Here is a photo of me with my first computer.
I’m such a child. I got my first computer only about five or six years ago. It was a peecee from GuangHua. It broke down, the second my boy moved out, so I got a cutie iBook, which is still going strong.
Computers were for spods, when I was younger. I did all my university work with my grandfather’s fountain pen which has since been lost, sadly.
Computers are a barrier for me because I associate beige PCs with working which means boredom, lack of productivityand doing things someone else’s way. I associate my Mac with dicking around and wasting my life on gmail/flob, etc.
If I have to write or do anything that requires thought or concentration, I still need a Parker fountain pen and a Moleskine notebook.
I also really REALLY wish I’d smashed the hard drive with a big hammer and chucked in the Danshui river before leaving Taiwan.
Yet another Commodore 64 here, although around the same time my school had Vic 20s and Apples IIe’s.
This got me through jr. high and high school:
C64 mode for games, C128 mode for book reports. Good times.
how come commodore and amstrad were pioneers and yet they are nowhere to be seen now? rebranded or poor management?
IBM PC XT
My friend had a Vic 20. I remember being totally addicted to a game called “Omega Race” and I would go over to his house to play everyday.
Jeez… I feel young, and poor.
My first computer was a Dell 486. Got it in Sept. '92 because I was starting university and couldn’t turn in any papers unless they were typed up. I remember that it took a lot of work – in '92! – to convince mom that yes, a colour monitor really was worth the extra expense.
My guess would be the monopoly of Microsoft pushed everyone but Apple out.
Good Lord! That thing that Lo BO TO posted looks like the computer we had in my first real job. Devilish thing, with orange letters on a black background, would freeze in the middle of things and show this omnious message in the right bottom corner:
[color=orange]
I’m thinking.
[/color]
Spooky evil thing. Had to live with it for years.
[quote=“irishstu”]Sinclair ZX Spectrum (48k)
[/quote]
Same here 48K spectrum for £129… back in them days that was a lot of money… Many of my friends had the a BBC Microcomputer, but that was way too spendy for us…
Started out with an Atari 2600, but my first computer was the Dick Smith VZ-200 which I got in 1982. Had 8KB of RAM and churned out 3.5MHz
Then moved on to a Commodore64, then various Amigas, then onto PC’s and finally a MacBook Pro.
Atari 400 with a tape drive and the cola-proof keyboard.
At school I used a Commodore PET
Talking about PC nostalgia, I miss Word Perfect, Bannermania, and the old school programs.
Mostly I miss my old realiable and cheap drum printer. So useful and economical.
I totally forgot about the short-lived Intellivision gaming system computer we had when I was a kid. We first got Intellivision, and I think a year later the Mattel Aquarius, which was basically the Intellivision computer. The keyboard was horrible, and it featured 4k of memory! 
[quote=“the chief”]I give you…The Mighty Commodore 64!!!
The biggest selling PC of all time.
[/quote]
Had one of these babies as well.
But the best was my computer science class at high school it used punch cards for saving stuff.
Suddenly feeling very old…
Commodore PET 2001, 16K RAM and an external cassette drive.
Ah, memories!
[quote=“treefour”]the best was my computer science class at high school it used punch cards for saving stuff.
Suddenly feeling very old…[/quote]
Same here. I remember learning about computers in high school in 1978/9 and recall descriptions of massive machines with punch cards.
I guess it’s more of a calculator, and I never had to use one, but my older brothers did. I never learned more than simple addition and multiplication on it.
My kids are learning the abacus. I guess it’s more of a cultural thing than anything practicle.
A Digi-Comp II (100% plastic).