Sinclair Spectrum 30 years old

[Dorsetmike]

Probably the first computer owned by many of the UK based members, what was your first computer?

My first was a Colour Genie, in 1983, one of the few machines that had a Z80 CPU which had an extended version of the Intel 8080 instruction set which I knew from my work.

My first PC in 1985 was an Amstrad 1512, 512K of RAM and an 8086 CPU and one 5.25" floppy drive, no hard disc! I later added extra RAM to make it 640K, a 3.5" floppy and then a 30Mb hard drive on an extension card! It used its own Graphical interface called GEM before Microsloth even thought of Windoze.

I also used DR-DOS (by Digital Research) instead of MS-DOS DR always seemed to be one step ahead of MS; DR would release a new version which MS would then scramble to emulate about 6 months later.

I used Wordstar for word processing and a freebie Lotus clone called "AsEasyAs" for a spreadsheet.

First printer was a Seikosha 8 pin dot matrix, soon changed for an NEC P2200 "letter quality" (I've still got a box of paper for it)

Oh happy days!

 

[methodistgirl]

My first computer was a Commodore vic 20 which was nothing but a toy.
Later I got an IBM that was really old from the 80s. Later the next computer
was given to me which was a Gateway with windows 98 which I had a ball
using. The next one was the laptop when I first moved to where I am now.
Recently I have a computer I purchased at Best Buy three years ago.
This one is a Compaq Presario CQ60 with windows 7. Other than that
I also love any kind of gadget to work with.
judy jennings

 

[Krummhorn]

My first machine was a Tandy 1000 with 5.25" disk drives ... 11" monitor, just a home machine for doing spreadsheets, word processing and playing games.

First printer was a "daisywheel" type ... 5 characters per second - woohoo, that was really speedy for that day.

Next was a 80286 type of PC ... then a 80386 version, and finally a 80486 which I did a motherboard conversion on and made it into a 80586 version. Went from Windows 3.0 to Win 3.1, then Win 98.

Then came my HP Pavillion (with dial-up modem) which I used until I bought my Dell 2400 in 2003 which lasted 7 years until the mother board fried.

My present PC, acquired in late 2010, is a Dell XPS 8100 Studio, Windows 7 (64 bit), 8 GB Ram, 650 GB Drive (along with external 1.0 TB that gives me 1.6 TB total), dual DVD-RW (they both also do CD-RW), and Logitech sound system with sub-woofer on the floor. Brother Laser printer, Canon scanner.

At work we had a 1977 'computerized' test terminal ... 2 7.5" disc drives and ... get this ... 11 MB of Ram ... Zounds, that was lots for those days. Later we got our first IBM PC - 10 MB hard drive - we had one of the most powerful computers on our end of the building.
Laughable now, but it was quite the thing in the early 80's.

 

[teddy]

First machine I owned was built by Gateway in Ireland when I started this business about 17 years ago. 16k of RAM 12x CD drive and I believe 1 gig hard drive. There was a 3 year on site service gaurentee included and unlimited freephone help line. Very useful for a novice. Good machine and served me well. Windows 95 and full office suite pre installed. Used it for so long (upgraded ram and piggy backed an additional hard drive) that by the time I changed it we were on XP. Which I am still using at home and at the office.

teddy

Meant to add that my machine also had a dial up facility from my database (ACT) which was very useful.

 

[Corno Dolce]

An 80386 machine sufficed for a time then I got a mac, and then iMAC and now a MACBookAir...