Author Topic: What was your first computer?  (Read 3160 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online wvdkuil

  • Wim van der kuil
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1986
    • My PWS at Leuven Belgium Europe
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #25 on: August 29, 2018, 12:00:54 PM »
After my military service I started to work as a programmer.
The Elliott 803B in 1969/70 was the first one I worked on for scientific calculations, machine code programs on paper tape, storage on 35mm magnetic film. You could here when the program came into an infinite loop as every instruction had a specific sound.

A Bull GE 55 in 1970 was first administrative  one, programmed in Cobol using punched cards.

My first "personal computer" I owned was an IBM Series 1, more or less the size of a refrigerator but it had 4 wheels to move it from the office to my apartment in the same building. There was a screen to enter your commands and basic programs. 

The first modern PC was the Apple Lisa, used mainly for management tasks. No time to program that beautiful appliance.

Although running an IT business always takes to much time, I tried to remain a programmer also.  Nowadays I use an Apple iMac to write my template-scripts. IMHO the best tool with a large screen.

Wim
« Last Edit: August 29, 2018, 12:04:08 PM by wvdkuil »

Offline DaleReid

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 2002
    • Weather at Eau Claire, WI
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #26 on: August 29, 2018, 02:48:20 PM »
More of a calculator than a computer, it was a tall, flat metal device with little slots that you put a metal stylus in and either went up and over or down and over to add, subtract and in some cases repeatedly to do multiplication.  Not quite an abacus. 

A Univac 1108, which ran lots of compilers for the UW-Madison and general computing tasks, and reduction of physics data.  The Control Data 3600 which got blown up in Sterling Hall, too.  I had a job taking 9 track tapes back and forth the few blocks from Sterling to Dayton Street a few times per shift.  There was a Burroughs B5500 on the same floor as the Univac (at one time due to errors we had TWO Univac 1108s on the floor, can't imagine the expense until they found the noise problem and lined the whole floor with copper foil), but I didn't ever get smart enough to program the B5, just ran it as an operator.  Then we got a Univac 1106 downstairs about the same time a cute little PDP-8 with paper tape showed up.  We spent a lot of time playing Hamurabi on that once we got the interpreter bootstrapped in and then the program.

First programming was from reading a book on PDP-8 instructions, sort of an orange cover on the paperback book that DEC sent me for asking, and all summer programmed and learned logic with no way to run it, the ultimate virtual machine.  I'm sure ther were no errors in the code!

First real computer I owned, not just used, was a Radio Shack TRS-80  I wrote a program to plot a three dimensional wave form as a grid, taking all afternoon to compute some of the more complex functions and if you hit the wrong button it started all over.

Fun memories, thanks for bringing up the subject.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2018, 02:49:59 PM by DaleReid »
ECWx.info
&
ECWx.info/t/index.php

Offline Aardvark

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 2305
  • Tonto to Lone Ranger : "never take off mask.
    • turned off
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #27 on: August 29, 2018, 04:26:34 PM »
About 1976   Williamsburg math dept got the DEC writer hookup to the AEA in Cedar Rapids.  I went out and got a book on Basic.   I programmed my small area for a science inventory of chemicals and supplies.  What used to really torque me off was that I would be entering "code"  that I would be flying along and suddenly my eye would catch the modem and the connection light was off.  Then I would have to log back on and find out where i left off.ARGGGGGHHHHH.   that led to me convincing my wife 3 years later I needed a real computer

Offline stevebrtx

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 582
    • Buchanan Dam Weather
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #28 on: August 29, 2018, 05:24:24 PM »
A bit further down the road my favorite was loading a sizable application requiring maybe 10 hard floopies and slowly slogging along knowing all to well that after about 8 disks the 9th would fail - ah, the good old days, another story for the Gkids.

Offline vreihen

  • El Niño chaser
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1216
  • K2BIG
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #29 on: August 29, 2018, 05:33:55 PM »
Money? - ha, yes, none of us want to remember. I spent around $2K on the Actrix and was fortunate to sell it for $50.

Back in the olden days, I dropped $1,820 US to be the first person on my block with a 1 gigabyte hard drive.  It was a full-height 5.25" brick with a SCSI interface, and seemed bottomless at the time.  Every time that I go to a sales pitch and the vendor gives everyone a 32 gigabyte USB thumb drive as a trick-or-treat gift,  #-o  I kick myself in the butt for that purchase.....
WU Gold Stars for everyone! :lol:

Offline pfletch101

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 329
    • Personal Website
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #30 on: August 29, 2018, 05:49:01 PM »
Back in the olden days, I dropped $1,820 US to be the first person on my block with a 1 gigabyte hard drive.  It was a full-height 5.25" brick with a SCSI interface, and seemed bottomless at the time.  Every time that I go to a sales pitch and the vendor gives everyone a 32 gigabyte USB thumb drive as a trick-or-treat gift,  #-o  I kick myself in the butt for that purchase.....

My olden days must be a bit older than yours! Around 1980, I was involved in high level negotiations at the University Hospital at which I then worked around the joint purchase of a hard disk system for the Bioengineering Department's minicomputer, partly to support a clinical database application I was writing for my Department. The hardware in question was about the size of a washing machine, required an air-conditioned environment, and cost something in excess of $80,000. Its storage capacity: an astonishing 80 megabytes!
Vantage Pro 2+ connected to Raspberry Pi running weewx by means of Meteo-Pi - data incorporated in domestic energy production (PV) and use monitoring system.

Offline vreihen

  • El Niño chaser
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1216
  • K2BIG
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #31 on: August 29, 2018, 07:28:06 PM »
When I started at my current job back in 1985, I had to manage a washing machine-sized machine with an astonishing 32 megabyte hard drive.  It had 14 inch platters, and a parking brake lever on the side to secure the heads/platters if it needed to be moved.  The cost was $33,000, plus a terminal and tape drive to manage it.

I also remember having to take a road trip to a large nameless company's regional field office, to borrow a 15 meg hard drive (5.25" full height) from them for a week.  We were building a new operating system kernel, and the 10 meg drives that we had weren't large enough.

My olden days include paper tape, core memory, and my favorite technology...bubble memory.....
WU Gold Stars for everyone! :lol:

Offline MacGarage

  • SW Ohio
  • Senior Contributor
  • ****
  • Posts: 184
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #32 on: August 29, 2018, 10:08:06 PM »
I still have my Mac 512ke...and it still works running Mac OS 1.1.



I used to code some basic software back in the old classic Mac OS days and had a fascination with everything Mac (still do). I still have a barn loft of old Macs...most still work...might even still have an old Newton up there.

Ecowitt WH2320E
AcuRite Atlas

Offline alanb

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 357
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #33 on: August 30, 2018, 12:14:57 AM »
About 1976   Williamsburg math dept got the DEC writer hookup to the AEA in Cedar Rapids.  I went out and got a book on Basic.   I programmed my small area for a science inventory of chemicals and supplies.  What used to really torque me off was that I would be entering "code"  that I would be flying along and suddenly my eye would catch the modem and the connection light was off.  Then I would have to log back on and find out where i left off.ARGGGGGHHHHH.   that led to me convincing my wife 3 years later I needed a real computer
Ha Ha again. Grant Wood AEA is where I worked ... from 1975 until retirement in 2009, so you were probably one of my client/customers. I would guess we have met each other face to face as I made many trips to Williamsburg  and the other area schools back then.

You are talking about our dual HP 2000 Access timeshare mini computers. They used teletype devices (like the Decwriter) as end-user terminals and supported up to 32 simultaneous user sessions each coming in on 110 to 1200 baud modems. Originally, most of the schools used Teletype model 33 terminals with 110 baud acoustic couplers. Eventually these gave way to 1200 baud modems and faster dot matrix terminals like the DecWriter and even some 24x80 monochrome display terminals. The version of BASIC you were using was called HP TSB (TimeShare Basic) or HP Access Basic. Back in the day, I wrote thousands of lines of BASIC code on those machines. Of course, the Apple II (and eventually the Mac and IBM PC) ended the reign of the timeshare mini computer systems in K12 schools, but our AEA kept one of the old HP Access systems running until the late 80's using it as a RJE and 3270 front end for our IBM mainframe.

Ahhhh.... the memories.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2018, 12:37:05 AM by alanb »
Alan - Ambient WS-2000, WH31E x5, WH31L, Ecowitt WN32(WH32E)
          Airthings Corentium Home Radon Detector 223

Offline Aardvark

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 2305
  • Tonto to Lone Ranger : "never take off mask.
    • turned off
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #34 on: August 30, 2018, 12:25:05 AM »
About 1976   Williamsburg math dept got the DEC writer hookup to the AEA in Cedar Rapids.  I went out and got a book on Basic.   I programmed my small area for a science inventory of chemicals and supplies.  What used to really torque me off was that I would be entering "code"  that I would be flying along and suddenly my eye would catch the modem and the connection light was off.  Then I would have to log back on and find out where i left off.ARGGGGGHHHHH.   that led to me convincing my wife 3 years later I needed a real computer
Ha Ha again. Grant Wood AEA is where I worked ... from 1975 until retirement in 2009, so you were probably one of my client/customers. I would guess we probably know each other as I made many trips to Williamsburg  and the other area schools back then.

You are talking about our dual HP 2000 Access timeshare mini computers. They used teletype devices (like the Decwriter) as end-user terminals and supported up to 32 simultaneous user sessions each coming in on 110 to 1200 baud modems. Originally, most of the schools used Teletype model 33 terminals with 110 baud acoustic couplers. Eventually these gave way to 1200 baud modems and faster dot matrix terminals like the DecWriter and even some 24x80 monochrome display terminals. The version of BASIC you were using was called HP TSB (TimeShare Basic) or HP Access Basic. Back in the day, I wrote thousands of lines of BASIC code on those machines. Of course, the Apple II (and eventually the Mac and IBM PC) ended the reign of the timeshare mini computer systems in K12 schools, but our AEA kept one of the old HP Access systems running until the late 80's using it as a RJE and 3270 front end for our IBM mainframe.

Ahhhh.... the memories.

Yes, the math dept got Heartland to agree to put in a dedicated line and I taught science.   So I figured that I should get in on the bottom line.  Didn't regret it  at all. Man.. have we improved since those early days.

Offline spc fresno

  • Aspiring Meteorologist
  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 49
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #35 on: September 19, 2018, 05:20:10 PM »
I'm... I'm a bit younger than most other folks on the site, so my first computer is way more recent. About 2 years ago I was given a used 2005 Dell Inspiron (the image attached is one from a Google Search, I'm not at home right now). I've always been fascinated with early computers and am actually pretty jealous of the guy with the working 1980s Mac (that's really impressive that it still works, most iPads won't work in 5 years). I don't really even use my Dell very much because it is incredibly slow (30 minutes to load Internet Explorer, it's really messed up), so I usually use an iPad for my internet browsing. [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
░▒▓█ have a great day! █▓▒░

Offline Bushman

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 7549
    • Eagle Bay Weather
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #36 on: September 19, 2018, 06:24:26 PM »
Money? - ha, yes, none of us want to remember. I spent around $2K on the Actrix and was fortunate to sell it for $50.

Back in the olden days, I dropped $1,820 US to be the first person on my block with a 1 gigabyte hard drive.  It was a full-height 5.25" brick with a SCSI interface, and seemed bottomless at the time.  Every time that I go to a sales pitch and the vendor gives everyone a 32 gigabyte USB thumb drive as a trick-or-treat gift,  #-o  I kick myself in the butt for that purchase.....

The late Jim Seymour of PC Mag/World fame once wrote an article called "Don't get gigged" - inferring that buying a one GB drive was not the best use of capital.  :)
Need low cost IP monitoring?  http://wirelesstag.net/wta.aspx?link=NisJxz6FhUa4V67/cwCRWA or PM me for 50% off Wirelesstags!!

Offline stevebrtx

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 582
    • Buchanan Dam Weather
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #37 on: September 19, 2018, 06:47:32 PM »
Yes, amazing what we've seen in these past short decades. I remember buying memory for my Mac at $50 per MB and had a "huge" 10MB hard drive - ha. Now I have a couple of TB drives plus several GB drives and memory? - too much ain't enough!

Offline Old Tele man

  • Singing in the rain...
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1365
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #38 on: September 19, 2018, 07:22:18 PM »
Remember Bill Gates quip: "Who'd ever want or need more than 64K bytes of memory?" for TRS80's.

Which jumped up to 640K bytes with IBM PC's...and, NOW, is about 640 gigabytes (wink).
« Last Edit: September 19, 2018, 07:25:19 PM by Old Tele man »
• SYS: Davis VP2 Vue/WL-IP & Envoy8X/WL-USB;
• DBX2 & DBX1 Precision Digital Barographs
• CWOP: DW6988 - 2 miles NNE of Cortaro, AZ
• WU - KAZTUCSO202, Countryside

Offline vreihen

  • El Niño chaser
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1216
  • K2BIG
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #39 on: September 19, 2018, 07:40:45 PM »
The Z-80 processor in the Trash-80 could not address more than 64K of RAM without using external bank switching, which of course was not standardized and purely a kludge.....
WU Gold Stars for everyone! :lol:

Offline Old Tele man

  • Singing in the rain...
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1365
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #40 on: September 19, 2018, 10:24:54 PM »
The Z-80 processor in the Trash-80 could not address more than 64K of RAM without using external bank switching, which of course was not standardized and purely a kludge.....

Yep, the original TRS-80 Model I and Model III had that limit; however, the Model IV implemented the bank switching. Many TRS-80 "clones" didn't have such limits.
• SYS: Davis VP2 Vue/WL-IP & Envoy8X/WL-USB;
• DBX2 & DBX1 Precision Digital Barographs
• CWOP: DW6988 - 2 miles NNE of Cortaro, AZ
• WU - KAZTUCSO202, Countryside

Offline SLOweather

  • Global Moderator
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 3456
    • Weatherelement Moline IL
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #41 on: September 20, 2018, 08:24:19 AM »
Apple ][+ in 1982. That was back when you weren't supposed to be able to buy one mail order somehow, so to get a good deal, I drove to LA and back (400 miles or so round trip) in one day to get a better deal. First program was a database called Data Reporter, which we used to track our wedding expenses.

I still have it in the Brain Room. It was running a home automation program I wrote which would answer an extension on our in-home phone system, and use DTMF to send X10 commands to control lights and such via a Novation Applecat modem. It responded with synthesized voice from a Lis'ner 1000 board I built. That board also did a crude form of voice recognition, but required extensive training for just one person, and I never got it to work well enough to replace the DTMF.

Offline Old Tele man

  • Singing in the rain...
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1365
Re: What was your first computer?
« Reply #42 on: September 20, 2018, 09:52:17 AM »
Apple ][+ in 1982. That was back when you weren't supposed to be able to buy one mail order somehow, so to get a good deal, I drove to LA and back (400 miles or so round trip) in one day to get a better deal. First program was a database called Data Reporter, which we used to track our wedding expenses.

I still have it in the Brain Room. It was running a home automation program I wrote which would answer an extension on our in-home phone system, and use DTMF to send X10 commands to control lights and such via a Novation Applecat modem. It responded with synthesized voice from a Lis'ner 1000 board I built. That board also did a crude form of voice recognition, but required extensive training for just one person, and I never got it to work well enough to replace the DTMF.
Deja Vu! I drove over to San Diego, CA, from Yuma, AZ, to 'pay less' for a Centronics 730, dot-matrix printer for my TRS-80.
• SYS: Davis VP2 Vue/WL-IP & Envoy8X/WL-USB;
• DBX2 & DBX1 Precision Digital Barographs
• CWOP: DW6988 - 2 miles NNE of Cortaro, AZ
• WU - KAZTUCSO202, Countryside