Your First PC

[-Psy-]

I remember my first PC in 2001. It was around the time that the Gorillaz were big and there were CDs which had special "enhanced" features when you popped it into a PC.

It was from a local computer store and cost around ?400. This was a time where "CPU" and "RAMz" meant nothing to me. I had a PC, I was on top of the ****ing world.

Paint was the most amazing thing ever. Wordpad was unbelievable with it's TEXT FORMATTING. The Windows 98 logo was the sexiest thing I had ever seen. Hell, even the beige case with blue bits all around the sides was enough to get me excited.

I played my first PC game ever, Quake 3 Arena and it was awesome but this is where it all went down hill.

I pop in Medal of Honour, and the damn thing kept crashing, over and over again. This is when I realised how frustrating PCs can become. After poking around the case a little and eventually sending it back to the shop, I found out that I had "onboard graphics" which wasn't capable of playing Medal of Honour properly.

Upgrading from 98 to XP was a pain in the ass. I installed XP, installed Lego World and IT DIDN'T ****ING WORK!!! I was in a state.

Even after all the crap that all my PCs have put me through, I can't help but love them but I know that I'll never get the same feeling I got when I got my first PC...

 

[Eejit]

Isn't there one of these threads every few months?

I don't know exactly what the first PC I used was. All I remember is it was 40MHz and had Windows 3.1.

 

[StardogChampion]

Pentium 120mhz, 8MB RAM, Windows 95.

It was about 1996 and I remember Monster Truck Madness was on a demo CD around that time. Amazing game where you could go off the track up into the mountains. Interstate 76 came out soon after and it was the best game ever.

 

[Unfocused]

Pentium 75Mhz
8MB RAM (upgraded to a whoopin' 24MB later on)
S3 Virge 1MB
Windows 95

It came with a bunch of apps, including NASCAR. Once I managed to get it running (which was tricky, cause it liked DOS more) it was lots of fun driving in the wrong direction and crashing into oncoming cars.

 

[joule]

I don't remember. I was too noob to know the specs. =/

 

[Eejit]

No other pre-Windows95ers yet? Pfft

 

[Qhartb]

No other pre-Windows95ers yet? Pfft

Fine. I don't remember much about it, but as I recall it was a 25MHz 386SX with Windows 3.1 and started with MS-DOS no later than 5.0. I don't remember how much RAM it had, but I remember it had an off-chip cache that looked sort of like memory but wasn't.

Before that, my dad had an old Mac (which we still have somewhere) and a TI-99, if that counts, but the Mac I didn't get to use much and the TI I didn't really use as a computer (more like a crappy game system).

 

[Asus]

My dad owned many computers as I was growing up which I used. Although the first one I owned was in 1998 I think. Bought the parts and put it together. My dad helped of course.

650MHz AMD CPU Slot A
Asus motherboard
128 MB at first
20GB hard drive
CD drive
Creative dvd decoder card
creative DVD-rom
beige steel mid-tower case
15" CRT
200 watt PSU

still works...

 

[Mc Bane]

ZX spectrum 48k. u loaded software with tapes.

 

[Kyorisu]

ZX spectrum 48k. u loaded software with tapes.

Tape drives, ah those were the days.

 

[Qonfused]

We've had PCs in the house before, but my first PC was a 1.8GHz AMD Barton with 512MB of RAM and a 9600XT. I mainly played CS:S and America's Army (lol).

 

[Naudian]

The first computer my family had was some HP thing with Windows 98. I think the first games I installed on it were Need For Speed II and Caesar II. NFS2 was so much fun

 

[Raziaar]

My first computer was a Commodore 64. And man I loved that thing, playing games on it like Pool of Radiance... Aztec Challenge... Summer games, Winter Games, and more.

The first computer I bought with my own money, was back in 2003 for Half-Life 2. I'm still using it. The only things that are changed are 2 gigs more memory, and my video card(since the original radeon 9800 died).

 

[theotherguy]

Powermac 7100

Hell yeah.

 

[DreamThrall]

The first PC my family had was a 386. Not a 486, a 386, yes, with Windows 3.1. My dad brought the Wolfenstein 3D demo home on a set of 5 1/4" floppies, and it was glorious... Unfortunately, we didn't have a sound card, so the sound effects were limited to the PC speaker.... but it was still awesome. I remember playing that first episode over and over with my brother.

A couple years later, we got a 486 and I remember when we first started getting the AOL and compuserve cds (or were they floppies?)... even though I knew we didn't have a modem, I always tried installing them anyways, hoping they would *magically* work. When we finally got a modem, I realized you needed a credit card for it to work.. that sucked.

 

[Higlac]

I'm a ****in retard.


My first comp: $3500 Acer Acros
Windows 3.1
486 66 Mhz processor
upgraded to 4 MB of memory
4X cd drive (installed later, now you need to pound the case to get it open)
tape drive
3.5 inch floppy drive
and a modem not measured in K

I remember playing a flight sim that I had to load through dos. That and Chex Quest. And math blaster.

 

[Ennui]

33mhz Windows 3.1 with 4mb of RAM, had a floppy drive and tape drive. I was only six or so when we had it, but I loved using it and played games on it all the time (including Wolf3d and X-Com )

 

[Naph]

I can't remember the specs but Windows 95 wasn't out :/
3.2's paint was the best, I'd spend so much time on it.

 

[Eejit]

My first computer was a Commodore 64. And man I loved that thing, playing games on it like Pool of Radiance... Aztec Challenge... Summer games, Winter Games, and more.

The first computer I bought with my own money, was back in 2003 for Half-Life 2. I'm still using it. The only things that are changed are 2 gigs more memory, and my video card(since the original radeon 9800 died).

Wait, do Commodore 64s count as PCs? If so I guess we had one of those before the 40MHz PC.

Time travel, the 9800 isn't out yet...

Blame Stern
(actually he means the ATi 9800).

 

[Beerdude26]

A 486, no idea what the specs were. Good old Paratrooper, DooM, Dune 2 and Slipstream 5000.

 

[Zephos]

Ex-government computer baby.

I was 7.

 

[Dynasty]

Mine was a 486, cant remember the specs.

Mustve been mid 1990s.

Red alert, doom etc ftw

 

[Shippi]

.

 

[Druckles]

My first own computer I obtained a couple of years back. It was given to me by a friend of the family.

Pentium III 700MHz
512MB PC100
<20GB HDD
MSI motherboard (Don't recall any more)
3D Rage Pro 8MB (Or something of that variety)

I used this PC for about two years until July last year, at which point I had finally saved up enough money to purchase my own PC which I built. It's a sad story, I know :'(

 

[kacation_man]

my first computer was a laptop really.

When i was in the 5th grade i wanted a laptop and was looking at those lame learning laptops they got in the toy section of any department store. my dad say " you dont want one of those.."
So for my birthday he gave me an old lap that I think he got from my grandmother ( who had got the lap top for my dad ). I seriously knew close to nothing about computers other then the fact that it could play games and i could doodle pictures. This sucker was heavy too. It was barely running windows 3.1 on it.

After that thing went out ( god knows when ) i got some crap computer for my middle school graduation ( hardly an achievement worth a price, but whatever ). I had like... a 1.6 Ghz processor, 512 mbs of ram, and 40 gig hard drive. This thing came with some linux os on it called lindows. formatted it, and put xp on it.

A friend of mine my freshman year was telling me about this game called half life.. he said it was pretty cool game and that he could get me a copy of it ( i know you dont like pirates here, but if he never got me that copy of half life 1, i would have never spent money on half life 2, dod source, or the orange box!! ). I got it, installed and loved the shit out of it. I wanted Half life 2 after finding out there was a second one... I unfortunately did not have the specs to run it and was in need of a new graphics card. That Christmas i got a nvidia 6200 and from then on I've been a computer lover/nerd ( same difference )

 

[MRG]

My first PC was a C64 as well, which I had for several years before buying the fastest computer that in 1991, $2,800 could buy locally in Lake Tahoe. Which turned out to be a Packard Bell, 486DX2 33mhz w/onboard SVGA graphics, 2400 baud modem, 4mb RAM & a 120mb HDD. In 1993, I bought my very first add in sound card, a Sound Blaster Pro that came with 2 speakers & cost me $99.

-MRG

 

[Shakermaker]

My first own computer was an Apple IIc. That was the first 'portable' computer the company made. Found a great pic with both Wozniak and Jobbs.

You still needed a seperate monitor. The set-up looked like this:

I also had that joystick

Oh, and the specs:
1.023 MHz processor
128 KB RAM
5.25 floppy drive

 

[CyberPitz]

The only thing I really remember was that it had a Turbo button...I always made sure to click it before opening up Wolfenstein 3D

 

[staticprimer]

I remember playing a flight sim that I had to load through dos. That and Chex Quest. And math blaster.

**** YES CHEX QUEST! Electric spork ftw!

 

[Dan]

$3000 for a Packard Bell with 256 MB of hard drive storage capacity.

 

[Sanada]

Our first ever PC (family) was a Tiny PC. It could only just about run Doom without pausing to read the hard disk.

Specs

AMD 75Mhz (Don't know what model).
8MB RAM (Later upped to 32).
1GB HDD
Soundblaster card
1MB graphics card (don't know what it was).
CD-ROM
Windows 95

 

[Javert]

I don't recall the specs of my VERY FIRST computer. It had a floppy drive, and ran Windows 3.11. I played Solitaire and Reader Rabbit on it.

 

[theotherguy]

I remember wanting so badly to play Starcraft on my first computer, but I didn't have enough raw hard-disk space to even store the game.

 

[lanceleader]

I had a Commodore Vic-20 from a yard sale before my first real PC in 2000:
Pentium 3 667 mhz
64 mb ram
10 gig hard drive
voodoo 3 3000 video card

 

[Saturos]

My first PC was a Windows 95 system with a PentiumIII and a Matrox trident <(I think the trident series was made my Matrox) 64MB video card.

A real POS, even for it's time. At least it could still run FPS games like Blood and Redneck Rampage though. :| Oh yeah, and Myst too.