What was your first true computer -- Give specs!

Intel 386SX - 16 MHz
1 mb RAM
40 mb hard disk
3.5 inch diskette drive
Keyboard with an AT connector
ISA VGA graphics, can't remember if it was 16 colors or 256 colors
Monitor size of ~14 in

Mouse, Soundcard, Modem and O/S not even included in original specs and were all purchased separately. I remember the BIOS date being in the late 80s. I don't know when this unit was actually purchased but it wasn't until Dec. 1991 when I was permitted to use this computer. Despite it being a literally barebones computer, I don't know why but I felt, personally, it was between the 1991-1998 era when computers and Internet were most fascinating and thought-provoking. Yes, we now have quad core processors with nvidia gtx 680 and open world rpg gaming but I don't know why I felt more impressed with my old 386 and when I upgraded to Pentium in 1995.
 
I can't recall all of the specs, but it was a Packard Bell 486/66DX with 4MB of RAM and an S3 card of some kind. This was in mid '92.
Because my mom worked with computers all day, she never felt the need to have one around at home.
I was familiar with using PC's (and Apple II's) from school, but that was the first one I truly owned.
It was also my last "off the shelf" PC, too.
 
My 1st PC was a WANG!

Spec:
Intel 386SX 20MHz (Later upgraded w/ a Cyrix 386 to 486 snap-on CPU)
IIT 387 "Enhanced" Math Co-Processor
256KB Integrated VGA Video 640x480 w/ 256 Colors! (Later upgraded to Trident 1MB ISA & SVGA!)
2MB RAM (Later upgraded to 6MB)
40MB Harddrive (Later added a 2nd 60MB)
5.25" & 3.5" Floppy (Later replaced the 5.25" drive w/ a 2x CD-ROM)
SoundBlaster 8-Bit
2400bps Internal Modem (Later a External 14.4Kbps Modem Which I stil have)

Ahhh Memories... I Wish I still had it.. :p
 
My first computer...

- Pentium 233Mhz
- 32MB RAM (upgraded to 64MB)
- 3GB HDD
- 8X CD-ROM
- Windows 95 OS

I don't remember much else from it. But it played the Ultimate Doom very well which is all I cared about back then. I used another computer before that which ran Windows 3.1, but I was too young to care about the specs of it.
 
My dad brought home a Pentium computer. The only spec I remember was the processor ran at like 90mhz. I believe it was a Micron machine. I used to play Tyrian 2000 on it all the time. I was about 3 years old lol.
 
harkerscd said:
Intel 386SX - 16 MHz
1 mb RAM
40 mb hard disk
3.5 inch diskette drive
Keyboard with an AT connector
ISA VGA graphics, can't remember if it was 16 colors or 256 colors
Monitor size of ~14 in
Click to expand...

Hey, we had almost the same computer.

386SX/16MHz (I would have killed for a DX/33MHz)
1MB RAM (some friends of mine had 640k but I would have killed for 2MB or 4MB, got screwed on games)
40 MB Conner HD
3.5" Floppy
5.25" Floppy (I had both so I was a badass)
256k VGA graphics, so that meant 320x200 @ 8-bit colors. Screw EGA/CGA
14" CTX monitor (interlaced 1024x768...my poor eyes)
STAR 9-pin dot-matrix printer (24-pin printers owned this so hard)
DOS 5.0

It came in this mini-tower:

5NG8Y.jpg


I think my parents paid $1399 for it. Later on I ended up adding a 2400bps modem, 8-bit sound card, and a serial mouse. I think I paid around $10 for each item from Computer Shopper, they were all closeouts because 14.4 modems and 16-bit sound cards were the thing to buy. Wasted more time on bulletin boards, shareware games, QBASIC, and Turbo Pascal than I'll ever know.

Not sure why I never upgraded the RAM but I think it was because it would have still be too slow to play Doom or run Windows. Upgraded to a Pentium 75MHz once Windows 95 came out.
 
My parents bought me an IBM PCjr for Christmas in 1990. They got it second hand from a G.I. that was stationed in Ft Sill, OK. It had 256K of ram, 128k of which was on a side-cart which had four bank select switches. If I turned all four on, the system ticked up to 640K during POST... but it would crash constantly when set up like that. I later learned that it was mapping the same 128K of ram into four regions and writing anything to address above 256K was just overwriting anything stored in the 128K-256K block. :eek:

It was a mostly useless machine though. No hard drive and not enough memory for any games, so it was replaced with an awesome 386SX-16 with 4MB of RAM, Trident 512k VGA graphcs (connected to a 13" gray-scale monitor, lol) a big-ass 5.25" full-height ESDI hard drive with a whopping 141MB, and either a 2400bps or 4800bps modem.
 
HP Vectre
386SX 25Mhz
4MB RAM
80MB Hard Drive
3 1/4" FDD
Windows 3.1
MS DOS 5.0
 
Some horizontal desktop Packard Bell with 75MHZ Intel Pentium chip and a cdrom drive, I think we gave it some paltry ram upgrade at some point - the computer probably cost a fortune and the ram upgrade as well. Played the crap out of Doom, Doom II, X-wing Vs Tie-Fighter, some horrible futuristic racing game, and I think Cyberia. Finally talked my parents into stepping it up around the time Starcraft made it big; the computer couldn't really run it! Can't remember much else!
 
An Apple IIgs, the specs of which I do not remember because I was all of five years old.

My family had a Dell when I was in high school, back in the days of the original Doom and BBSing. It had a 486 75MHz CPU, 4MB RAM, 30MB hard drive, and a CD-ROM. Eventually my father kindly spent $300 at CompUSA to double the RAM to 8MB. It ran DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1. The system still works without issue; I fire it up sometimes when I'm at home to listen to MIDI files and play TIE Fighter.
 
First computer that was essentially mine but really a family computer was our Athlon XP 2600+, 512mb of ram, 100GB HDD and ATI 9600xt (it was some Compaq model, I added the gpu).

First computer that was actually mine was a Dell Inspiron 9300 that I got back when Dell had the amazing $750 off inspirons over $1500. Pentium M 1.4ghz, 1GB, 40GB HDD and a 6800 Go (I think it was go ultra but not sure).

Got into the computer game late, my parents were always worried I'd be too much of a shut in with my own computer.
 
MrSneis said:
Some horizontal desktop Packard Bell with 75MHZ Intel Pentium chip and a cdrom drive, I think we gave it some paltry ram upgrade at some point - the computer probably cost a fortune and the ram upgrade as well. Played the crap out of Doom, Doom II, X-wing Vs Tie-Fighter, some horrible futuristic racing game, and I think Cyberia. Finally talked my parents into stepping it up around the time Starcraft made it big; the computer couldn't really run it! Can't remember much else!
Click to expand...
I thought all the Packard Bell's came with JourneyMan Project?
 
Computer I grew up with was my mom's Apple II but as others have said, I was about 8 when it was replaced by a 486 so I dont remember it much. Its specs as I remember were.

468DX 66Mhz
32MB SIMM ram (Mom still talks about how expensive that upgrade was)
random VLB graphics card
560MB hard drive (I still have this drive and it still works)
some slow external US Robotics modem with like 12 red lights on it.

I used that computer until I replaced it with my dual Celeron 366 BP6 box in 1999.
 
I had to help build my first computer, twas pretty awesome.

Pentium 166 MMX
I think a FIC-503+
8MB SIMM RAM
Soundblaster 16 ISA (had IDE port onboard)
1MB Trident Videocard PCI (upgradeable to 2MB)
1GB HDD
15" Monitor
Windows 95 "Upgrade"

This was all very shortly after Win95 came out. Quickly upgraded to 16MB RAM, AGP 4MB Stealth 2000. Then 32MB RAM and a 3DFX Voodoo 1 4MB add-on. Those were the days!!
 
P4 2.4 socket 478, forgot what it was called..
ASUS P4C800
Radeon 9700
160gb ATA
Windows XP
768mb RAM

i'm only 21, i was about 12 or 13 when i built this IIRC lol. you guys got loads of experience on me!
 
asdf123 said:
i'm only 21, i was about 12 or 13 when i built this IIRC lol. you guys got loads of experience on me!
Click to expand...


hahah ... You know, it's kind of interesting seeing everyone's first computer on here. Just by the specs, I can tell the average age on this forum seems to be mid-late 20's. I'm surprised nobody has said "Altair" or some esoteric home-built computer from PC Magazine from the late 70's or early 80's. You know, the kind of computer with the switches that you would flip to program it.

I'm 35, so I started to play with computers in elementary school when they had Apple II's and Commodore 64's. I remember playing the shit out of Oregon Trail and constantly dying of Dysentery.

(Or playing Lemonade Stand -- purely text games)

Anyone remember the Infocom text adventure games? Surely some of you had to have played a few of them like "A Mind Forever Voyaging" and others like that.
 
plagas said:
compaq-presario-5102us-lx3-640.jpg


Ohh....the memories...

Windows ME
Pentium 3 800mhz
256mb ram
Click to expand...

You poor goddamn bastard, I legitimately feel sorry for you...




EDIT: Seriously, I wish I could go back in time and just give you a hug. That's how sorry I feel for you
 
Dad bought me a Apple IIe but all I did was play frogger, and Oregon Trail.

After that I was a senior in HS and put together a Cyrix 6x86-P133 based PC. windows 95 was brand new and damn it was awsome!!! I got a copy of Duke Nukem and my badass 28.8 modem!!! I spent more building that PC than I have on any other since.
 
I used my grandpa's 386sx 16mhz...Packard Bell. I think it had 1MB of RAM and probably a 20-40MB HDD. Ran Windows 3.11. I think my dad still has it. Played a ton of Pool of Radiance and Civilization 1 on it.

My grandpa later upgraded to a Pentium 60mhz Packard Bell with Windows 3.11 that I used for a lot of gaming - Master of Magic, Civ 2, X-wing/Tie-Fighter, etc. I retrieved some files off it and chucked it about a year and a half ago. Was moving and decided not to lug the hardware around.

First PC I built myself was a K6-2 350mhz after my first year of college. Voodoo3 2000, 10GB HDD (still have that). Mainly for playing Baldur's Gate and Quake 2 on dialup.
 
harkerscd said:
Intel 386SX - 16 MHz
1 mb RAM
40 mb hard disk
3.5 inch diskette drive
Keyboard with an AT connector
ISA VGA graphics, can't remember if it was 16 colors or 256 colors
Monitor size of ~14 in

Mouse, Soundcard, Modem and O/S not even included in original specs and were all purchased separately. I remember the BIOS date being in the late 80s. I don't know when this unit was actually purchased but it wasn't until Dec. 1991 when I was permitted to use this computer. Despite it being a literally barebones computer, I don't know why but I felt, personally, it was between the 1991-1998 era when computers and Internet were most fascinating and thought-provoking. Yes, we now have quad core processors with nvidia gtx 680 and open world rpg gaming but I don't know why I felt more impressed with my old 386 and when I upgraded to Pentium in 1995.
Click to expand...


My first computer was a Commodore 128; first real PC had almost exact same specs as yours:

Cumulus
386DX - 25 MHz
1mb RAM
25 mb hard disk
3.5 inch and 5 1/4" diskette drive
Keyboard with an AT connector
ISA VGA graphics, can't remember if it was 16 colors or 256 colors
Sound Blaster with Creative multimedia speakers (added later)
Monitor size of ~14 in .28 dot pitch (I remember my parents pay extra for this)

A couple days after owning it I remember my dad screaming "I just spent 3 grand on a video game machine!", hehe.
 
Mine was the semi-IBM PC Compatible called Radio Shack Tandy 2000, based on the Intel 80186 running at 8 Mhz. First, I only had the monochrome (green) display, then I later upgraded to the color graphics. Resolution at that time was an astounding 640x400 (not a true VGA resolution). I had it for awhile, but it lack support (games, software) because it was only "semi-compatible) so I sold it to a friend and moved on to build my first ever computer based a board with an Intel 80286-12. That was fast!!! Then I think I've used boards based on every Intel CPU (80386SX, DX, 80486SX, DX, DX2, DX4, Pentium 1, Pentium II, III, blah blah blah blah....) VGA at that time was the bomb. We have evolved so far since then.
 
First computer that was 100% mine:

Pentium 90MHz
32MB RAM
4x CDROM
AWE64 Gold Soundblaster
1MB S3 PCI
 
My first computer that I actually owned and wasn't just the family's, was roughly...

Pentium 1, 90mhz
32mb RAM (I think)
CDROM
Floppy
SoundBlaster card
1mb video card
1gb hdd
17" CRT monitor
 
My first computer was a Packard Bell
75MHz Intel® Pentium®
512MB hard drive (so full of junk that I couldnt even load a game on it)
CDROM
Floppy drive
something like 16MB or 32MB (Don't remember)
15" CRT monitor
 
Mines was an hp desktop for 1,000$.....
Celeron D 3.4 Ghz
512 MB of ram Upgraded to 2 GB
160 GB HDD
Crappy stock cooler(whines a LOT)
A cheapo motherboard with mostly 3 pci slots
Ugly case........
 
The first computer I remember was a 386SX. I believe it was 12MHZ, had a 20 meg hard drive and a ISA modem. My friend had a similar model and we put our hard drives into one computer and thought it was the fastest thing in the world.

Later I bought a Pentium 133, and paid $2500 for it. 9 Gig hard drives had just come out and I remember thinking "Why would you ever need that much space?"
 
Leading Edge - model D 4.77mhz, 640K, 30MB hard drive (RLL controller on 20MB HD), Hercules graphics, amber monitor, US Robotics 2400 baud modem. This was back in fall of 1985.

I had only used Commodore PET, and Commodore 64 before that but needed the IBM compatible for college. Computer development was much more exciting back then.
 
Packard Bell 8088 with a Turbo Boost button. Think i bought it at costco with a Okidata dot matrix printer.

Oh how the times have changed :p
 
Compaq with a Pentium 1 90mhz and 16mb ram. It had Windows 3.1 and I remember playing Commander Keen & Doom on it. I went onto a Pentium 200mhz with MMX, 64mb ram and Voodoo Banshee... those were some good times.
 
C64 then eventually my Dad brought home a DOS 3.1 based Toshiba laptop 8088 powered I believe it was. Skipped the 286 went to 386 sx 16, 486, etc. etc. 1st one that was MINE MINE!? Umm probably the Cyrix/AMD based boxes I had! :p
 
Two hand-me-downs from my dad.

TI-99/4A
IBM AT

Then after 8th grade I got a job screwing computers together at a white box PC company. Worked all summer and got to buy parts at cost. That got me:

486DX-33
8 MB Ram :eek:
16-bit VGA card :eek:
120 Meg hard drive
 
First actual computer was an Apple Macintosh Classic. I was completely computer illiterate at the time so no idea what was inside

First PC, when I actually knew a little about computers was:
AMD 486DX2-80 CPU
Generic 512KB ISA video
AdLib soundcard
4 MB EDO RAM
512MB HDD
U.S. Robotics 14.4k Modem
Generic CD-ROM drive
Windows 3.1

3 months later I upgraded to:
AMD 486DX4-120 CPU
8MB RAM
Number 9 Motion 531 VLB video card with 1MB RAM
SoundBlaster AWE32 soundcard
WD 1.6GB HDD (man, I'm NEVER going to fill this puppy up!)
U.S. Robotics 56K modem (woohoo, speed demon!)
Windows 95
 
My first actual personal PC was something I bought from a coworker that he built for himself from his old parts back in 1995.

Specs;
486SX25
whopping 2meg of ram comprised of 8 256K 30 pin SIMMS
An ISA video card with 512K ram.
Teac 1.44Mb floppy drive
generic 5 1/4 drive
2X 60Mb Conner hard drives doublespaced to 120Mb connected to some controller board. I never thought I would ever need anymore space. lol

no CD drive, sound card.
 
I got my first computer back in 1997 or 1998 thereabouts.

It had an AMD K6/2 233Mhz, 2MB SiS Video Board, 64MB of Ram, Unknown speed CD-Rom drive, a 3GB HDD. 1.4 Floppy Drive, and a 56k modem.

This PC survived two OS generations, it initially installed with Windows 95, and then eventually upgraded to Windows 98 2nd Edition. I even remember how this computer failed. Something to do with a strange E:\ partition popping up one day which should have never existed. Trying to access it caused the computer to lock up and go into a repeatable blue screen loop and eventually did not even boot anymore.
 
IIRC-

Intel 286 12MHz.
640KB RAM Original - Upgraded to 2MB.
Paradise PVGA VGA card (had 256K RAM - I think).
10MB hard drive Original - Upgraded to 40MB Conner
1.2MB 5 1/4" floppy - Added 1.44MB 3 1/2"
300 Baud modem.
13" VGA CRT - Can't remember the make, but it was god awesome at the time. Most were CGA and EGA.

Also had Atari 800 and Apple IIc.
 
Epson 8086 with dual 5.25 drives and the green screen. :p Man I used to hate swapping floppies constantly.

Second computer was a 486Dx2/66 which I built with parts from my aunts friends stash after he updated like 30 computers at his work and brought all the extra's home. That was right when pentium was released so I was still behind the times. Still have not caught up!
 
Packard Bell
Pentium 166mhz MMX
3.2GB HD
24MB EDO RAM
16x CDROM
33.6 Modem
 
IBM Media PC of some sorts running win 95 had a remote, zip drive ect
Pentium 166 MMX

I really don't remember much more about it other than I think my parents paid close to 5k for it.
 
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