program and both had motorized magnetic strip readers in them.There were also thousands of applications (great for engineering,mathematics,physics other sciences) yes even hundreds of games developed for both.There was even a large member user group with thousands of members,newsletters etc.Great thing about them was their versatility as both were small hand helds and great for mobility field and school work.Probably far more practical and useful than the early lumbering large and heavy impractical microcomputer kits of the mid 1970's.The HP-97 (I think that that was it's model number basically was a HP-67 with a very small printer built in to it.Not handheld but it was easily moved and portable.HP really had the high tech quality stuff at that time during the 1960's and 70's and quite an outstanding reputation.
Steve Wozniak of Apple Computer fame I believe even owned the HP-65 before coming out with his Apple I.From What I've read he had to sell it at the time for funds for his Apple I project I think.Plus I've read that he worked in HP's Programmable Calculator Division for a while and especially liked what he was doing there.
HP even had a programmable scientific calculator in 1967 which they sold to the scientific,engineering community.Of course I remember the punch card days (oh God) and still have a stack of them in my shed.

I had some motorized mechanical calculators from the 1940's that I found in thrift stores.They sure make a lot of noise and are extremely slow especially with long multiplications or divisions.Of course those are merely calculators and are not programmable.

"Also, claiming a 32 core 128bit CPU now is going to make you the laughing stock in a few years. Future generations will start working in terabytes of RAM, and wonder how the hell daddy and his friends came around with a maximum of 32GB to use"

I can't even dream of what she will have at age 40 (Lord willing we are still here)
the 128bit CPU 32core 128gb ram with Petrabyte hard drive is really only 5-10 years away (at most)

Dont know how many people have read the cyberpunk writer William Gibson
(author of Johnny Mnemonic movie) who wrote tremonduos
books about a techno future with souls living in electronic existence on huge hard drives and living in a virtual world

Where does the arc of technological progression end?

Its growth is so exponential in nature that it is bound to result
into something almost supernatural

Wow is it late (2 AM) and I have had too many energy drinks LOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer was the first computer i used as a kid
Have been given various 286, 386, intel486, amd486, cyrix686, IDT winchip (pentium mmx clone), pentium mmx, amd k6-2's throughout my younger years.
I Have overclocked every computer I have owned since my k6-2 including vid card's and CPU. First vid card OC was a Nvidia Riva 128 4mb!

That's insane. Today simply sending an SMS requires more storage than that. :3

Speaking of 640k, remember the 640k barrier? It was only broken in 1995 with windows 4, aka windows 95.

Seems like yesterday and an eternity at the same time.

Did noone else have a ZX Spectrum 48K+

I had the rarer Americanized Timex-Sinclair 2068 72K variant.
I found another one much later on in a thrift store too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_2068

No, it was worked around. But it was still there. It didn't actually go away entirely til windows 4.0.

My first build PC was PC-XT w/ NEC V series CPU (Socket equivalent for 8088).

My first Apple is Apple II-e.

I always built my PC... I don't purchase name brand w/ the exception of that Apple IIe.

Crowe you remember loading from audio cassettes
So cool
I remember those days
I started with my boombox hooked up to the computer to load
programs
Then I saved up and got the official TRS-80 Data Cassette Deck
then I got the 5.25 drive
what a glorious day that was!
LOL

Yep I had the same one
I actually had the coco 1 (16kb) which was grey case with "chiclet" style keys
then I had the coco II like your picture
there was a 64kb ram model and then later a 128kb model
The games back then for the CoCo were on cartridges
but they also had a 5 1/4 floppy drive
I used to go to a CoCo computer club in the basement of a Church
every month to swap software with other owners
Mine is still in Mom's attic
I want to set it up to show my 10 yr old what computers were lilke
in "ancient" days LOL

Are you sure you dont want to adopt me technetitgirl?
I am good at cleaning and yard work

I read about CPU architecture for fun but it makes my head hurt sometimes

How about the fun of Dot Matrix printers with that crappy perforated strip
you had to rip off or your teacher wouldn accept your report LOL

No dont stop
I find this fascinating
(Each one of your posts is about 15mins on Google and Wikipedia LOL)
I was born 1970 so I only know computers from back then from the
home user viewpoint
I do remember my Uncle bringing me home IBM punch cards to play with
Made the best paper planes out of them LOL

Nowadays my 10yr old daughter thinks that Nintendo 64 is "ancient" technology
and that rotary dial phones were used in the 1800s (i corrected her on that)

I do remember that besides IBM
NEC and HP were the other major players if memory serves me well

I did watch some fascinating documentaries on IBM history
on Youtube

Everybody thinks because they left the home computer market
that they were in trouble.
In fact they ditched it to move into enterprise level software development
Much higher profit margin than home computing
and also patent development
IBM has more patents than any other entity in the world if I got it right
they just sold something like 30K patents for a huge amount
and that is only a small portion of their total patents
Almost any tech company probably somehows pays a licensing fee back to IBM

No D & D, but I do remember text games in general.