Your First Computer Experience

Spectrum 128K +3, followed later by various Amigas.

 

Lets see... I think when I was 3 or 4, there was an Apple in my basement (that's what we called it). But that never worked.
First actual computer experience... kindergartenish, or just before. It must have been a win95. Compton's encyclopedia (1996), I remember that someone on it looked like some bald dude from star trek (who that is, I have no idea- I don't even know how I knew about Star Trek, then). Or, maybe the first computer memory I have is some crayola program I used to play- I don't know which comes first.
First internet experience, I don't know. It must have been in grade 1 or 2 (we weren't allowed into the lab in kind.), and even then, it could only have been on yahooligans. But I don't think that really counts- I really had no idea what the internet was (something like a encyclopedia, I think), and I definitely didn't take it seriously or really notice it until grade 3 or 4- and then, only as a slightly more advance encyclopedia and game. Now, I hear that kids are on MSN in grade 3 .

 

5 years old (1982) - I was mesmerised by the big red button on my uncle's TRS-80 and wondered what would happen if I pressed it...

But, yeah, I got my first PC when I was 5 (TRS-80). You had to load things with cassette tapes (and you'd get the last part of the previous program if you started too early on the cassette). Funny how programs now just plan give you an error if it's missing 90% of its' code.

 

My very first experience was at school, in the third grade. I didn't want to leave the computer lab. I kept pressuring my parents to get me one for my birthday. Finally, two years later, they stopped buying me new bikes, puzzles, baseballs, etc. and got me a computer. Best. Birthday. EVAR.

 

Very first experience was fooling around with a naval battle program a coworker of my father had programmed on their IBM mainframe (room sized, no less) at his work.

He later got a Commodore PET with an amazing 8ko of memory and he programmed another naval battle in basic. I was about 8, so it was late 70's very early 80's.

First computer I got for myself was a brand new C64 with cassette player. It lasted me well through the 80's until I got an Atari 520 ST and them an Amiga 500.
First PC was a 486 DX33 in the early 90's, upgraded to a DX2 a few months later.

Have been buying/upgrading my PC every 2-3 years since. Currently using a laptop, but waiting for my new gig that's due in a week or so (Q9400, GTX260, 2Go DDR3)

Computers : The love of my life.

 

Probably my dad's old Apple laptop, about 1995-96 I would imagine. He must have got some Apple Computers stickers with it because I stuck them all over my room. They were colourful and pretty and looked nice next to the Tots TV and Fireman Sam stickers. And Rosie and Jim obviously. And SuperTed (says NO to bullies!).

The very first experience I remember was looking at a screensaver my dad had downloaded with all sorts of Looney Tunes characters running around a set of floors connected by stairs. I could watch that thing looping for hours. Another favourite pastime was playing games - especially Escape Velocity, Space Junkie and Blobbo Lite, excellent games all (especially Space Junkie).

First use of Internet I can remember is looking up how to say 'Hello' in Ukrainian.

As for use of computers at school, well it's games again, one of which had a scary pixelated witch in that haunted me every night. And then, of course, there were the Zoombinis, but I don't think I ever got all my Zoombinis to the end. Maths Workshop was also a favourite. The first serious thing I remember using a computer for at school was using Windows Logo to draw shapes.

 

For as far as I know, I watched my dad on his Windows 95-Windows 98 computers which made me pick up some tricks.

Afterwards, I always fixed the computers at school.... When I was 5-6. Alt-Ctrl-Dlt does WONDERS on the computers they had, they failed so bad...

 

First saw a commodore Pet home computer at my firends house.

My first computer was a ZX81, but I couldnn't get the tape recorder to work, Then upgraded to a Spectrum which lasted until it broke when I was 17. So I went the pub instead

Didn't then have a computer of any kind for years although I did learn C on Unix workstations after uni. I got a Playstation when I got my first job after uni, then an N64. My brother had a Sega master system and a megadrive though before then.

Someone stole my N64 and Playstation, so I only replaced the N64. I was working on PS1 games at work all day so I didn't want to see the boot up logo again when I got home

Also experience of working with producers from Sony has put me off them for life! So no PS2 or PS3 for me.

At one of my jobs we got a free XBox when we hit a deadline, I got a gamecube at about the same time.

Then I bought my first ever PC, and an XBox360 after my XBox broke. My 360 is broke now. Also have a Wii, that still works fine.

I might upgrade my PC but all I use it for is the internet and playing Civ IV, so the one I have is OK for that.

 

My first computer was a windows 95 that was older than I was. We still have the same computer, but only the case. Everything else has been upgraded.

 

I have a vague memory of a grade school activity involving guiding a turtle to follow a path indicated on a piece of transparency paper placed over the screen of an old Macintosh.

 

Playing with MacPaint on my dad's friends computer. I was about 5 or 6 so this would've been 1984-1985.

 

Was it using LOGO? I remember that project, too.

 

Did you really need to bump this thread when there already a new thread that was almost identical?

 

Why did they have the new thread when this one was already around?

 

First computer experience: Burroughs 6600 at Georgia Tech. 24 hour turnaround on all ALGOL class assignments...

First professional computer experience: IBM 360/75 and 260/91 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Both took up huge rooms. 16KB of core memory was water cooled and took an entire cabinet. The 360/75 had 3 MB of memory (180 cabinets of memory alone).

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/36075.html

First personal computer experience: Played Sublogic FS1 Flight Simulator on a friend's TRS-80 for hours on end.

First personal computer owned: Apple II+. $3300 including 2 3rd party floppy disk drives and an add-on graphics card that allowed 24x80 display of characters (standard display terminal layout at the time) instead of 24x40, which was the best they could get from using standard TVs as monitors.

 

Technically they're different. Because some people use computers before getting one of their own.

 

Really? I don't remember my old computer but all I remember it was only used for typing they way typewriter was used lol. It's got solitaire though. It's probably windows 95.

 

First I could clearly remember was my family's first computer. The only characteristic I remember was it having Windows 95 and having a monitor stained dark pink. I remember amusing myself by creating PowerPoint presentations for fun. This was probably in 1997, give or take a year.

 

It very probably was.

 

I remember that. Only ever used it to make various types of drawings in math class, but I suppose technically it would be the first programming I did, though I didn't think of it that way back then. Always enjoyed the parts of math class where we'd use Logo, though.

I think the first time I used a computer would've been in 1995, using the Windows 3.11 (and MS-DOS 6.22)/OS/2 dual-boot computer my dad bought then. I mostly played a few DOS games, along with Mahjongg on OS/2, and wrote short snippets in Lotus 1-2-3. It was 1997 or 1998 when I first used Logo on an old Apple monochrome-screen computer.