What was your first computer?

[Squirrel724]

First PC that i remember was an old Compaq desktop (win 98 iirc) that had the creakiest CRT ever. Touch that thing at all it would make horrible noises. First one that belonged to me was an ASUS k53e laptop with i3, 3gb ram, 300gb hdd, windows 7. Used that thing all through high school before replacing it this spring.

[Coaxialgamer]

First family pc was an apple 2.

I used a variety of generic oem pcs and laptops then i built my own ( in sig).

Recently found a dec digital rainbow for 1982. Gonna have fun with it.

[Bean86]

Pretty sure that's the oldest computer we've had so far tell us Gramps, what was it like in the roaring twenties? [emoji14]

80s actually - I'm not that old. The first modems existed already in the twenties, though my first one was fortunately much faster a whooping 9.6kbs - yup that's not a typo. Imagine my exitment when we got to 56k

Had a BMX game for my first PC on a 60min tape, yes I had to switch to the B side after 30min to continue loading

[DebatED Nothing]

80s actually - I'm not that old. The first modems existed already in the twenties, though my first one was fortunately much faster a whooping 9.6kbs - yup that's not a typo. Imagine my exitment when we got to 56k

I know, I was joking. I hardly remember having dial up at all

[nightmarevoid]

I remember it fondly haha. It was a mid tower system in the inwin griffon case with a sandy bridge i3, 4gb of Kingston 1333mhz memory, and an Asus gtx 520. I could play dead space for about an hour before the game would crash. I kept upgrading it whenever I could until I ended up with the beast I have today.

[LukeTim]

My first ever build (back in the summer of '08) remains my current PC, albeit after a Haswell (i5-4670) upgrade, storage upgrades (250GB SSD) and a GPU (GTX660) upgrade.

Q6600 (with G0 stepping! I remember that this was supposed to be a good thing but I didn't and still don't really understand what it meant. )
8GB OCZ DDR2-800
Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R
Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB
Radeon 4850

Scythe Ninja Mini (Mini only in name, that thing is big)
Corsair TX650
LG BD/HDDVD combo drive (you can tell I built it a long time ago, before the HD disc format wars had ended - though Blu Ray won about 6 months later)

My biggest problems were:

• I bought a copy of Vista. Not a good move.
• Dead RAM slot, falsely attributed to RAM stick, too lazy to RMA, ran on 1 4GB stick for months before figuring out I could try the other two slots.
• Reference 4850s had really inadequate cooling (strangely, it was only a single slot blower) and so got really hot, I remember seeing 85-90 under load.
• I've been disappointed with my case for a long time. I intended this as a HTPC at first, but it has turned into a Desktop, but it still has a HTPC case, meaning fitting GPUs in there is really not easy.

So, in summary:

• Don't buy Vista.
• If your RAM doesn't work, try the other slots and don't just imagine it's the stick (and assuming you just bought the kit, RMA it! It's really not so much hassle, which I found out later with a monitor)
• When reviews say "this card gets hot", pay attention. Or, just go for after-market cooled cards exclusively is probably a safe strategy.
• Cases are important! Really research your case well, and make sure it can fit your graphics card. Fitting my 4850 in was a really tight squeeze.

[LukeTim]

First computer I ever owned myself?

I half owned one of these with my younger brother:

 

I got a Radeon 9250 128MB PCI edition (these PCs had no AGP slot) to put in it for my 16th Birthday... which actually must have been about 2 years later.

My brother also stuck an extra 1GB stick of DDR in there too, so I had 2GB of RAM.

 

It ran Counter Strike Source and Call of Duty (original) well enough, so I was happy.

[Crowes]

First computer I used? I don't even know the name.

First computer I properly used? Some Toshiba Sattellite with a square display and slow everything.

First personal computer? A6-5400K, 500GB HDD, ASRock FM2A55M (IIRC). I still use the Monitor I got with that.

[LukeTim]

Packard Bell 486SX

 

Ahh, my Uncle had one of those. Brings back memories. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

One of these running Windows 95. It had a turbo button what a beast.

[Belgarathian]

Apple Macintosh IIsi. It was awesome, had a portrait A4 B&W Screen. This was followed by a Quadra 800 in '93 that had dual 18" CRTs. Upgraded that puppy to a 4GB hard drive in 2003, used it until about 2005. 

 

[typographie]

One of these running Windows 95. It had a turbo button what a beast.

 

Whoa, and dat LCD frequency monitor. That's actually legitimately badass.

[SansVarnic]

386sx running DOS 4.0

[Makarov_9mm]

Packard Bell (circa 1998) running a Pentium 100. Played Centipede and "Jump Start" educational video games on it. I recently pulled it out of our attic and dismantled it. 

 

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

Our family's first computer was a "US Computers" tower with Windows 95.  We got it for Christmas 1997.  I couldn't even tell you any specs, but I can promise that it was lower-end.

 

My first computer was a Toshiba Satellite A-Series with Windows XP that I bought in August 2004.  it was $1000, had an AMD Athlon, 512MB RAM, and probably some baseline integrated graphics card.  Funny to think that that laptop was likely baseline back in 2004, but it was the price of a higher-end laptop nowadays (I'm guessing).  I got five years out of it, finally buying a new laptop in September 2009.  Hell, the screen hinges broke, so for the last year or so of its life I had to use something to prop up the screen.

 

It was comical how little I knew about computers back then.  I really screwed that thing up.  Got plenty of malware, once got it so bad that I had to reformat.  And I knew little about maintenance or security, so it was running really slow there towards the end.  Would take Firefox like two minutes to boot up.  It actually took me losing my install disc when I needed to reformat again (to escape the slowness.  Again, didn't know very much) before I just realized it was time for a new one, anyway.

 

Every computer I've bought since then has also been a Toshiba.

[Kobrastachka]

My first Pc was a Packard bell With a intel I486 DX , I still have the CPU from it. 

 

[Patrick3D]

Timex Sinclair 1000 (actual size footprint is smaller than a sheet of paper):

 

It came out in 1983 for under $100, one of my uncles gave me his after he got a Macintosh in '84. I spent many nights going through the manual and teaching myself programming with the sample programs listed in the back of the manual. The brick you see on the back is a 16KB memory expansion module and it stored data using cassette tapes. I had mine hooked up to a ~10" black and white TV. There were 2 problems I experienced with it: after 30 minutes the video would start to get wavy from overheating and the sample "Monopoly" game in the manual would never work (kept getting errors), I was only 6 years old at the time so not very good at debugging.

[Praesi]

Amiga 500.

I still have it and ~300 Games for it.

[RossMadness]

I don't remember the brand, but it ran Win 3.1. I would play Commander Keen for HOURS. It was glorious.

[Tribalinius]

An old second hand 486 DX2 that my sister bought when she was in college. That thing was awesome. I remember that when we got it, it had WarCraft and Dune II installed on it. I fell in love with RTS the first time I laid my eyes on Dune II. I found WarCraft two weeks later. It lasted a while, I even remember playing Diablo, StarCraft and Roller Coaster Tycoon on that thing before switching to a PIII 733MHz in high school .

[jvo33]

Hp pavilion. 

366 mhz cpu

64mb ram

4.5 gb HD

onboard graphics. 

 

Played diablo 2 like a dream. 

[Joshua_Meunier]

I had a desktop computer, but not sure what it was. I was only about 10 at the time. It was DOS based and only used 5 1/2" floppy disks to run programs. I miss that wizard game I played. "Go NORTH."

[ThinkWithPortals]

 

 

 

Finally, my current gaming/workstation desktop PC. Specs in the spoiler in my sig.

[UL_42L]

I had used a few computers before, but MY first PC was... a slightly modified HP Pavilion laptop a few years ago. It, uh, wasn't very good... and I don't remember the model right now. I think it's hard drive died, then I took it apart.. and then IT died.

 

Really wish I would have known as much as I do now back then...

[alphaproject]

IBM PC XT - $1500

 

I thin it had 640K ram.

 

Upgraded 10 gig HD

 

5.25 Floppy

 

CGA monitor.

 

I ended up stealing a freaking modem for it.... back when that shit was possible. $300 modem, lol 9600 baud rate.

 

I did save up for awhile and buy a $300 ATI video card that turned CGA into EVGA on a CGA monitor.... normally unheard of back then.

 

Kings Quest 4 here I come.