First computers

[Norie]

ZX Spectrum for me, though I do recall people that had ZX81s.

Didn't really do much programming on it but some of the games were good.

But they sure as hell took there toll on the keyboard, especially something like Daley Thompson's Decathlon (is that the right name).

Also the tape thing was a bit crazy.

You could never be sure that the game/program would load, especially if it was one you used regularly.

Mind you it did have it's advantages - especially if you had a double tape deck but I won't go into that.

 

[MorganO]

hm - I think it's official - ExcelingintheAF is the oldest member at the board

Although I appreciate the award, I feel it necessary to expand on my post! :wink:

The first computer I owned was, as many here on the board have also owned, was a Sinclair ZX. I bought the build it yourself kit with 16K expansion pack. I must of soldered something a bit wrong because the darn thing would up and die after just a few minutes of use. I moved onto a Radio Shack color computer with 32K. While it did have Basic on board, I never could get it to do much for me. The Commodore 64 became my mainstay afterwards, many hours of programming and game playing (swapping) took up my early Air Force years. I moved onto the Commodore Amiga 500 during my college years, and would probably still be using if I hadn't been FORCED into the PC world when I re-joined the Air Force. I am glad I did though, because I probably wouldn't have learned about Excel, and I just love this program!

 

[shades]

First computer I owned was Mac Classic B&W 9" screen, all in one, using System 6, 4 MB RAM and 80 MB hard drive (1990).

First computer I ever used was IBM 360, using Fortran IV with the card punch (College programming class in 1968). Yeah, that puts in my in "old codger" category.

 

[steve case]

QuattroPro

I had Quattro on my first computer at work. When they forced Excel down our throats I provided the IT deparatment with a list of things that Quattro would do that Excell wouldn't!

Didn't do any good!

You still can't have colored tabs in Excel )-:

 

[SydneyGeek]

You still can't have colored tabs in Excel )-:

They introduced colored tabs in Excel 2003.

I had a similar fight once when I was on a short contract with IBM. I knew Excel pretty well but they insisted that everyone use Lotus. OK, that was fine until I tried to write some code. Lotus uses a version of VBA, but it's way behind Excel's object model. Even really simple stuff was hard to do, and none of the IBM guys had a clue. I ended up smuggling Office on site so I could do my job.

Denis

 

[Mark O'Brien]

Then it was an Atari ST (what was I thinking?)

You were thinking that you wanted to play Kick Off 2 and IK+ on a machine better than the Amiga. Maybe even a little Buggy Boy. (Commodore's still suck)

 

[Darren Bartrup]

You were thinking that you wanted to play Kick Off 2 and IK+ on a machine better than the Amiga. Maybe even a little Buggy Boy. (Commodore's still suck)

I think it was more a case of I saw the adventure game called 'Pawn' (or something like that) and really liked the look of it. Never did finish the game though.

Then I tried to program on the ST - after Sinclair BASIC it was like hell on earth and I gave up.

Took me ages to get my head around not having line numbers to reference in code.

I think ST BASIC had some kind of split screen thing going on and I couldn't find any manuals for it (ok, I didn't really look further than my bedroom).

BBC BASIC was good though. I made a love-match database for my exam at school. That caused a few blushes and mickey-taking

 

[Peter_SSs]

In this thread I originally didn't read the topic correctly and wrote about the first PCs that I worked with. However, when ExcelingInTheAirForce wrote:

Here is a link to view what this beast looked like: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/teletype.html

... and Greg Truby wrote:

And @ ExcelingInTheAirForce: I know that machine!!! ...... It was the exact same machine pictured in the link you provide.

... I realised we were also talking about more than that and felt compelled to rummage through my cupboards and dig out an old high school magazine that contained a picture of that exact same machine (exact except that we had white tape, not yellow). Hopefully this link
http://www.box.net/shared/rtt2r9pdrx
to the picture will work and you will be able to compare what I look like now with what I looked like when I was about 18 (that' me seated in the foreground).

Now, don't be too rude!! And no more than three of these at a time thanks!

 

[SydneyGeek]

No more than 3...
...on any one line!

Denis

 

[MarkAndrews]

http://tatungeinstein.co.uk/front/computer.html