Old Timers... Warning Old persons comments within! :)

[jugster42]

Does anyone my age (44) or older ever look at there IT and think... I am in My own Future.... like startrek game true minus the space bit..

 

My first computer was a zx81..(with 16k Ram Pack!! )  

 

I just look at my desktop PC at work with 2x27" and 1x22" monitors and think shitballs... its awesome!

 

 

[stconquest]

Not many 44+ around these parts... I am 39.  I get it.

[johnny5c]

I'm also 39 and completely get it, my first PC was a Packard Bell 286 that ran at 8 MHz (12 MHz in turbo mode) and now I have a 4.4GHz hexcore that actually was about $1000 cheaper than the 286.  My kids use the 3d printer for school projects like I used scissors and glue and have trouble believing that a phone was at one point just for talking on.

[WkdPaul]

Also 39 and I also get it

 

My first PC was 486 DX100 ... Ah the memories!

[Tieox]

I'm 33, I still recall the Commondore64 with ChaseHQ on a cartridge, and being stunned by the loading speed.  Then a Pentium 1 with Windows 95, with 100mhz and 16MB Ram., and the way Windows 95 was a huge step up from 3.1.  Still learning now

 

 

 

 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

I'm  younger than that but still, got started on a Spectrum 48K, welcomed by a Basic screen, loading games from cassettes just like the audio ones... Losing an afternoon of programming with one wrong keystroke, because who's gonna save every 5 minutes in those damned tapes?  

I remember the first time I saw a 256-color VGA monitor (and Monkey Island 2 in it), mind instantly blown. Playing games and imagining "if this was possible, if one day they can do that", etc. I know I'm old when I look at current games and no longer think of what could be done if technology was better, just what could be done if developers' made different choices.

[middleclasspoor]

I'm 55.....my first pc was a 286 I built from parts pulled from a dumpster!

 

[KWelz]

38 Here.   And yeah I am with you.  My first computer was a TI99 that I actually still own and still works.  To think how far things have come in such a short time.   Looking back there was no way we could have imagined where things would really go.  

 

[WkdPaul]

52 minutes ago, KWelz said:

*snip*

Looking back there was no way we could have imagined where things would really go. 

Even looking at a few years ago and the advancements made now are amazing, new phones coming out with specs of PCs I had 4-5 years ago? (2.3Ghz Quad-cores with 4GB or RAM and 1080p+ screens ... WTF!  )

[MEC-777]

Soon to be 34. First PC was a Tandy 286, something like this: 

 

 

My, how times have changed.

[Tieox]

I need to see LMG take the above computer, and put a quad SLi beast inside it.  AND keep the floppy drive working. 

[Shakaza]

You guys are old (:P). I just turned 20 a couple of months ago. The first computer I remember using is this particular color(Bondi Blue) of iMac G3. I also remember using an even older Mac that used to belong to my grandpa who died from a heart attack in 2001. I believe it was made in 1991 or something, and it was the only computer in my house that was capable of playing some sort of Asteroids game in which you're a little ship and shoot asteroids made of simple lines. It had something to do with the supported color modes. I still miss that old thing, because I was playing that game in our cushy basement during a thunderstorm, and there must have been a power surge or something, because there was an outage and it never turned on after that moment. RIP.

 

So, even though I'm not as old as you guys, I still have some fond memories of old computers, and I have a connection to the past via my dad, who is 61. He's taken programming courses using punch cards, and he still has some really old graphics boards that he helped design when he worked at a company called TrueVision(or TruVision; I forget how it's spelled), and he told me that he worked with the person who first came up with the idea of dedicated video memory. 

[Earnhardt]

And people "complain" about prices now

[Unhelpful]

17 minutes ago, Earnhardt said:

And people "complain" about prices now

Oh my heart  

 

We had a 386 machine like this come back from one of our hydroelectric plants a few months back. Poor thing could barely breath.

[imPixelTV]

>tfw youre 15 and the first computer you used ran windows 98

woah

[BrightCandle]

I got that future feeling more from an ebook reader than from modern PCs. I don't really have different a system to 10 years ago really, progress of late has been quite slow on CPUs, RAM and monitors. Whereas a tiny ebook reader that you can carry around to read with a touch screen with days of battery that is straight out of star trek.

 

I started on the C64 and while complexity of programming has gone up its mostly churn rather than genuine improvement.

[ZimFreak]

Dude I'm 24 and I still shock myself with this stuff regularly. Just the other day I used "OK, Google" to wake my phone, check a text, send a text, then set an alarm for next monday with a reminder to bring something to work, all while the phone was sitting on the other side of the room. I thought "so this is what it's like to have a digital servant." 

 

And soon I'll have a smart house once I have IoT connected lights, speakers all over the house, doorlocks, etc. I love voice commands and it always makes me feel like I'm in the future.

[THFourteen]

I'm 35 now and my first PC was one my parents bought me (think i was about 13) and it was a 386SX...

 

I have SO much stuff now sometimes i feel like i haven't learned the value of money from them, but then i work hard, put money away in savings, my wife also works and at the end of the day what is the point of working if you can't buy yourself and your family the things that you are lucky enough to afford.

 

But 27" 1440p monitor, lol i remember my old EGA CRT display

 

[ThereIs0nly0ne]

I am 50. My first computer was also a ZX81 with 16k 'wobble' pack (although that came at a later date).

 

Elite on the BBC was the most immersed I've ever been in a game - that 'reality' was a product of my own imagination.

 

Once VR has ironed out its wrinkles and matured a bit, it will surpass what I ever envisioned would be a reality in my lifetime.

 

 

I'm working on my dream ...

 

Edit: Oh yes, and there's Voice Attack to go with that.

 

 

[flibberdipper]

I'm only 18, and I remember getting my first hand-me-down from my grandma (eMachines 633is with a 633MHz Celeron, 64MB of RAM, and shit onboard graphics) and thinking that it was a monster.

 

And a while after that I remember getting an older HP Pavilion (something like the 8595C) with a 500MHz Pentium 3, onboard ATI RAGE 3D graphics, and like 128MB of RAM, all with the magnificent beast known as the 19.2GB Bigfoot TS. Still my favorite PC (and hard drive) to date.

[SpriteNo5]

4 hours ago, KWelz said:

38 Here.   And yeah I am with you.  My first computer was a TI99 that I actually still own and still works.  To think how far things have come in such a short time.   Looking back there was no way we could have imagined where things would really go.  

 

We had one of those, played Parsec, Munchman and The Chisholm Trail on that.

 

Had Speccy 16, 48 and 128k and I can remember our first PC, can't remember the specs but it was made by Commodore and ran Windows 2 on a 20mb HDD.

 

First dedicated GPU was a Voodoo 2, think it had 16mb. Still remember the 3dfx, logo, good days.

 

[Julian5]

 

Started on this beast when I was a kid, The first laptop I got was an A1181, That thing was cutting edge back in the time.

[Bananasplit_00]

this is probably what my dad feels, he is 67 and was one of the first people to have acces to a computer here in Sweden when he was studiyng at colage and has seen all computer development since and now im a total computer nerd and the best part is that he gets quite a lot of my random rambles about PC shit because he was super techy when coputers first came around and he worked a lot with early computers.

[straight_stewie]

13 hours ago, jugster42 said:

Does anyone my age (44) or older ever look at there IT and think... I am in My own Future.... like startrek game true minus the space bit..

 

My first computer was a zx81..(with 16k Ram Pack!! )  

 

I just look at my desktop PC at work with 2x27" and 1x22" monitors and think shitballs... its awesome!

I'm not old, rather, I'm only 22. That said, I'm jealous of all of these older computer guys. Yall got to see things go from basic   to the impossible to understand modern systems that we have now. I feel like people of that generation kind of have a better sense of why computer things are the way they are and how they work. 

But besides that, my dad once showed me his first "computer": A mechanical calculator with trig functions (he's not quite that old but still). Those things are so complex and amazing. His was particularly nice and artful. 

Now that is mechanical engineering.

[Bouzoo]

Not in the 30 club, but I feel ya. Started with Amiga 500. Sadly I don't have it anymore.