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Your first experience with a computer
4 October 2016
8.12pm
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sgtpepper63
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I was wondering what your first experience was, whether it be Windows like most people or if it was DOS, or even something earlier. For me, it was when one of my friend’s parents got an Apple II when I was about 17 or 18. The first PC I owned was an MS-DOS machine in 1992 when me and my brother decided to get a better computer (my older brother was using a Commodore 64 at the time).

4 October 2016
8.56pm
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HMBeatlesfan
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My friend’s parents got an Atari 400 back in 1981 (oddly, he was the only kid I knew who didn’t have a 2600) and although the keyboard sucked balls, it still had better ports of arcade games than the 2600 and you could still use the 2600 joysticks with it. My first computer was a Commodore 64 I got for Christmas in 1983.

Maybe you should try posting more.

4 October 2016
11.31pm
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Necko
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I was born in ’92 and my dad was always rather tech-savvy. I am positive that my dad owned a computer long before I was even born. So, in other words, it was so long ago that I don’t even remember. 

My family jumped on the Internet bandwagon very early on. I have a clear memory of my dad getting angry with me when I was four or five years old because I picked up the phone while he was on the Internet. 

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5 October 2016
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William Shears Campbell
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I got an old windows 98 when I was 2.  I remember playing some preschool games when I was younger.  Then I remember my dad introducing me to the Myst games.  To this day Myst is my favorite game franchise, followed by Half Life.

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5 October 2016
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Joe
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I was born in 1976, my dad was a head teacher. He used to bring home the school’s BBC Micro at weekends for me and my brother to mess around on. We got an Acorn Electron not long after (they came out in 83, so probably a little later), and then our own BBC Micro model B. We learnt some basic BASIC programming but mainly played games.

I sent my first email around 1988, though I didn’t know it as email back then. My school could use some sort of educational network to contact other schools (possibly JANET), and some friends and I used to chat to girls in Brighton. One of them became a penpal for a while (do people still have penpals nowadays?).

I got my first Windows laptop in 1996 when I was a student. It was clunky and had a rubbish black and white screen, but could run Word and Doom. I got my first Mac as a postgrad in 2000, the year before OS X came out – it was an iMac DV Special Edition in graphite, and I loved it.

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5 October 2016
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A couple of memories I have. I remember working  for a company back in the late 80’s and every evening we would need to back up the system but the discs we used were so large you almost needed two people to lift them.

 

I also remember the equivalent of internet cafe’s in the late 80’s /early 90’s where I used to pay about £1 to surf for an hour which was probably my first introduction to the internet. I also remember companies would charge you to access the internet from home on top of your phone/modem bill which is why I would use freeserve to get free access.

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5 October 2016
9.58am
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Evangeline
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 Since I was born way after everyone else I never recall using a old old computer.

 The first one I used was a HUGE desktop computer, which I remember playing games such as Midnight Madness, Contraptions, and CandyLand on.

My computer now is a Toshiba (made in 2001).

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5 October 2016
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My first experience was in the mid to late 1980’s in a high school class called Computer Lab. We learned DOS and how to use floppy discs.

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5 October 2016
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I remember my father working at home in the evenings with a computer. It had a huge printer that would fascinate me as a child as it seemed to print out for an eternity whilst making all these bizarre noises which would stop for about 10 seconds to make you think it had finished before it would set off again – this was the early 80’s.

Whilst growing up we had a Commodore 64 which we played games on; we had all kinds of games on floppy discs, cassettes and cartridges but only ever played about 5 of them. After that it was a Windows PC my father brought home under the illusion it was for solely for work, he was a high up director of a company so even if anyone cared (they didn’t) they wouldn’t have been able to say anything.

A few weeks ago whilst clearing out drawers I found a CD ROM from the mid-90’s that offered a free 2 hour trial of the internet. We didnt have the net when the ‘Anthology’ series came out as I remember getting all my Beatles news from the ‘Beatles Book Monthly’ magazine and the newspapers so it must have been late 90’s when we finally signed up. I also remember after getting the internet installed the days of going to the Beatles News Briefs website daily to see the latest updates – there was such a buzz when ‘Let It Be Naked’ was announced. Oh such innocent times.

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5 October 2016
10.27am
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The Hippie Chick
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Our first computer was a Micron, 1995. Looked a lot like this:

 

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Ran Windows 3.1, we were on dialup (oh, Lordy LOL) through AT&T. We tried AOL but that was VERY brief, hated it OMG.  I had a page on Geocities AND on Angelfire. Both long gone, but I’d love to look at them again and laugh. 

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5 October 2016
11.50am
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Jojo McCartney
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Oh boy, I am so young compared to you lot. My first time with a computer was my local library which had some education programs on it and that was that. But now I have my own and use it regularly.a-hard-days-night-paul-11I will add more information when I get home.

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5 October 2016
2.11pm
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sgtpepper63
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The Hippie Chick said
Our first computer was a Micron, 1995. Looked a lot like this:

 

Image Enlarger

Ran Windows 3.1, we were on dialup (oh, Lordy LOL) through AT&T. We tried AOL but that was VERY brief, hated it OMG.  I had a page on Geocities AND on Angelfire. Both long gone, but I’d love to look at them again and laugh.   

Impressive, I didn’t actually think you guys would still have your first computer and up and working like that, as PC’s are a pain in the ass to set up. For example, my son is a retro gaming collector born in 1985 and he decided to buy an IBM 5150 (the original DOS computer) and it was hell to get up working. Even my old Windows XP doesn’t work anymore.

5 October 2016
2.17pm
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sgtpepper63
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Joe said
I was born in 1976, my dad was a head teacher. He used to bring home the school’s BBC Micro at weekends for me and my brother to mess around on. We got an Acorn Electron not long after (they came out in 83, so probably a little later), and then our own BBC Micro model B. We learnt some basic BASIC programming but mainly played games.

I sent my first email around 1988, though I didn’t know it as email back then. My school could use some sort of educational network to contact other schools (possibly JANET), and some friends and I used to chat to girls in Brighton. One of them became a penpal for a while (do people still have penpals nowadays?).

I got my first Windows laptop in 1996 when I was a student. It was clunky and had a rubbish black and white screen, but could run Word and Doom. I got my first Mac as a postgrad in 2000, the year before OS X came out – it was an iMac DV Special Edition in graphite, and I loved it.  

I must say, you Europeans got a lot of PC’s we didn’t get out here in the states, another one that was never released in the US that I wish I knew about was the ZX Spectrum.

5 October 2016
2.18pm
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meanmistermustard
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We still have a desktop PC that runs on Windows XP but soon it will be going to be recycled. Horrifically slow to the point I make a point of not using it unless I need to print something out. 

And yes a right royal pain in the neck to set up and dismantle.

"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)

5 October 2016
2.35pm
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sgtpepper63
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meanmistermustard said
We still have a desktop PC that runs on Windows XP but soon it will be going to be recycled. Horrifically slow to the point I make a point of not using it unless I need to print something out. 

And yes a right royal pain in the neck to set up and dismantle.  

I tried selling mine after I got evicted from my house but no one wanted a PC that wouldn’t turn on, even for $5. I think I might shoot it up with my friend’s crossbow or with my father’s (now my) rifle.

5 October 2016
2.44pm
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meanmistermustard
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sgtpepper63 said

I tried selling mine after I got evicted from my house but no one wanted a PC that wouldn’t turn on, even for $5. I think I might shoot it up with my friend’s crossbow or with my father’s (now my) rifle.  

A baseball bat would be ideal.

One of the greatest moments of my college placement was getting to destroy a whole load of furniture outside with hammers and sledgehammers. Soooooooooooo much fun.

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5 October 2016
3.03pm
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AppleScruffJunior
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I was born in ’98 and I always remember us having an old HP, can’t for the life of me remember what model but it ran Windows 98 (and I was still using it up until about 2008 when we got a sleek Dell PC). Lovely little computer, ran pretty fast for what it was and I used to play Crash Bandicoot, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (still one of my favourite games ever, every time we get a new computer HP is always installed on it) and some great little Irish school games called ‘Computer Classroom’ (I passed every single one a-hard-days-night-john-1).

We still have all of our old PC games, my brother was mad into simulators both rally driving and flying (he’s 22…still plays on his flight simulator regularly).

We didn’t get internet until 2008-2009 (as did nearly everyone in my town, I don’t remember any classmates having the internet when I was in my early years in primary school) hell I didn’t know what the internet was until about 2007 when I went to the library and the librarian helped me make an email address.

Fun fact the first website that I went on was roalddahl.com, I always wanted to go on it when I saw the ads for it in on the last page of his books and so I did. I just revisited it and it looks so much different to what it looked like when I was 9, I remember it playing some really loud music when you logged on that would scare the bejaysus out of you if you had your speakers up loud, it being purple and Fantastic Mr Fox was a border. Also you had to have a secret password to access certain parts of the website (spoiler alert: the password was ‘chocolate’).

 

Ahh those were good times!

 

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5 October 2016
3.53pm
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Zig
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My first experience with a computer was as a kid – I’m thinking mid to late 1970’s. Is that possible? Anyway, my uncle used to work for a small local communications firm. Once, during someone’s birthday party (one of my cousins, probably – the same ones that turned 4 year old Zig on to The Beatles), he brought out a computer he was repairing and the only thing I remember was that we all took turns playing solitaire on it.

As far as regular use, however, I did not start using one until I got a job that required using one. This would have been somewhere around 1993-1994. Up until then, I had no desire to own one. Our training class for that job learned how to use a computer by…playing solitaire.

I think we owned our fist PC a couple of years after that.

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5 October 2016
7.31pm
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Beatlebug
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Joe said
One of them became a penpal for a while (do people still have penpals nowadays?).

I do, although I am supposedly very old-fashioned so that’s not saying much. @pepperland and I corresponded frequently (first through this site, then switching to email when our messages got too numerous). ahdn_george_06 

I don’t remember my first computer experience very well because 1) I was pretty small, and 2) I didn’t get to go on computers much until I was older. 

William Shears Campbell said
To this day Myst is my favorite game franchise, followed by Half Life.  

Yay! Silly Dad and I love Myst, although we never get to devote as much time to it as we would like. 

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5 October 2016
10.35pm
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William Shears Campbell
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@Beatlebug said

Yay! Silly Dad and I love Myst, although we never get to devote as much time to it as we would like.   

I looove Myst so much!  My Dad and I would play Myst all the time when I was small.  I’ve played through all 6 of the games multiple times.  I’m also on the multiplayer game, MOULa.

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