when did you get into computers?

Discussion in 'ten-forward' started by GUI_Tex, Feb 8, 2006.

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  1. GUI_Tex

    GUI_Tex Registered Member

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    Back in 98ish I was a complete computer newb, got my first computer; 1 Gig HD, 120 RAM, windows 98; cost:$1,000 and a whole lotta crashing, MS Paint just blew my mind. But I started digging for more info, and knowledge for and been craving for more information for about 2 years, Now usings windows xp, and alot of powertools, I consider myself a semi-advanced user now ;)
     
  2. WSFuser

    WSFuser Registered Member

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    (back in '98 or '99) my mom hired a technician to upgrade our emachines memory, install office, and he also used norton windoctor to clean the registry. i thought a few hundred errors was a rele bad thing so i often ran maintenence utilities. much later at some point, i started reading computer magazines and thus began my interest in hardware. one magazine in particular, maximum pc, caught my attention and since the december 01 issue i have been reading them ever since. now my parents and their friends consider my an "computer expert" or "computer wizard" but im still have much learning to do.
     
  3. Rita

    Rita Infrequent Poster

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    I was a real late bloomer :D got one not to long back--maybe 4 years or so ago.I honestly didnt even know how to turn one on!I got one,went to the library and got books on computers--and taught myself !The books were so hard to understand-not having any prior knowledge at all!I muddled through though:D Then I found this wonderful forum,a god send.I have learned so much here!I rarely have any problems now-and when I do I ask and my great friends here always answer even what seems like a stupid question to someone computer savy.I may not be computer smart now but compared to when I started--I'm a genius:D :D :D I have even added additional ram to my computer by myself!!!one of the things I'm so proud of lol.
     
  4. beetlejuice69

    beetlejuice69 Registered Member

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    I got into computing when Win95 came out, and it`s all been a learning curve ever since. Oh the joy of it all. :)
     
  5. sukarof

    sukarof Registered Member

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    I got my first computer 1993 when I lost my job. I had never been in front of a computer before that and did have plenty of time to explore and never stopped exploring....
    It was an IBM Aptiva 25Mhz with 1Mb RAM and 50Mb harddrive. Now I have Athlon 64 2.2Ghz and 1Gb RAM And 600Gb harddrive. I thought that the old Aptiva was really powerful machine then :)
    I cant even imagine how computing will be 10 years from now.
     
  6. Firecat

    Firecat Registered Member

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    I first started seeing people working on their computers in 1996, when I was like 4 years old. Four years later, our family got a PC (a Pentium 3), and I became hooked to it. Now I have an Athlon64, and I'm very fond of it :p
     
  7. ErikAlbert

    ErikAlbert Registered Member

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    DOS was my first OS in 1987. I had a harddisk of 30 MB and floppy disks as backup :D :D :D.
    My first contact with internet was in 1997.
     
  8. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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    Got a computer at the beginning of last year, and have been climbing and slipping up and down the knowledge ladder ever since !!
     
  9. WYBaugh

    WYBaugh Registered Member

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    My first computer was the TI-99/4A in 1982, moved on to the Atari 800XL in 1985, Atari ST in 1987 and my first PC was a 386 in 1993 to play Wing Commander! :)

    Bill
     
  10. big ed

    big ed Registered Member

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    It was a dark and stormy nite back in the late '60's! Memory to the "core"!

    Therapy in the late '80's has been of some help!!
     
  11. gerardwil

    gerardwil Registered Member

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    First machine was a 8086 (XT) back in 1988 I think. No harddisk but two floppy drives with 1.44 Mb (!), 760 Kb Ram
    Thunderbyte Antivirus, PCTools, Norton Utilities.
    Very soon chatting on BBS (1200 baud modem). Bought my first HD (20 Mb) a year later, cost me about 450 euro's.

    Gerard
     
  12. ~*Nat*~

    ~*Nat*~ Registered Member

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    Sorry Daddy...I've caused you to
    lose your "grips" a long time ago........TWICE!......



    http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/191/sorry2ry.gif



    Sorry in Sayonara, :doubt:
     
  13. manzz

    manzz Registered Member

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    My first computer was in the early 80s, an Amstrad6128, spent many hours programming games with Z80. My first PC came some time later, a 386sx, it still had the 5 1/4 floppy drives. Upgraded with a co-processor, 1 meg of memory and a 20 meg HD, thought it was great....
     
  14. iceni60

    iceni60 ( ^o^)

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  15. big ed

    big ed Registered Member

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    Oyvey!!!

    I got sucked in sometime last Tues!! What now!!

    Monitoring in The Dell, Video ed
     

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  16. wildman

    wildman Registered Member

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    :D I tell a few stories about computers in The Wildman's life stories thread. I think it is still out here, but properly down quiet a few pages now.

    I first became acquainted with them back in 1971, the year I enlisted in the U.S.A.F. and it was a keypunch machine. If I heard the name again it would come to me, but right now I just can't bring it to mind. As the years passed I became more exposed to them, and of course they progressed also. I went from your Sperry vacuum tube input device all the way to an IBM series 1 main frame. I also did some programing, but the languages used are now most likely long retired. Today I still play around with the computer, but now it is just for play. I currently have a combination of various components that comprise my system. My tower is an HP Avalon 1006n and the monitor is a Compaq Presario MV700, the printer is a Epson Stylus 440. The INTERNET was still classified a military secret when I retired from the U.S.A.F. Surprised the daylights out of me when people became aware of it.

    Thanks
    Wildman
    :cautious: :blink: :gack: :shifty: o_O
     
  17. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Has anyone heard of PDP 11/34's That was my first computer experience. I can't (don't want to) remember the date.

    Pete
     
  18. LowWaterMark

    LowWaterMark Administrator

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    1973 - using an ASR 33 with a 110 baud acoustic coupler (modem, kind of/sorta) to access a DEC RSTS PDP 11 system. (The fun part was that you could punch the paper tape ribbons with words and symbols. :D )
     
  19. Nitrox

    Nitrox Registered Member

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    I used PDP 11's as well in school, late 70's. Saw my first computers I guess back in mid 70's , the Commodore Pet.
     
  20. MikeBCda

    MikeBCda Registered Member

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    Don't ask me the years, 'cause I haven't a clue ...

    One descriptive phrase I haven't yet seen from the old-timers (or missed it) was a standard spec way back when -- "n percent IBM-compatible".

    These are more or less in chronological order ...

    First home computer was a C-64 ... that was in the days when a floppy drive was an extra (but a necessary one), and cost more than the computer itself.

    When I convinced my office that we should computerize our inventory system, our first one was an Osborne "portable" (70 lbs., but had a carrying handle), ran under CP/M. Two floppies, typically the program in one and data in the other.

    First PC-cousin at work was an XT -- I think originally with a 5 meg drive, which we quickly replaced with 10. Good grief, no more diskettes, except for installations and backups.

    And my first home PC was a 386/40 with all of 4 megs RAM, which I upgraded to 8 megs ASAP. The 120 meg HD seemed outrageously big, considering the (by then) 40 meg drive at work had tons of free space, but that was before I found what space-hogs game graphics were. Thank heaven for SmartDrive.
     
  21. ~*Nat*~

    ~*Nat*~ Registered Member

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    I swore to myself to never ever touch a computer.
    All the techie things you need to know......*faint*.

    Well my youngest daughter has been on an older computer (don't remember what kind :p ), since she was 6.
    And in 1998 or '99 we got our first Win98. We were all happy..but I was scared even to push one single key on the keyboard.

    A few months later, I got curious what my 2 young kids were able to do on it.

    When I found out you could "write letters" ~(email) in seconds and see the world from your own home, I was "hooked" ! :D

    My then 10 year old taught me in minutes how to surf to Europe and back....and how to click the keys to type. :cool:
     
  22. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Hi,
    I played on Commodore and such in early, mid 80s.
    Wrote my first thingies in Basic in 1985-1986.
    Played with XT and 286 in late 80s.
    My serious involvement with PCs began with DOS 3 in 1990, I think. Moved on then to DOS 5 and finally DOS 6. Spent most of my DOS days on version 3.
    I coded seriously in Pascal and DOS in mid 90s, had my first contact with the Internet in 1996 I think, on Win95. Since then, evolved to other systems and such.
    Mrk
     
  23. trickyricky

    trickyricky Registered Member

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    In the beginning, ... ;)

    My first use of a computer was in 1973 when I wrote a Fortran program to help my work on a degree project. After writing the program, I handed the program to the punched-card operator who then passed the cards on to the computing department. The following day, I went back to collect the printout of the result and it had worked!

    From then on, it was downhill all the way. Via a Sinclair ZX81, Amstrad 8512, Atari 1024ST, then finally my first IBM PC running MSDOS 5.0 in 1989. That PC had a 120Mb hard drive and a massive 4 Megabytes of RAM, which was huge compared to the ZX81 with its 1 kilobyte of RAM (not counting the gigantic 16Kb external RAM Pack...)

    I was taking part in online conferences via the bulletin board network in the early 1980s and sending emails regularly since 1986. So to me, this new-fangled internet thing is nothing special... ;)
     
  24. cheater87

    cheater87 Registered Member

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    i was 8 when i went over to my uncles house. that was also when i played my first computer game DOOM. we got a computer a couple months later and my uncle installed doom onto it. we got the internet a couple years later. i also remember playing Are You Afraid of the Dark the computer game. wow that game was scary.
     
  25. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Hi,
    I remember Alone in the Dark 1 and 2.
    Oh, nostalgia - what about Little Big Adventure, Fighting Falcon, Seventh Guest...?
    Mrk
     
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