What Microsoft OS did u start with?

What Operating System did u first start with?

 

With all due respect, the choices weren't that great -- they almost take for granted you started under one version or another of Windows.

My first home PC was under DOS 3-something, eventually upgraded as far as 6.2 -- I'd heard what a disaster DOS 4 was and bypassed that entirely, and for my money DOS 5 added (and improved) more useful features and utilities than any other DOS version, with 3.3 a close second.

Windows (my first was 3.1) only came along later, as it was the only reasonable way to get internet access. Went from 3.1 to 98SE to my current XP-Home in the process of replacing computers over the years.

At work, we pre-dated even MS, started out under CP/M (which Gates liked enough to copy huge chunks of into the earliest DOS versions). Went through the same DOS 3-to-5-to-6 progression there, and at the time I retired about 9 years ago were running mostly 6.0, with Win 3.11 under it for the odd program that needed it.

 

The one i still use, XP Home.


snowbound

 

I think i started on the Vic 20. Does that count as an OS?

 

Hi chiphead, and welcome.

You're right, I was thinking in terms of what we now think of as PC's. But before my first 386/40 (and before the office machine) I had a C64 myself (and loved it), and that and its Vic predecessor were both definitely honest-to-? programmable computers with OS's, as compared to the dedicated games machines we probably both also had.

 

ah..the C64! Now doesn't that bring back very charming memories!
How long has that been now..."only" 20 years or so: man, have we rocketed since then

 

A tandy 1000, and them a tandy 1500 laptop. == Dos.

 

where the heck is windows me i never even heard of the other 2 lol

 

correction other 4 omg how old are you guys

some of that stuff was back when bill gates was still getting beat up and put in the garbage can whoaaaaaaaaaa

 

Started at work first, our first *PC type* was like a small little box with a RED LED SINGLE LINE TYPE READOUT. [Can you imagine the eye strain after 6-7 hours on that crap.

You typed and only saw what was being typed on the current line, it 'transferred' to a ticker-tape/stockmarket-type paper punchout and that was fed into another monster of a machine which printed out on a filmy-type paper which was waxed and pasted into strips/sections into layouts. [Newspaper]

After many variations of that theme, work eventually progressed into:

Windows 3.1...> 98SE...> W2K....> XP PRO and LOTS of MAC's OS10x in Editorial, Scanning Department. Some PC's still run under 98SE and only new ones are installed with XP PRO.

Personal home was Windows 95b had that for 5 years.
Straight to W2K PRO skipped all the dramas of 98 98SE 98ME.

Then around 2 years ago got XP PRO. and LOVE it.

@ Blaze.. yep, guess we are *OLD*

TAS

 

Our first computer was a 386 with Windows 3.0. I can't remember what the DOS version was on that computer. I upgraded that computer to Windows 3.1 and then we bought a new computer with 98SE, which I'm still using.

 

There are nasty rumors that I was toilet-training little Noah and teaching him to walk and talk ages before he got "drafted" into building the Ark.

Seriously though -- and I can't remember whether this is also in my profile -- I'm late 50's, less than a year and a half shy of 60.

Only slightly O/T, since this concerns a language rather than an OS, Tassie's last post reminded me of a programming course I took when I was hoping to get accounting certification as an RIA. We played with Fortran -- wrote the coding then handed the resulting tons of paper to a guy who did the card-punching.

What was interesting was, we were told that what we were learning was at that time (mid or late '70's?) considered "the" definitive version of Fortran, Wat-For, developed right here at the U. of Waterloo (I lived in Toronto at the time, moved here a few years later when my company did).

 

My first Microsoft experience was MS-Dos without directorystructure. It was just a DOS, running on a non-IBM compatible PC. The floppy disks (real floppy) contained not 360 Kb, but 800 Kb.
And there was Mbasic. Coming from a Sinclair ZX81 and Spectrum, I really disliked that basic version.

Windows? Not until version 3, this was only usefull because of Visual Basic 1.0.

 

my first OS is Windows 3.1 for home use
would u believe that my parents still keep that comp in the house until now?

 

Memory lane. C64. I typed programs from magazines into that thing in machinecode. Very funny if you made a mistake somewhere.

First Windows version was 95 (I had a Sega Gameconsole after the C64).

Regards,

Pieter

 

Way to go, Pieter. I was never that ambitious (or daring), the only "keyboarding" I got from books and magazines was in basic. Mostly I stuck to ready-to-run stuff on diskettes, and the odd one on cartridge.

One thing about the C64, anybody who used it (and did more than just run store-bought games) eventually got good at memorizing peeks and pokes, because so many of its memory locations were dedicated to one function or another.

 

You were one of them rich nerds....all we could afford was the Vic 20....but my kids thought I was smart when I made a bouncing ball

 

I think I predate you by a little...I started on a TRS-80, 4K, Level I. Later upgraded it myself to a 16K, Level II with numeric keypad. Even built a little "load monitor" that sat between the tape drive (okay, so it was just a tape recorder/player) and the computer, so that I could monitor the tape load volume on a meter. That stopped a lot of the load errors by being too soft or too loud (which you never found out about until after the entire tape loaded and then didn't run).

When I moved to the Commodore systems I was amazed they could get color, sound and animation out of only three registers (I think it was three; A, X & Y), when my beloved "Trash-80" was only black&white with very primitive animation and almost non-existent sound, but had thirty-two registers (16 current and 16 alternate that could be swapped in and out)! Never had a 64, but I did have a Vic-20 and a C-128D (still do, but gave the TRS-80 to a computer museum). Ran all the available O/Ses on the 128D, BASIC, CP/M, GEOS (the Commodore version of Windows). First went online with the 128D, Comp-U-Seve, Prodigy, Q-Link, AOL, and even ran a couple of C= BBSes.

After moving to IBM compatible machines I stuck with DOS for a long time, didn't bother with Windows, I didn't need it. Ran a few more BBSes, even joined FidoNet networking member BBSes, all DOS based.
I think 3.0 was the first version of Windows I ever loaded, but 3.1 was the first I actually used. I ran WFW3.11 until about 3 or 4 years ago, and then jumped from it straight to WIN98SE, where I still am.

Geez, I got kinda long-winded there reminiscing....

--
dak

 

Just thinking back to the old computers does bring back memories. The tandy 1500 had a color screen and pretty fair graphics. By the way I still have both of those computers and they still work just like they were new. Really amazes me.

 

My first computer was a BBC 64k, 32K for the OS and a big 32K for programmes which you could upload / download to a portable cassette recorder, patience was definately a virtue! The screen was your TV and in colur of sorts. I remeber that lovely blocky text
I learned enough BBC basic to produce a programme for working out the components necessary to produce specific cross-over frequencies in loudspeaker systems.
After feeding the programme certain basic parameters such as speaker impedence, required X-over frequecies and whether it was 1st, 2nd or third order the programme would give me the required inductance, capacitance & resistors to meet the criteria. And it worked!
First IBM compatable was running DOS 3 - and I have moved through all MS os's since apart from NT though I did rather like IBM's OS2 for a while

 

Windows 3.0

I'm not going to take the walk down memory lane on how I worked off two floppy drives with one running the program and the other saving the work. I'm not 'membering Tandy neither!

 

i started with Windows XP Pro