|
Not that big, really. But it was never cold. 
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
|
|
|
|
|
Yup. IBM 1620 with hydraulic disk drive that always leaked hydraulic oil on the floor! An I think it had 40K of 6-bit Binary Coded Decimal "digits". Pretty quickly learned how to cold-start it by using the bit switches mounted on the front of the selectric typewriter that was the operator's consol. Punch cards and a 60 lines per MINUTE line printer (upper case only). Those were the good old days.
Roy Williams
|
|
|
|
|
Member 10119140 wrote: Pretty quickly learned how to cold-start it by using the bit switches mounted on the front of the selectric typewriter that was the operator's consol...
You are describing a different machine. The 1620 (either version) didn't have bit switches sufficient to boot the machine. The cold start was done with a punch card in the card reader. I think it was 35000000000... mumble mumble. I used to have the 30 or so digits memorized. Warm start was done by hitting the halt button and typing 4900796"RS" on the console, which was a branch to location 00796 in core (the main monitor loop).
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
|
|
|
|
|
You are so right - I am remembering the bit switches on the IBM 1130... on the 1620 it was "sense switches". And now that you remind me, I do remember that we memorized the cold start sequence and typed it in....but that was 50+ years ago.
Speaking of cold start cards, we made up a cold start card for the 1130 that worked correctly no matter what orientation it was put in the card hopper. (Really!)
|
|
|
|
|
My first computer was an AMSTRAD 1512 without HDD with CGA (4 colours) and one 5 1/4 floppy drive and 512 MB of RAM. 
|
|
|
|
|
You lot are mere babes 8(
This is the first computer I actually owned (though by no means the first that I used), and I built it myself from a kit...
[^]
|
|
|
|
|
I'm sure that if I would press strong enough that $%&#@ NVIDIA card it's giving me problems would work here... 
|
|
|
|
|
...and you make me feel really old. 
I built one of these[^] while I was still at school. It's even in a museum!
Now, where's my Zimmer frame?
|
|
|
|
|
Holy Computing, Batman! 
I love the specs:
CPU No processor but nine DC operational amplifiers
SPEED 0.5 to 15 repetitive operations per second
So...Doom is going to run a little slowly on that then? 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
|
|
|
|
|
Saw that today and got reminded that im too young for this... although my dad gave me his old amiga as first pc, but yeah, just not that old 
if(this.signature != "")
{
MessageBox.Show("This is my signature: " + Environment.NewLine + signature);
}
else
{
MessageBox.Show("404-Signature not found");
}
|
|
|
|
|
Mine was a Commodore VIC20 - was great at the time (I was 8 at the time and got given this at Christmas instead of the Atari console that I'd asked for - wise move)
http://oldcomputers.net/vic20.html[^]
Introduced: June 1980
Released: January 1981
Price: US $299 (cost about the same in GBP)
CPU: MOS 6502, 1MHz
RAM: 5K (3.5K for the user)
Display: 22 X 23 text, 176 X 184, 16 colors max
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
|
|
|
|
|
Ah, the mighty VIC-20. I still remember that special plastic smell when I first unboxed it, more than 30 years ago.
|
|
|
|
|
1.3 gig hard drive - that's huge!
I think my first PC, back in 1989, had around 20 megabytes of hard drive.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
|
|
|
|
|
I don't care if you count it or not, I've had a wonderful ZX Spectrum 48K and I learned (its) BASIC and Z80 assembly with it.
|
|
|
|
|
I sympathise with your feeling.
My first was a Schneider/Amstrad CPC6128[^] with additional external floppy drive (not an original one but a raw 3" drive).
Then I had a second hand not IBM compatible 80186 based Philips :YES[^] with 640 KB RAM, a 20 MB SASI (SCSI predecessor) hard disk and an additional external 5 1/2" disk drive (again not original but one from a defective IBM PC).
Even my first new PC had less power than the P150 from the strip (a 486DX33 with 8 MB of RAM).
|
|
|
|
|
Technically, my first "computer" was an HP 25C (I think that was the model) calculator, but it was programmable - 49 steps.
My first "real" computer was a Commodore IBM - real keyboard, 32KB of RAM, 6502 1Mhz processor, and a tape drive for storage, which I eventually upgraded to dual floppies, each floppy had double the storage of Apple's drive, mwahaha.
Marc
|
|
|
|
|
In that case mine was a TI 59[^] - but I didn't think of it as a computer then!
Good for it's time, but those magnetic strips were sooooo unreliable!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
|
|
|
|
|
OriginalGriff wrote: Good for it's time, but those magnetic strips were sooooo unreliable!
I eventually also had the HP version with the mag strip reader. It was soooo cool. I wrote Hunt the Wumpus on it - one program to randomize the caves and store them into the 9 registers using 2 digit encoding so I could map 20 caves with 3 routes each, plus 3 pits, 3 bat caves, 1 Wumpus and 1 player location.
A second program on another mag strip was used to actually play the game! It was my first real taste of optimizing code, getting the game play to fit into 240 instruction "cells."
Marc
|
|
|
|
|
I had a Commodore 64 in '83 and was spoilt rotten by my parents as it came with a 5 1/4 floppy drive and printer... Followed by an Amiga 500 in '88
If we're talking about PC, I had a Laser 386 DX 25 MHZ, 2 MB ram and 69 MB Hard drive. It was offered as an alternative to a FM Towns games machine that I'd won though a competition I'd entered in the games Magazine back in 1990, as the FM Towns couldn't be sourced from Japan. Needless to say the PC was far more use than an FM Towns.
|
|
|
|
|
Rhuros wrote: I had a Commodore 64 in '83 and was spoilt rotten by my parents as it came with a 5 1/4 floppy drive and printer... Followed by an Amiga 500 in '88
Started off with a C64 too (with nothing but tape for storage for the first year I've had it), then I got a C128, but I never went the Amiga route. I was looking at auction sites a few days ago and out of morbid curiosity, I looked up a couple of Amiga systems. Seems like price ranges are all over the map. Unfortunately still to this day, I know so very little about them that I don't know what's a good deal or not.
|
|
|
|
|
First computer was an Amiga 1000[^].
I wished I still have it (and the couple of games I had at the time that I really liked).
I'd rather be phishing!
|
|
|
|
|
Steel Taiwan clone XT that flipped open like a funny car.
8088 chip that all who had these swapped out for a NEC V20.
2MB expanded ram board + QEMM
30MB drive
Hercules video then upgraded to a Emulex/Persist Bob-16 graphics adapter.
2400 baud modem - I was a BBS rat.
DOS 3.1 / Desqview
A year later my dear wife got me a Genius Mouse.
I had windows 1.01 on but that sucked more than you can know.
It was more of a side show to show people.
Getcha some of that! 
|
|
|
|
|
The one that doesn't count: Sorry! TI-994a back in '82-83 I think.
The next one was a hand-me-down PowerMac 6100: 1 512MB HDD, 16MB RAM, and a huge 13'' monitor! OS 7.5 was so bad that my first real computer manual was 'Sad Macs, Bombs, and Other Disasters'! Great times! 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
|
|
|
|
|
A 520 ST, which I still have.
But, if you ignore the cassette restriction, a TI 99/4A (Which I probably still have...9or maybe my sister has it.)
|
|
|
|
|
The TI99 was great! Got a kick out of looking at ones for sale on ebay the other day... we had one in '83 or '84... Wish I still had it. Loved playing Donkey Kong, Hunt the Wompus, TI Invaders, and Centipede on it!
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
