Jump to content

My first computer.....


Guest ordep
 Share

Recommended Posts

Was a Dan, an excellent computer,

I new absolutely nothing about computers (don't know much more now) so i went along with the "Which" advice.

My daughter & I went along to NW10, they were just behind Ikea, they've gone now of course, and choose,

Home plus 2

233 mhz P2

P2 mobo lx supermicro 32mb sdram

ATI 3d charger AGp 4mb

17" Iiama

4.3gb h/d

Win 95

Sub woofer speakers

Key board & mouse

+ some soft ware

All for the princely sum of £1761.34 (inc. vat)

They had THE best helpline ever.

Got a virus once, took it back to them and they sorted it out, FOC, it was out of warranty to.

Another occasion they helped me reformat, over the phone, step by step.

Can see that now cant you,!

Got it home, set it up, and switched on (waiting for a bang and a cloud of smoke). that did not happen thank goodness.

The amazement and wonder we both felt as windows opened with its jolly tune, i shan't forget.

Then what to do with it, what buttons should i press, will i break it.

Soon got the hang of it of course,

And the rest, as they say, is history :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first computer wasnt a PC...but a Spectrum!!! a 128 +2...the plastic one with the added Tape player.....i remember goin to Dixons in manchester arndale centre with my parents to pick it out for Christmas...Oh glory days! :lol: ...it came with a free game...GHOSTBUSTERS!........Cant remember how much it was..it was so long ago!

Just remember the arguments with my best friend who had a commodore 64.....even came to blows over which one was best!

From then i moved on to an Amiga 500+......FANTASTIC....only got rid of it last year..after gathering dust in the loft.....Monkey Island on 12 disks!!!!!! :o

Staying up till 3 in the morning playing Champ manager!

Now its the same but with counter strike!!

Oh how times have changed! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Remember Escom, the German PC outfit that took over most of the old Rumbelows shops? Well they went bust a matter of weeks after I bought my first computer from them: :o

Intel Pentium 75.

1 Gb Hard Drive.

8 Mb RAM.

ATI Mach 32 Graphics card.

Aztech Galaxy Soundcard.

14" Monitor (unbadged).

Pair of Commodore Speakers.

Windows 95, MS Works, Word 95, MS Scenes and some other minor software.

Cost around £1200 as I remember.

O'h the frustration, not many Windows 95 games then, having to tweak the settings so they thought they were running in DOS. (a bit like Xp's compatibility mode really) Getting some game's to run was a major accomplishment and the problems trying to get the sound to work... gawd. :blink:

Few weeks later got a MS Sidewinder Joystick that wouldn't work with the Aztech card, went back to the shop to find it was closed... yup they had gone bust (eventually nice people at MS sent me a floppy with a patch to overcome the problem). Thankfully I'd paid by credit card so was able to call for tech support from ICL Sorbus, now those guys had the patience of a saint talking me through various problems. What joy. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Shirley_Crabtree

Well....my GAMING history is as follows..(roughly!)

Binatone "pong" console

ZX81 (with 16k ram doodad)

Sinclair Spectrum

Tandy...um...er...trsl80?...dragon clone

Commadore Vic 20

Atari 64XL

Commadore 64

ZX Spectrum +2

Commadore Amiga 500

Atari ST 512

PC Engine

Super Famicon

Sony playstation

P1 120mhz,16mb ram,14" monitor,6.4 GB HD,33,600 modem,grfx card unknown,windows 95.

K6-2-500,64mb ram,15" monitor,10.2 GB HD,56KB modem,sis 6326 Grfx,Windows 98SE

And presently....Duron 750,256MB pc133 ram,GF2 MX grfx,60 GB HD,Win XP PRO.

I have a Radeon 9100LE 64 DDR grfx card on the way...woohoo!

Next updates will be Mobo and CPU...can't wait!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cool, you've all been in the business longer than me.

My first PC, err, well in autumn of 98, I took the advice of some self-professed 'knowledgable' tech person and got a Tiny laptop. Paid a pretty penny too, all on their 6 month interest free thing. Fortunately for me, it gave me grief all its short life and they finally took it back, got a refund through the finance company, supporting the interest free credit. I still remember clearly the lady's voice, who listened and then helped me tackle the Tiny issue. That was PIII 800MHz, 128MB SD RAM, 8MB Intel integrated graphics, 10GB HDD (I think) and it was cutting edge then.

Anyway, after owning 2 more laptops that were a bit funny (Win ME installed), I got a Packard Bell (as exchange), which went funny too. Every error imaginable - it had it. Blue screens of death going off like fireworks on the eve' of the Millennium. Anyway, got some money back and had the rest in vouchers. Took to building myself a comp instead...

The rest, they say, is history... Jinx! Who me? :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest The Ghost of Inept Pig

My first computer was an Amstrad 464 (cassette deck and funny loading noises to boot AND a very colourful keyboard), which was the replaced by the mighty Amstrad 6128 (with double the amount of RAM of the 464.)

I then shifted towards the Commodore Amigas - first I had the A500 (first computer I ever upgraded to an almighty one megabyte of RAM - woooo!), I later traded this in for a A1200 which I bought a hard drive for with around 200 (or less, or slightly more... it was a long time ago.. :unsure: ) megabytes of storage space on.

After doing away with the Amiga 1200, I bought a new fangled Sony Playstation, which was very impressive with it's pretty graphics and all, but soon got boring as Sony switched its focus towards the Playstation two...

The first PC I actually owned (as opposed to the ones I used when other people weren't) was this fine machine that I'm currently typing on... it's specs? Dunno... looks nice though... goes fast too...

You can peruse pictures and brief descriptions of old computers here

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Phil930

i too once owned a spectrum. great machines, the screaming of the tape loading was always funny.

to anyone else that had a spectrum, surely you owned 'Horrace goes skiiing'. the art of crossing a motorway to pick up your skies, then crossing back and then skiiing, those games were complex!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:D Hello Everyone!

My first computer was a Digital Rainbow 100+ (1984). It had 512 Kb RAM and a 1 Mb HD. What a box! Everything was DOS. It taught me to always backup/save! Games were Pong, Centipede and Dracula's Castle!

My second computer was the IBM PC/PS1 (1990) and I still have it. The first Windows PC. I remember playing AD&D games until dawn, then going to work.

All these years of keyboarding and I still cannot type except by "hunt and punt." (Four fingers, all thumbs.)

Best regards from Larry :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Phil930 - Remember them both very well... and Super Mario World which came bundled with the SNES. Ever play Super Mario Kart? One of the best games of all time.

Pre Sony Play-station the world was divided into two camps Sega or Nintendo. Nintendo did it for me, preferred Mario, Luigi and Link's adventures anyday to Sonic. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ellas, looks like you owned 'em all. Well, maybe Shirley beats ya - impressive list of consoles between ya both.

Between my brother and me, we had the NES (8 bit), Megadrive, SNES, Playstation (1), Nintendo 64, and Dreamcast. Well, the last 3 were his (PS1 was my sister's actually...). Had a Speccy (48k) when I were a lad, but never could afford to upgrade to either Amiga or Atari ST which were beautiful machines (especially compared to my own ZX Spectrum).

First PC, I've already mentioned. I used them when I 1st went to college in 1990, and I can honestly say, I absolutely hated them. They were MSDOS run, and used to restart with ALT CNTRL DEL pressed - a fun game then was to run around the classroom seeing how many machines you could restart whilst people were trying to type their work... and all the crashing... joy. Printers... yargh. You people with networked laser printers think it's a nightmare now, at least they're quiet. A room full of printers, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh rrrrrrrrrr, dot matrix... strip lighting flickering, heat belching out the back of a multitude of old comps, screens incorrectly set, gamma wrong, radiation streaming into the back of me brain, heat, fumes, noise... no wonder I used to get headaches at the end of a long day....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They cleared up completely after I finished college in '92, but I got one of those Amstrad PCW word processor comp things, and it had a green screen (ultra gamma), it used to burn into my eyes but never gave me a headache - just blinded me.

Only thing giving me a headache now is Zen, the graphics card, the faulty this and that that don't work/won't work, and some people I know, who shall remain nameless...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Privacy Policy