In what year did you first own/purchase a computer?

[Bouncy Ball]

For me, it was 1993. I was in my early 20s, married, a college graduate and teaching.

It was a 486 (can't remember the brand) and came pre-installed with Word Perfect, AOL and Prodigy. Remember Prodigy? It had the giant Sears ads across the bottom of the screen.

I thought email was like chat. So I sent my first email, to the only person I knew with an email address (a former classmate who was living in Houston) and I sat there, waiting for the response. This was back when you paid so much per month for so many hours, then per hour after that! My husband explained that it wasn't like chat, that my friend wasn't necessarily even sitting at his computer at that moment. I didn't believe him. Finally he asked me to turn the computer off, but I thought if I turned it off, I wouldn't be able to receive his email!

:rofl:

It's weird thinking about college. We graduated RIGHT before most people started owning computers. We knew one guy who owned one and we thought his parents were super wealthy.

[Misunderestimator]

1. I purchased my first computer in 1986 I think.

Was a "laptop" that weighed about 30 pounds...made by Mitsubishi. Had such a small hard drive that I had to purchase an external one a year later of 20MB (for $500!!!).

That $2,000 became worthless junk long ago.

[Bouncy Ball]

3. Oh yeah, I forgot about price!

Mine was $1000 and it came with the latest technology in printers, the BUBBLE JET! LOL!

Man, a thousand bucks. Crapola.

[MrModerate]

2. For me it was 1982 . . .

I had just turned 30 and my "career" was at a standstill. A friend had showed me his IBM PC (8088, 2 big 5-1/2 inch floppies, 640K on board) running Flight Simulator, and I was hooked. I knew this was my way out of the rut.

I had to take out a loan from the credit union to buy it -- about $2500 -- but I learned Wordstar (later Word Perfect) and Lotus 123 and a few others.

And it got me promoted and promoted and promoted, because I was ahead of the curve at my employer. And computers are still how I put food on my family today.

[Misunderestimator]

7. LOL! (on the last line)

It's how I have put food on myself for years as well :)

[Finder]

4. Late 1970's--boy do I feel old.

Had a Texas Instruments PC and TRS-80(radio shack).

[AntiCoup2K4]

5. When did the Vic-20 come out? 1982? 83?

Had it about a month or two. Even with the "huge" 16K memory expansion it just wasn't enough for me. Upgraded to the Commodore 64. Had a Timex Sinclair 1000 also. That one never even made it out of the box.

[SharonRB]

6. Sometime before 1985

A TRS-80 with a 40 mb hard drive, 8" floppy drive and a bay with four additional floppy drives. We actually have it and I'm trying to get my husband to get rid of it. We also have a dot matrix printer and a Daisy wheel printer to go along with it.

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. 1982 Apple 2

64K, 2 5-1/4" disk drives. It was a gift. I think I used it two or three times to do some math homework using the built-in BASIC.

[Abies]

22. July 13, 1985 -- Apple IIc

I was 11. I had saved up enough mowing money to buy it, plus my parents gave me some help.

I remember the date because we came home and watched Live-Aid.

[Branjor]

9. 2001.....

I'm very technology resistant.

[Debbi801]

10. Somewhere around late 1995...

My monthly AOL bill used to be around 300-400 a month. I was so glad when they went to 20.95 a month. I was even gladder when I dropped AOL altogether. :-)

Debbi

[ghostsofgiants]

11. '93 or '94

I was 8 or 9, depending on which year it was. It was a 486 and came packed with an assload of games. I've been hooked ever since.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. 1983, TRS-80 Model I clone (nt)

Edit: 1983, not 1982.

[NewJeffCT]

13. What year did the Commodore 64 come out?

That is when I got my first computer.

[RebelOne]

14. In the early 80s, I bought an Apple IIe.

And boy, did I think that was high-tech.

[jswordy]

15. 1989...and I can't believe how little I got for that big price then!

[jandrok]

16. '83 I think. The mighty Commodore 64.

Used the clunky little tape drive at first, then upgraded to the 5.25 floppy drive that weighed about 35 pounds and was MUCH bigger than a breadbox.

I remember getting onto the early BBS's. My modem was the kind that you needed to cradle the phone receiver into. Connected at a blazing 300 baud! Yowzers!

Played Zork! for hours. It was a text-based D&D thing.

Learned a lot of BASIC programming, mostly forgotten now.

Made fun of my brother, who had purchased an early 8088. Told him that DOS shit wasn't going anywhere.

[bertha katzenengel]

17. 1999

[sinkingfeeling]

18. Think it was late 1981...IBM employee 'lottery' for their 1st. PC.

[GOPisEvil]

19. Apple IIe, 1985.

Then in about 1994, I bought a 486 Dell. I got hooked on aol (hourly rate!!!). I've been an internet junkie ever since.

[mtnester]

20. Apple IIE, 1986

Had to load everything off 5 1/4" floppies, everything booted from floppy.

[tjwash]

21. HA.

I used to dial in to an old HP 3000 series through a 150 baud acoustic emulator hooked to a dumb terminal.

Whippersnappers.

[Xithras]

23. 1983

Tandy TRS-80. I had just seen Wargames for the first time and told my mom that I HAD to get a computer. She picked up a used TRS-80 for me shortly afterward and gave it to me as a birthday present.

I was quite disappointed when I found out I couldn't nuke the world with it, but that computer literally set my entire course in life. I learned BASIC programming on that computer, which lead to a career in programming, which lead to my career today.

Shall we play a game?

[ralps]

24. I got my first computer in 1983 or 1984. It was an Apple IIC

:hi: :loveya: :hug: :pals: :woohoo:

[sinkingfeeling]

25. If you hadn't of said 'own/purchase', I would have answered that I

had my first computer in 1967! The wonderful world of IBM 360!

[ChaoticSilly]

26. 1985

My parents got me a Commodore 64 for Christmas when I was 15. I remember teaching my self assembly language on that computer.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

27. 94

[seemunkee]

28. 1983? IBM PC Dos 1.3

Had a Timex Sinclair for a short while before that, but my father-in-law gave me the PC

[lpbk2713]

29. Early 1980's --- It was a TI-99/4A

My first real computer was a Wang 386 which I bought in the mid 1980's.

[Technowitch]

30. 1986

Home-built PC with a V20 processor (faster than the standard 8086 back then). Dual floppy, 1MB RAM, 12" amber display. Paid a friend $850 for it.

No online access, no email, nothing. I spent the first month or so, typing in the short stories I'd written back in college a couple years before.

[Mojambo]

31. Right around 1983/84

Commodore 64.

[hyphenate]

32. 1988

December. It had a 30MB hard drive, which was supposed to be big at the time, and a 16Mhz processor. Yikes.

Forgot to add: The cost was about $2600.

Also forgot to add: I worked with them from about 1980 on, so getting one was just making it more accessible to myself.

[Left Is Write]

33. My parents had a home computer in the early-mid 80s.

And I remember playing the word game Trinity on their computer during the winter when I was pregnant with my daughter, who turns eighteen this month.

I never owned my OWN computer until I was over thirty and married. We bought one in late 1998.


ETA: My parents always had computers from the early-mid 80s on, and I did lots of internet surfing on their computers starting in about '95.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

34. 1982. Commodore 64.

No modem. Slowest floppy drive in existence. We didn't call it the "Hippo" becuase we liked the color.
I started programming in Basic right away. I had so much fun with that C64.

[markus]

35. Leading Edge Model D in 1986

But I'd been using a TRS-80 (?) laptop with the little LCD diplay, tape deck storage and acoustic coupler to file stories before that.

Wish I had time for a Poll: Green or Amber?

[leftofthedial]

36. 1980

[mcscajun]

37. First 'puter was a Commodore 64. Ugh.

I can still recall typing assembler code into it and verifying checksums.

Good for a doorstop these days. :)

[deadparrot]

38. Family bought one in 1996. nt

[In_The_Wind]

39. 2002

I didn't know anything at all about computers.

[sundog]

40. TI-99/4A

1980-something

[lectrobyte]

41. Whenever the Timex/Sinclair ZX-81 came out, I want to say 1979,

but I can't remember back that far. Followed by Commodore 64, then a used IBM PC/XT (a new one at the time cost more than the car I owned). Compuserve over a 1200 baud modem was the first online service I used.

[qnr]

46. Timex Sinclair came out in 1982, the Sinclair ZX-81 in 1981 n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. 1993

A Mac LC III. I still own it and it still works.

I am so old that when I was in high school, we had one computer at school and it was so big it was in the hall. It was about 8 feet high and 10 - 12 feet long. And I think we were the only school in the area with a computer.

[Liberal Veteran]

43. 1984...hmmm....what an auspicious year for that....

:D

[SW FL Dem]

44. 1987 and it was a 286

with a massive :sarcasm: 20 mb hard drive. I paid over 2k for it and that was part of a deal my employer made for multiple purchases. They paid for computers for the support staff, if we wanted a computer in our office, we had to buy it ourselves. Amazingly enough, the law firm realized that it actually made sense for the attorneys to have computers in their office so they reimbursed us for our purchase after a few months.

[qnr]

45. 1979 - Atari 400, followed immediately by an Atari 800 n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

47. 1983, an Atari 800

then an Atari 1040ST in 1989, a canon laptop running win3.1 in '93, and then a shitload of desktops and some other laptops since then, running all versions of windows and even had one running linux.

[Dave Reynolds]

48. I had a Texas Instruments TI99 4A

in 1981. Hooked to an old color TV for a monitor, and an old cassette player for data storage. My current watch has more computing power.

[jobycom]

49. 1983--Apple IIc, as a graduation present. It's still in my closet. nt.