Osbo Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 When I was a kid (1983ish...) my folks paid this guy that I had a computer store, and he tough BASIC and Logos in a ZX Spectrum. I didn't have my own computer until 1990 (XT clone 8088 with 512K and 32MB hard drive) Right now I have a couple of C=64s and two 800XLs (one boxed with all the chips socketed ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 A TI SR-56 programmable calculator, with a whopping 160 bytes (100 program steps + 10 12-digit memory registers). Doesn't count? OK, Atari 400 with a whopping 8K bytes. Her name is Candy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacobus Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 Stock 16K 400 with cassette drive in July of 1982 (paid for with the proceeds of my first summer job) If I remember correctly, it came with Basic, Star Raiders and *** 12 Games *** (I didn't realize until later than they were type-in Basic programs from magazines). I used it on an old 11" black and white TV for a couple of years - amazing what a difference the upgrade to a colour TV made! I upgraded the RAM to 32K and then 48K - still have it in fact... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamageX Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 In '85 or '86, my dad got an 800XL, and an Indus GT soon after. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oesii Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 What was your first rig? i got my start on a timex-sinclair 1000... 16k...w/ the expansion cart!not sure of the year,,,1981-2 maybe c ya greg Same here a Timex-Sinclair 1000 for a few weeks or a few months. Got old quick so I asked my parents for an Atari 800 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dinosaur Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 An Atari 800 with cassette drive (about 1980 or '81)! It was expensive as hell! As soon as I saw a disk drive,I had to have one. I gave up a lot of beer and movies to buy that 810! (BTW...they BOTH still work!) It has been sheer joy and happy frustration ever since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
littleman jack Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Atari 800 with the matching disk drive (the 810?). Also got Choplifter, Preppie, and Apple Panic the same day. Great fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Zeptari Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 What was your first rig? i got my start on a timex-sinclair 1000... 16k...w/ the expansion cart!not sure of the year,,,1981-2 maybe c ya greg Vic-20 when they dropped to under $100. I also got the Commodore Datassette I really only played games on it: Omega Race, Scramble and Lunar Lander..... same thing when i got an atari 800xl a few years latter... mostly just played games on it. But the games got ALOT better! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanBoris Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 My parents got me my first system, an Atari 800, back in the early 80's. I actually kept the packing list from the order, here's what we got with the prices: 800 16K Computer $679.00 810 Disc Drive $449.00 850 Interface $169.00 410 Recorder $76.00 Joystick $20.00 Video Easel $35.00 Star Raiders $60.00 Epson MX80FT Printer $559.00 Printer Cable $30.00 32K Expansion Board $159.00 Touch Typing $20.00 Atari Word Processor $159.00 Breakout with Paddles $43.00 Graphit $17.00 Statistics $20.00 Visicalc $169.00 Atari 800 dust cover $7.99 1 box floppy disks $36.00 My computer today has 1Gig of RAM (around $24.00), back then, that much memory would have cost $5,013,504.00 Today a DVDr can hold round 4.7G for around $0.30. Back then the same capacity in floppies would have cost $197,551.71 Today, Microsoft Excel $229.00, then Visicalc, $169.00. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theking21083 Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 My parents got me my first system, an Atari 800, back in the early 80's. I actually kept the packing list from the order, here's what we got with the prices: 800 16K Computer $679.00 810 Disc Drive $449.00 850 Interface $169.00 410 Recorder $76.00 Joystick $20.00 Video Easel $35.00 Star Raiders $60.00 Epson MX80FT Printer $559.00 Printer Cable $30.00 32K Expansion Board $159.00 Touch Typing $20.00 Atari Word Processor $159.00 Breakout with Paddles $43.00 Graphit $17.00 Statistics $20.00 Visicalc $169.00 Atari 800 dust cover $7.99 1 box floppy disks $36.00 My computer today has 1Gig of RAM (around $24.00), back then, that much memory would have cost $5,013,504.00 Today a DVDr can hold round 4.7G for around $0.30. Back then the same capacity in floppies would have cost $197,551.71 Today, Microsoft Excel $229.00, then Visicalc, $169.00. Total that comes out to $2,707.99. I couldn't even get my parents to get me an NES when they were first released. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanBoris Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Total that comes out to $2,707.99. I couldn't even get my parents to get me an NES when they were first released. My mother tells me that when they were planning on buying it for me, she said to my father, "he'll probably play with it for 2 weeks then loose interest". She was wrong about that one! I spend endless hours with that system, and it started me on the road to my current career as a computer programmer. Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomasholzer Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 (edited) Talking about pricing, my XE was DM 399.00 (Karstadt special offer), the XC 11 was DM 99.00, 1050 was something like DM 399.00, Sanyo Monitor was DM 599.00 (monitor cable DM 10.00), and a Seikosha printer for DM 399.00 (connected to XE without 850 needed), Writer's Tool (OSS) was DM 299.00. Altogether approx DM 2100, which was like $3200.00 in 85? Few weeks later I purchased Halley's Project (Mindscape) for ....DM 150.00 new (Karstadt again) Edited April 2, 2008 by thomasholzer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Total that comes out to $2,707.99. I couldn't even get my parents to get me an NES when they were first released. My mother tells me that when they were planning on buying it for me, she said to my father, "he'll probably play with it for 2 weeks then loose interest". She was wrong about that one! I spend endless hours with that system, and it started me on the road to my current career as a computer programmer. Dan Dude - that is one loaded system - My parents spent abou $1,000 on an 800/810 disk drive with 1 game - that was all I was getting for a looooong time. Turned out ok as I started to learn basic and had plenty of fun on my ole 800! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross PK Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 (edited) Mine was an Acorn Electron, I think I got it in 1984 for Christmas and I was 8, it was the first time I ever experienced playing a video game. Edited April 2, 2008 by Ross PK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 I got a 16K 400 with a real keyboard and a 410 recorder back in 82. I got a 1050 sometime around 85, added the US Doubler and a 130XE in 88. Stephen Anderson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LS650 Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 1 with Level II BASIC (16 KB of RAM, cassette drive). It was not great for games, so I sold it after six months and bought an Atari 400 with a 410 tape drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 (edited) What was your first rig? i got my start on a timex-sinclair 1000... 16k...w/ the expansion cart!not sure of the year,,,1981-2 maybe c ya greg That's exactly what I started on too. I used Apple II's in school, and after begging for a computer for a couple years they (parents) finally allowed the Timex/Sincliar 1000 as a birthday present. After about 2 years of the Timex, I started begging for an Apple IIc. After a year or two of that, I finally saved up enough money myself for a 130XE, later a tape drive and 1050 drive and on and on. It was about '81-'82 when I got the Timex too. I got the 130XE in the summer of '85 and never looked back, at either the Timex (though it served it's purpose at the time), or Apple computers. I was glad my parents never got me the Apple and I had to save for an inexpensive computer, otherwise I never would have discovered "power without the price" and all the power and better graphics and sound than the Apple IIc! Everything the Apple II had,or equivelents, in application software plus a hell of a lot more games! I would have upgraded to a Sinclair Spectrum if the U.S. Timex/Sinclair 2048 version had been supported, instead of Timex dropping it right after initial release. If the internet had existed, I would have gotten a Spectrum (U.S. 2048 model) anyway, and just imported software...but after missing that consumer bullet I went with Atari. Edited April 3, 2008 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sincity Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 1) Timex Sinclair 2) TI-99/4a because my dad didn't want to spend the money on an Atari. 3) 600XL with 1010. 4) Franklin 1000 (Apple II+ clone) 5) C-64 6) Atari ST 7) Amiga 1000 (used it for the first 2 yrs of college) PC from here forward Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 Mine was an Acorn Electron, I think I got it in 1984 for Christmas and I was 8, it was the first time I ever experienced playing a video game. That's a nice looking machine. Is that comparable to the Spectrum and Atari 800, Commodor 64, etc.? Or more like a Vic-20? I'd heard of Acorn, but don't recall seeing a classic model like that before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Mo Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 Although I'd played with other people's computers for a couple of years beforehand, around Christmas of 1984 I got an Atari 800XL with a 1050 drive to do graphics and animation on. Around May 1985 when the 130XE came out I bought that and upgraded...and also had a 2nd 1050. As soon as the 520ST hit the market I had one of those, and I was an early adopter of the Mega ST4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross PK Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 (edited) Mine was an Acorn Electron, I think I got it in 1984 for Christmas and I was 8, it was the first time I ever experienced playing a video game. That's a nice looking machine. Is that comparable to the Spectrum and Atari 800, Commodor 64, etc.? Or more like a Vic-20? I'd heard of Acorn, but don't recall seeing a classic model like that before. I'm not sure about the Vic-20, but it is more powerful than the Spectrum (at least the graphics look better anyway), but I'm sure it's less powerful than the Atari 800 and C64. You can find the emu and ROMS here (the games are hard to find on this site though for some reason), http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/ Here's a pic of what a typical game looks like, If you check out any of the games make sure you check out Citadel (pictured above), it's brilliant. Edited April 3, 2008 by Ross PK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 ZX81 with 16k of wobbly RAM Atari 400 16k with 410, later upgraded to 48k 800XL with 1010, then a 1050, later updated with laser mod(usd and happy compatible?) 520ST upgraded to 1040 and additional external disc drive PC another pc a lap top Now 400 48k 400 16k (2) 800 800XL (3) 600XL (2) 1200XL 520ST and a windo$e lap top 2600 (2) 7800(4) 5200 (2) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 Acorn Electron was the budget version of the BBC Micro. BBC Micro was made by Acorn, and was adopted by most schools IIRC. Not sure how either stack up against the Atari's of the day though. I do remember having an endless stream of friends visiting to play on my Atari though as the games were far more fun that the beeb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guyjin Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 The first computer I ever encountered (I think) was in kindergarden; Being an Iowan, it was an Apple II of course. My family didn't get a computer until the early 90s: I suggested we get an Apple IIGS, but the salesman talked my dad into a PC; Specifically, a Packard Bell 386SX. I was more impressed with the IIGS. QBASIC was one bright spot, however. it seemed to work with every type-in in any book my school library carried. which is the only place I ever heard of Atari Computers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quadhorn Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 The standard 48k rubbery-keyboarded ZX Spectrum. I moved on to a BBC Master later, but the Spectrum got much attention until the keyboard finally gave out. I've still got a Spectrum kicking about somewhere, but it's the lowly 16k version (there's a 32k RAM pack, but it's knackered). There're fewer Spectrums listed here than I was expecting ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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