My first computer
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@phlipelder said in My first computer:
@dashrender said in My first computer:
I bought my first computer when I was 12 (1988). It was a used 8088 with 640K memory (if memory serves), amber screen, two 5.25 floppies, no hard disk - $250. turned right around and went to Sam's club and bought a 30 MB drive for $300 - that was pre ATA (is that called Winchester?) My dad installed the drive, then I installed DOS 3.x on it.
I know I used computers before that, but I don't recall what they were though. I do remember playing with an Apple IIe in elemetry school, but we didn't have one at home. I think my computer was the first one owned by us in the house. Though my dad had a "portable" computer from the military that he brought home often. It was as large as carry on luggage today.
MFM was the precursor to parallel ATA and SCSI IIRC. The drives filled two 5 1/4" drive bays full-height and were xMB to xxMB in size.
I think MFM was really the encoding of the data on the drive but the interface was ST-506.
The first SCSI disk I got was for a file server and it was a monster drive from Micropolis. It was state-of-the-art, fast seek times and about 500 MB. Normal disks were 20-40MB at the time.
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@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@donahue said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
Example...
In the era IBM made the PC and soon thereafter Compaq made a PC-compatible. Using x86 that wasn't PC compatible was common and easy at the time (hard now.) And if you had an 8086, that meant it couldn't be a PC or PC-compatible as no one made that. If you had an 8088 it was likely PC or PC-compatible, but not for certain.
But PC always meant IBM's PC line, and PC-compatible always meant PC architecture that wasn't made by IBM. Not longer after that, they were all called PC as it was PC architecture either way.
But if you use PC to mean something else, it would be super confusing because you'd be talking about machines that had nothing alike between them. Because an 8086 machine couldn't run PC software.
I still remember the phrase "IBM compatible". I never knew what it meant at the time, I always associated that with DOS and Windows as a kid.
LOL, yeah definitely doesn't mean that. That would have been "Microsoft compatible", if we were going by companies.
IBM compatible was always a misnomer, as would be Microsoft compatible. Since when DOS came about, Microsoft's main product was actually XENIX UNIX, so being compatible with Microsoft would be more towards Linux, than DOS.
IBM always had many products and they were in no way compatible with each other. Today, nothing that people traditionally associate with IBM is compatible with anything IBM makes. IBM compatible today means more than it ever did, as IBM today uses a single platform family, the Power family.
It was really IBM PC compatible, not IBM compatible, that was the proper term and what other manufacturer used when describing their products. But it surely was talked about as IBM compatible, PC compatible, compatible, clone, PC etc.
Which reminds me of IBM's PS/2. A failure in my opinion but we got the PS/2 keyboard and mouse connector out of it. Before that is was the 5-pin DIN connector for the keyboard and serial RS232 for the mouse.
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@pete-s said in My first computer:
It was really IBM PC compatible, not IBM compatible...
Right, that's how you knew if people were using the terms meaningfully or just repeating things that they heard without understanding them.
PC = IBM PC Compatible.
IBM = company making an insane number of incompatible things.
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@pete-s said in My first computer:
Which reminds me of IBM's PS/2.
What a train wreck that thing was.
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@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@pete-s said in My first computer:
Which reminds me of IBM's PS/2.
What a train wreck that thing was.
Guess what made up the entire computer lab in my high school... Yep IBM PS/2. They actually network booted.
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@travisdh1 said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@pete-s said in My first computer:
Which reminds me of IBM's PS/2.
What a train wreck that thing was.
Guess what made up the entire computer lab in my high school... Yep IBM PS/2. They actually network booted.
That's crazy. that must be all that IBM ever managed to sell.
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You know what, the PS/2 entry level actually had the 8086! I had no idea, it was so late in the game, I can't believe that they put in such an ancient chip. Basically all models sold were 286.
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The PS/2 released in 1987, and was a joke. It's entry level processors had been on the market since 1978! So chips that predated the Commodore VIC=20 by two years, were powering IBM's "flagship" line of desktops in 1987. It's amazing that anyone ever bought a PC.
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@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@travisdh1 said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@pete-s said in My first computer:
Which reminds me of IBM's PS/2.
What a train wreck that thing was.
Guess what made up the entire computer lab in my high school... Yep IBM PS/2. They actually network booted.
That's crazy. that must be all that IBM ever managed to sell.
My theory is that some company bought a whole bunch of them, realized they were terrible, and donated them to the school for a tax write off.
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Robotron Z1013 If I recall correctly, my grandfather got it for me one Christmas season/New Year/Something. It was a bitch to get working. I also had a monitor that was not monochrome but basically was because it was a modified, broken colour TV set that only displayed green.
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@tonyshowoff said in My first computer:
Robotron Z1013 If I recall correctly, my grandfather got it for me one Christmas season/New Year/Something. It was a bitch to get working. I also had a monitor that was not monochrome but basically was because it was a modified, broken colour TV set that only displayed green.
That looks awesome.
Reminds me of the Sinclair ZX80. You could buy it as a kit and solder it together yourself.
http://www.oldcomputers.net/pics/ZX80-topless.jpg
http://www.oldcomputers.net/pics/ZX80-right.jpg -
@pete-s I think it was essentially a Z80 clone of sorts. It was also a kit computer, and I know that it was compatible with the same tape drives/players and BASIC.
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@tonyshowoff said in My first computer:
@pete-s I think it was essentially a Z80 clone of sorts. It was also a kit computer, and I know that it was compatible with the same tape drives/players and BASIC.
Yes, I assumed it was a kit since you said it was a bitch to get working
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@travisdh1 said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@travisdh1 said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@pete-s said in My first computer:
Which reminds me of IBM's PS/2.
What a train wreck that thing was.
Guess what made up the entire computer lab in my high school... Yep IBM PS/2. They actually network booted.
That's crazy. that must be all that IBM ever managed to sell.
My theory is that some company bought a whole bunch of them, realized they were terrible, and donated them to the school for a tax write off.
They had all apple IIe's at my computer labs growing up. I was always told it was because apple basically gave them to schools for near free, maybe at cost or something, and that it was part of the strategy to get people on one particular platform at an early age. It was always inconvenient because the files were never compatible between our home PC and the ones at the schools.
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TI 99/4A
Graduated to IBM PCjr. Chiclet keyboard was ahead of its time! -
@scott said in My first computer:
TI 99/4A
Graduated to IBM PCjr. Chiclet keyboard was ahead of its time!Hahaha, the PC Jr. Good times.
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@donahue said in My first computer:
@travisdh1 said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@travisdh1 said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@pete-s said in My first computer:
Which reminds me of IBM's PS/2.
What a train wreck that thing was.
Guess what made up the entire computer lab in my high school... Yep IBM PS/2. They actually network booted.
That's crazy. that must be all that IBM ever managed to sell.
My theory is that some company bought a whole bunch of them, realized they were terrible, and donated them to the school for a tax write off.
They had all apple IIe's at my computer labs growing up. I was always told it was because apple basically gave them to schools for near free, maybe at cost or something, and that it was part of the strategy to get people on one particular platform at an early age. It was always inconvenient because the files were never compatible between our home PC and the ones at the schools.
That and the Apple ][ were just awful.
I still have the one from my elementary school.
