yr first computer show them to me lulz

it read data from the TAPE RECORDER

http://retrothing.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/sx64_1.jpg
commodore sx64, 1984

i think my camera has a bigger screen xD

I got my first computer in 1998, it's not all that lol.

http://www.scottwnelson.com/images/oldcomputers/AppleIIeDD.jpg

WIZARD HAS DYSENTERY

http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/plus4.jpg

http://newton.sunderland.ac.uk/~specfreak/MySpeccies/ZX-Spectrum-128k%2B2.jpg

onboard datacorder, bitches

http://www.clive.nl/images/23195.jpg

10 PRINT "Jarl is Cool"
20 GOTO 10

LOL @ BRITISHES

http://www.vintagecomputing.com/wp-content/images/costumes06/british_small.jpg

C64? Not bad, but it's no VIC-20!

http://link2one.info/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/vic20andtv.jpg

It had the cassette drive as well, plus no monitor. You hooked it up to channel 3 on the TV with a slider switch inserted between the rabbit ears and the tube itself. Yeah! We upgraded to the 64 about a year later.

onboard datacorder, bitches

with rainbow sticker you win

ZX + 2 was the first we owned, but my dad used to bring this home from school for the summer holidays. lol middle class

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/BBC_Micro_left.jpeg/800px-BBC_Micro_left.jpeg

http://www.heimcomputer.de/pics/electron1.jpg

I still have it somewhere.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Sinclair_ZX81.jpg/677px-Sinclair_ZX81.jpg

It was compatible with the BBC micro but not enough so as it would play chucky egg.

http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/reach/435/apple2.jpg

Same dual drive, different monitor.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/BBC_Micro.jpeg/300px-BBC_Micro.jpeg

http://www.jeracor.com/bsgfx/ti50.jpg

This reminds me that I want to get a Macintosh color classic 2 to run NetBSD on....

ZX-81 had 1K OF RAM how was it even possible to do anything

ooh i wanted a timex sinclair so bad! they had them for like $40 at fred's, which was totally reasonable, i told my mom. stepdad drove me to fred's to look at them but didn't get one, which i thought was pretty cruel.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/TRS-80_Color_Computer_1.jpg/320px-TRS-80_Color_Computer_1.jpg

pretty sure i had the version with 16k RAM, rather than the more upscale version with a full 32K.

This is going to be an early 80's 8 bit lulzfest, isn't it...

http://www.wiretotheear.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/speak_n_spell.jpg

This reminds me that I want to get a Macintosh color classic 2 to run NetBSD on....

i like owning a mac but sometimes i wonder about the kind of people i'm associating with

http://www.stuartbell.dsl.pipex.com/PowerCC/

We got a Commodore Plus/4 because it had already been out a while and flopped dismally, so my mum picked it up dirt cheap in a sale. It was rubbish - there were no games for it, and the word processor/spreadsheet/database software was only compatible with a floppy drive, which we didn't have. The only games that you could get were also written for the C16 so they were mostly pretty lame compared to the C64.

This is going to be an early 80's 8 bit lulzfest, isn't it...

totally been downhill since then tho

ok that keyboard has a tape deck in it, WTF! (mega xpost)

http://regmedia.co.uk/2007/04/23/spectrum_1.jpg
48k, yuo lam0rz. I still have it and is still works, but I don't have a TV to run it with ;_;

The first computer game I ever got:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27paw4/yr12/yr12_33d.gif

I never did complete it it was too hard.

LOL @ BRITISHES

Ha. The price of the Apple 2 incl import duty over here when they were current was ridiculous.

This is going to be an early 80's 8 bit lulzfest, isn't it...

until somebody comes along with one of these

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/imsai8080.jpg

8080 lol

http://vectronicsappleworld.com/collection/articlepics/appleiiplatinum/snap42.jpg

I remember my dad running around with boxes full of IBM punch cards, too...

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/thumbnail/1074579282-00.png

Ah, 1988...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3170/2668277305_aaca21fd0c.jpg

commodore 16; we still have it

http://www.retro-trader.com/images/march02a/DVC01777.JPG

amateurist's pic is beautiful

The Apple 2 was the pinnacle of home computing imho. The MBUS Suns were the pinacle of workstations.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7b/Pirates-screenshot-small.png

http://www.fortunecity.com/marina/reach/435/tandy1000tx.jpg

but I don't have a TV to run it with ;_;

no excuses

http://galaxy22.dyndns.org/dtv/hummer/games/montezumas_revenge_01.gif

in france they had these:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Amstrad_CPC464.jpg/800px-Amstrad_CPC464.jpg

I don't understand "8080"

1. 8080 love it 4 up, 4 down hate it

super / fantastic / correct / thumbs up / high five
You like Lightning Bolt! 8080!
boxcar ot8080 good ilm noize
by karlmalden Jul 10, 2007 email it 0 comments

eh? (also note, "ilm")

http://www.dabbledoo.com/ee/images/uploads/gamertell/Oregon5.jpg

http://www.re-retro.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/pq2.BMP

http://www.emaginacion.com.ar/cym/images/larrycover.jpg

I was a Sierra nerd, too.
Sierra classics circa '90

i had a commodore 128D. with built-in 5 1/4" floppy drive! seemed so revolutionary compared to all the C64 owners with tape decks.

i also played a lot of starlanes on the kaypro, which has been rewritten in C here:

http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/game/starlanes.html

it was kind of a cross between an intergalactic trading game and "go". i will never forget those names. "eridani expediters". "altair starways".

it also had a poker game and a horserace betting game (with whirlaway and man o' war). i can't remember the rest.

first mac:

http://maxthemac.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/mac-mini.jpg

wish i'd bothered sooner, the old ones look fun :(

I got this

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/images/spectrum_plus.jpg

in I think 1986.

then in 1988 i got me one of these babies:

http://www.dockerty.co.nz/Museum/Atari-ST.JPG

i still own it, it's in perfect nick and i'm dying to get my own place so i've got room to set it up again and play this:

http://www.crashonline.org.uk/57/images/starquak.gif

(Spectrum version, it seems. oh well)

omg i'm addicted to ladder all over again

Most exciting computing era for me was the shitty IBM compatible I had when I was 16 in '98 and could go on the internet for 1p an hour on dial-up. But only when my parents had gone to bed and weren't using the phone.

-- Bodrick III, Wednesday, July 16, 2008 3:54 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

1p per hour? I wish I'd been with your phone company in 1998.

ladder is oddly addicting

I don't understand "8080"

8080 is the new OTM

since 2007

no orics? no MSXes? for shame.

1983:

http://www.clive.nl/images/23664.jpg

1986:

http://www.clive.nl/images/23995.jpg

(what "horizons" is doing in that pic, i have no idea. with a 128? ha! this was the FUTURE. sort of. actually, no, it wasn't -- i remember being ever so slightly disappointed even then.)

1988, lol first PC:

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cliff.lawson/images/comppics/2386.jpg

actually, i fucking loved that thing. hey ho.

i still find it faintly galling that 'mericans got to fuck about with apple IIs and early macs (cost in UK: more than a small car, excluding keyboard and mouse) while i was battling with a melted membrane under the P key of my spectrum, or a kempston-clone joystick that wouldn't go left.

It just meant we had all the best coders.

We had two of those Amstrad "PCs" at a place I worked, along with other assorted hardware of dubious pedigree. Mouse broken? Too bad, connector is completely different to an IBM clone. Power supply conked out? Ooooh, tough luck, it's built into the monitor and is totally non-standard. Keyboard??? etc., et-fecking-c...

It just meant we had all the best coders

ah, but we had to work feats of incredible imagination to get anything to work :)

Mouse broken? Too bad, connector is completely different to an IBM clone

yup. my school had PS/2s with those lovely white late-eighties microsoft mice. there were loads of them going spare. could i hook one up to my 'strad? could i fuck.

Power supply conked out? Ooooh, tough luck, it's built into the monitor and is totally non-standard

holy shit, i'd forgotten about that. yes, you're right: it took its power from the monitor. god, it was a crazy thing. and IIRC ran an ever-so-slightly different version of MS-DOS (or at least had zany non-standard video drivers etc) so there were some weird compatibility issues.

still. i managed to squeeze a roughly working version of windows 3.0 on it, so go me. it worked perfectly most of the time, to be honest.

i sold it when i was 16 (1990) to an old dude down the road and spent the money on records and cigarettes. it broke *spectacularly* a couple of days later, much to the old dude's chagrin. fuck knows how. wouldn't boot; just a nightmare. poor computer.

ah, but we had to work feats of incredible imagination to get anything to work

... which is what you meant. shit. sorry, i see now. i was being spectacularly dense there.

http://nickdouglas.googlepages.com/ti994a.jpg

i get the ti-99 and the trs-80 confused, always.

Didn't you guys have amigas tho?

zx81 > speccy 48k > speccy 128k > amiga

( > indicator of time not quality)

Acorn electron>Mac SE>Mac LCII>Mac Centris 660AV>G3 Tower>PowerBook G3>Mac Book Pro

no orics? no MSXes? for shame.

The Yamaha I had was an MSX box, it had a little built in synthesiser, and software carts for various midi music writing apps. It was pretty terrible, in retrospect. I dug it at the time, though, especially after I got the floppy drive for it, which cost a couple of hundred quid!

Didn't you guys have amigas tho?

When I upgraded from the Yamaha, I went for an Atari ST over an Amiga, b/c it had a much better set of MIDI programs, even though the Amiga was obv the better computer in lots of ways.

We had Macs from early on because my dad's firm used them almost exclusively (I LOL at the idea of a top level accountancy firm using Macs now). They used to give discounts to employees buying them for home and sell off the old ones cheap. First computer I remember my dad brining home though was one of these:

http://www.computercloset.org/Compaq_Portable_PC.jpg

^^^ I have one of those. Got it for free a few years ago. That accountancy firm would be KPMG, right? They were into Macs in a big way, actually the first time I used a Mac was when someone from KPMG came to a careers day at school.

Anyway:

BBC Micro > Acorn A3010 > Opus PC V Turbo with "Turbo" button > box with a Cyrix MII processor > a shitestorm of cobbled together PCs...

Arthur Young, I think a lot of them were because spreadsheet + mouse was revolutionary.

apple 2e > packard bell 386 > 100 mhz pentium > upgraded to 233 mmx > athlon 850 running linux > pb 12" g4 > intel macbook 13" > imac 24"

of course there were various lamer machine i used.

Musical version...
Your first synthesizer show them to me

1977

http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/photos/binatone_tv-master-mk6_2.jpg

1979
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Atari2600a.JPG/300px-Atari2600a.JPG

1981
http://www.elektronik.zolls-im-netz.de/c-one/zx81/zx81.gif

1983

1984

1986

we had a lot of computers in my house as a kid...

http://www.applefritter.com/images/overview-201.jpg
got about '86, which, it turns out, was about the end of these knockoffs.

i played this text adventure game on it that i've been trying to remember. it involved getting a magic stone and going up a hill to visit an olde magick shoppe. then you dropped the stone in the gathering fog and it is--as far as i knew--impossible to reach down and grab the fucking thing! anyone? what is this game?!

http://images.pcworld.com/news/graphics/142550-Tandy-Ad_b.jpg

we used to play reader rabbit on it and if it shut down or something my brother would go "daaaaaaaaad!" and i would say "you know dad doesn't know how to use the computer!" (i was like 7 haha)

harbl, we had a lab full of those that we got in 1989(?) and were in my school until 1996 at least…

God, I loved it...

http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/04/Apple3small.jpg

i learned QBASIC on it

I remember that they had put QBASIC on this lockdown menu program that the machine booted into and I would use qbasic to break into dos…

and after they locked that out, I realized that BREAK=OFF wasn't set in autoexec.bat and ^C'd to dos

gorillas.bat

errr, gorilla.bas. Imagine, an entire generation of teenagers and young adults who have no idea about the joys of DOS.

It bums me out that kids these days will probably cut their programming teeth on javascript (in a web browser!) instead of on pascal or basic on DOS (barely an OS).

c64 followed by a compaq with a 486/33sx processor

http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Compaq-PC.gif

I'm going to massively xpost, but that Binatone TV Master was the first ever video game console we had:
http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/photos/binatone_tv-master-mk6_2.jpg
...except ours was the four game version, without the two shooting games. I got really good at it, and no-one else would play against me, so I'd play "squash practice" by myself, so much that I wore out one of the controllers.

Also, the pattern of the "squash court" got burnt into the phosphor of our B&W TV so badly that it had to be replaced.

Are there still full-page ads for computers in magazines?

First up:
http://www.old-computers.com/MUSEUM/photos/mb_vectrex_1s.jpg
then
http://www.petereastwood.net/images/computers-electron1.png

First computer:

http://www.plong.com/MusicCatalog/K/Kraftwerk%20-%20Computer%20World/Kraftwerk%20-%20Computer%20World.jpg

Jokes. First was actually a non-rubber key 48k Speccy (hard to find pic of, but):

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/media/1/5/3/spectrum.jpg

First game I bought was the distinctly unmemorable:

http://elsew.com/data/brvg_b.jpg

"A video game interpretation of the film score... "! (CRL couldn't get the film rights)

http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/b/blade_runner.png

Crap game, but a really good speccy version of the Vangelis theme though!

When all my friends were getting TI-99/4As, I got this:

http://oldcomputers.net/pics/mc-10.jpg

The Radio Shack MC-10. 4K RAM! I was so proud of myself when I created Yahtzee and horse-racing games for it.

my first machine was this beautiful thing in 1985:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Atari-2600-Jr-Console.jpg/800px-Atari-2600-Jr-Console.jpg

then the commodore 16, which i loved to death. then c64, amiga, pc etc.

ZX81, unofficial 16K RAM pack

tho i had a 4 game Binatone-y thing before that

http://ann.hollowdreams.com/supplies/adam.gif

It was a 386, but I'm not sure which brand

http://retroinformatica.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ibm-pcjr-sidecar.jpg

Those stupid sidecar expansions (128k, modem etc) cost more than some complete laptops these days.