Your Earliest Computer Memory

[tuebinger]

Reading that post about DOS today got me nostalgic for the old days. What's your earliest computer memory?

[Lostincyberspace]

playing ultima 1 on a amiga. I was really little. (still have the game and the computer to)

[ShodanjoDM]

Used abacus in my elementary school years, around the same time when my father brought back punchcards - and yellow paper ribbons - from his office. He took me there a couple of times, so I was quite familiar with the sight of a roomful of 'ancient' computers back then.

Few years later we got our own PC in the house.

[FuturePilot]

I remember way back when my school's computer lab had those Macs that used the 5¼ floppies and had the rainbow Apple logo.

[rossdub]

Apple IIe's at my elementary school...first Turtle, then onto the Oregon Trail. It ended there though because I died of dysentery.

[clanky]

BBC (b) micro's at school and ZX81 home computers with a whole 1k of RAM. I remember as a 10 year old thinking how things could never get better the ZX81.

[mmichalik]

I'm with Clanky, I remember working on my Timex Sinclair ZX81and was extra fancy and had the 16k ram pack.

Could you imagine something like that today? I saved programs I had written on cassette tapes. Or at least I tried to, it was always a 50-50 chance of getting the data back off and into the computer.

I had it hooked up to an old 12 inch black and white television through an antenna spliter.

I think I was around 12 or so years old.....

I bet you if I dug around my parents house I could find that old computer. HA!

[saulgoode]

Nine side down!

[Tristam Green]

The Oregon Trail, Turtle, Logo, Leisure Suit Larry (my granddad played it), Prodigy Online Service to play MadMaze and G.U.T.S., and MS Flight Simulator version 4.

God, I miss simpler times!

[ph1sh]

I didn't use computers before buying a 16mb ram Win 95 IBM machine. My first meeting with Linux was, I think, Corel Linux with no sound or internet access. But I remember the thrill of being able to boot it up.
Thank you, Ubuntu Forums' staff. I enjoyed your April Fools joke. It made me laugh a lot.

[NightwishFan]

=D Oregon Trail, I used to love that game. Snakebite got me. :(

[Confuzius]

Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego and Karateka on my XT/286

[waspbr]

I remember myfirst computer (not mine, my dad's really) was a sony MSX. can' t remember the model, I was too young,it had a few cartridges and a tape recorder.

I used to play river raid and decathlon... good times

although the first computer I actually started using was a 486 SL 4MB RAM(or was it 2) and a it had a 9.6 Kb modem, it ran windows 3.1... damn I am old

[ubuntu-freak]

My earliest memory was playing Scorched Earth on Windows 3.1:-)

Earliest console memory was ATARI, until it was chucked out of the window.

Nathan

[blithen]

Apple IIe's at my elementary school...first Turtle, then onto the Oregon Trail. It ended there though because I died of dysentery.
YES! The best game back then: Oregon Trail.
I remember rushing through my math work just so I could be the first one to play that game.

[Het Irv]

Playing games on my Dad's Commodore 64. Too bad I didn't know how cool I was!

[amlucent23]

My family had a ADAM computer that used Cassette tapes instead of disks!

I learned my ABC's playing "Richard Scarey" (he was a worm that drove a apple for a car) game on that thing.

[dnairb]

Sinclair ZX81 (we had one in 1981 IIRC, certainly before April 1982)

Connected to a small black & white portable TV; a 16Kb RAM pack that crashed if you so much as looked at it; with a thermal printer that screamed like a banshee when printing.

[figure9]

Back in 1971 I went to an open house at my dad's company. They had a computer with a 6"x6" screen that they had taught how to play tick tack toe. I could only tie it, but the programmer could beat it. I thought he was a genius, later my told told me he cheated.

[-grubby]

Windows 95

[ODF]

A 386.

Looking like that

http://www.frontier-electronics.co.za/images/old_386dx66.jpg

I can't believe my dad bought something like that for like 5000$

[kutjara]

Back in the early '70s, my dad was an engineer with the US Forest Service, working out of the Arcadia, CA office. He took me to work a couple of times to look at this room-sized computer (complete with clattering tty and spinning reel-to-reel tape) they used to process data from rock samples. Someone had programmed it to play tic-tac-toe, and I thought that was just about the greatest thing ever.

Even more impressive, though, was the fact he had his own calculator in his office. It was larger than a modern desktop replacement laptop and only had four functions, but it looked like science fiction to me.

[Medieval_Creations]

My earliest memory is putting the cassette into the tape drive of our Commodore 64 to play hangman.

[Linuxratty]

The first one I used was for a computer class in college.
it was a Commidor 64.

My first PC had Windows 3.1 on it...I remember loading Win. 95 up from a stack of floppies.

[aomlives]

I first worked on a PC in preschool around the year 1998. It had Windows 3.1. We had do some basic programming things during our special first computerclasses. I enjoyed most playing Tetris, my first computer game. It wasn't until a few years later that I got my own Windows 95 PC, and the first game there was Rayman, although it didn't work properly until the upgrade to Windows 98

[jacob01]

lol Na i have no experience before win 98

[Lord Illidan]

I kinda remember DOS and some wacky 3.11 screensaver..playing Warcraft 2 and Caesar 2 with my dad on the pc :D

[tango_ninja]

My FIRST computer memory was my first machine....the Atari XE (http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8bits/xe/xe_protos/65xem.html)

Good ol' Notator music :)

[amitabhishek]

I saw the first computer when I was 11 (am 29 now) it was a BBC-Acorn (http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=29)computer. As far as I remember it used to boot really fast- the OS must be on ROM. It had two pre-loaded language LOGO :) & BASIC. Few years after that I saw my first IBM-PC it had 256KB RAM and two disk drives. This was the time when I first saw Bill Gates' softwares. Rest is history.

During the same time I saw Turbo PASCAL compilers by Borland & I found it kind of cool to see .com output of the PASCAL programs. Wonder where is Borland now.

[dark_harmonics]

We LOVED our commadore 64. Wizard, Jumpman, Impossible Mission (1 and 2), Digg Dug, Dino Eggs, Smurf Massacre to name a few. I grew up playing on this 64k system and used it well past when it was outdated because the games were just so cool! Oh dont let me forget to mention Ultima 5 and Pirates!

[ugm6hr]

I saw the first computer when I was 11 (am 29 now) it was a BBC-Acorn (http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=29)computer. As far as I remember it used to boot really fast- the OS must be on ROM. It had two pre-loaded language LOGO :) & BASIC.

Me too. I think Acorn continued to have OS on ROM / EPROM for years after that ((in the Archimedes).

I remember having games on tape - mainly text-based "adventures".

[Tomatz]

Playing phoenix on an atari 2600 :)

[samwyse]

Watching my brother play Commodore 64 games in the mid 80's.

I don't like the poll options.

[EnergySamus]

I watched my mom use our Acer Aspire w/ Windows 95!!!

EnergySamus

[jgrabham]

A 486 with Win 3.11

(I was like 3, Yes, I could use a GUI when I could hardly read, and couldnt write)

[Nezing]

Mine was probably the Sinclair ZX Plus,circa 1984,with tape-deck loading.Often the wailing sound of the tape,winding itself into knots,meant that "Specky",as it was known,would not play today.However,some of the games,such as Chookie Egg,did work,and kept me happy for hours.Sad really.

My "true" pc experiance,came with Windows 3.1.Did I really have to install nine floppy discs? :lolflag:

[Het Irv]

the second memory I have is of my Dad doing a tape backup on our computer. Better hope he didn't decide to backup on a rainy day.

[Namtabmai]

I think the earliest memory I have of computer type equipment is a machine that goes *PING*

After that it's got to be the BBC micro they had at my primary school which I managed to convince the head master to lend me for the summer holidays one year. In fact I didn't actually get a PC of my very own until 1990, strange that I still managed to make a career in programming even with this late start in PCs.

[louieb]

Typing up Punch cards for my FORTRAN class in 1977.
The first CRT sent me to hog heaven green letter on a black background. No more retyping and sorting cards. No more green bar paper or teletype. CGA and EGA monitors cool finally got color. Thought Win3.0 was pretty nice beat the heck out of using DOS.

:guitar:And now I smile when I see post saying how hard Ubuntu is to use.

[GOROSSI]

Does my older Brother's Chess computer must be about 28 years old now still works last time I looked. I can remember watching him use when I was about 3 in about 1988.

Otherwise It was Research Machines 186 presumably Intel I used them right up till I was 13 ran MS- DOS no Hard drive had to load DOS from a floppy first and use a second drive to run the software some of the older boxes had 5 1/4 " floppy newer one's had 3 1/2"

We used a quaint word Processor amongst other stuff called Caxton after William Caxton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Caxton) That Used to print to a Research Machines Dot Matrix Printer that was black and white.

The Company Is still in business today and they still used the same Logo Site Link (http://www.rm.com/Home/RMComHome.aspx) Ahh Memories.... and I'm only 22.

Otherwise my first console was a second hand Sega Master System with Alex the Kidd in Miracle World just Hope Nintendo release it on the Virtual Console in Europe as the Master System isn't liked by my current TV an Emulator just isn't the same.'

[heartburnkid]

My first computer memory was unwrapping a Commodore 64 on Christmas morning, 1984. By the end of the day, I had it hooked up to the TV and was copying BASIC code out of the instruction manual. And I was 5 years old at the time.

Of course, I was reading at 3, and writing at 4 (though my penmanship was absolutely terrible until I was 11 or so).

[xpod]

My first computer memory was unwrapping a Commodore 64 on Christmas morning, 1984. By the end of the day, I had it hooked up to the TV and was copying BASIC code out of the instruction manual. And I was 5 years old at the time.

Me too around the same time,although i was in my teens by then:)
The novelty soon wore off mind you and although i had an interesting -year with that C64,with it`s tape recorder & quickfire joystick the novelty soon wore off. That was really the last i`d touched a pc until 2 years ago........20 of those 24 months with *buntu & Co now although the initial 4 months with Windows seemed soooo much longer for some strange reason:)

I remember that manual too though and that itself was what probably put me off for the next 20 odd years:)
I still blame that joystick and those track & field games for the Carpals Tunnel all these years later..
I came back along to PC`s at just the right time if you ask me though......6.06:biggrin:

[bonzodog]

My earliest computer memory was at primary school in 1982 (?), the school had a BBC Microcomputer, with 16k RAM.
In 1984, I was given a ZX81 to play with, and I started learning how to program in BASIC, then we upgraded to a ZX Spectrum 48k,and I wrote text adventure games on that with the help of a computer maagzine series. I also started playing with the Commodore 16, then the Plus/4, then the Commodore 64. After that came the Sinclair QL, then I was introduced to my first PC, a business workstation running HP/UX.
I played with DOS for a while, but my fathers business purchased a Unix terminal network, which i started learning the CLI on. I started on Linux in 1996, and never actually had windows on any of my home PC's, apart from a brief 6 month stint with win 98se on pentium 166.

[geoff07]

Mine was in 1968, learning Fortran in the sixth form at school with punch forms. A five-line quadratic solver took two weeks turnaround. One week to be punched onto cards at the council offices and then back to be corrected using a hand punch and the second to be submitted and run on their IBM 360. I learned the magic phrase 'Linkage editor cannot continue' which I later understood as broadly the equivalent of the Windows blue screen.

It got me started on a career in IT which ended recently when I retired from the Deputy CIO role in a major global company.

[Mazza558]

I vaguely remember the first PC I used was my dad's old work laptop - it had Windows 3.1 on it (though I didn't know at the time). When we got our first desktop, it had WIndows 98 on it - it was a Packard Bell. I remember saying "why do we need as computer! I'll never use it!" Either way, it had this "packard bell navigator" on it, which was wierd.

[danbuter]

What, no mention of the TRS-80?

[tad1073]

Commodore 64

[diablo75]

Seeing my uncle fire up our new Acer with a 10Mhz "Turbo" 8088 Processor, and at some point, executing an exe called "aquarium.exe". It looked something like this:

http://www.dans20thcenturyabandonware.com/images/screen-shot-gallery/dos-sw/aquarium-1046.gif

I said, "I wanna play that game!" I had just turned 5, and had yet to learn what a "screen saver" was all about.

[rolnics]

Commodore 64

+1

Many an hour spent on that machine, and that was before playing the game!! :lolflag: I think I might still have it somewhere . . . .

[Blue Heron]

Reading that post about DOS today got me nostalgic for the old days. What's your earliest computer memory?

Buying a 286 for 2,000 Deutsche Mark :KS

[Metro_Dan]

A 286 with DOS, All I remember is playing Commander Keen and Lemmings, I was like 7 or 8 that was early 90's

[Saint Angeles]

i was raised on the mac classic.

math blaster, where in the world is carmen sandiego, some old typing tutor game... and cannon fodder.

then it was replaced with... i think it was a quadra? or performa?

it was some colorful version of the mac classic OS... not sure about the version number. didn't keep much track of macs until OS X came around.

[Tundro Walker]

Apple IIe's at my elementary school...first Turtle, then onto the Oregon Trail. It ended there though because I died of dysentery.

Dysentery or a broken wagon wheel ... it was always the same, sad result. The west would have never been populated if real life was as harsh as that game.

[finferflu]

Issuing commands at the prompt of my Commodore 128. I had learnt them by heart and I used them to play games off floppy disks... no they were called "diskettes" :D
I was about 6 years old :D

[Trenchbroom]

Catholic elementary school, 3rd grade, 1981. The nun's lived in the building next door. One day they dragged around the computer that the parish purchased from them, going from one classroom to another on a little roller cart.

Big beige box. They started up the computer and up on the color monitor came (of all things) a horse racing simulation! So we all got to pick which horse we thought would come in first and "bet" money in teams.

Deliciously ironic that I learned what a home computer was (the largest corruptor of my soul in this world, hands down) AND the vice of gambling from the blue habit nuns in St. Rose of Lima Elementary School! Ha!

I remember craning my neck to see the name on the keyboard---F R A N K L I N. Yes, it was a Franklin Ace 100, legendary illegal copy of the Apple II.

[Jareth]

Copying specy games with cassettes!
Wasted hours doing that.

Crash magazine! Your Sinclair!

[Het Irv]

Dysentery or a broken wagon wheel ... it was always the same, sad result. The west would have never been populated if real life was as harsh as that game.

I don't know whats wrong with you guys, I made it to the end most of the time.....or I failed 80% of the time and I am repressing those memories.

[Scotty Bones]

I was probably 3 or 4. It was a leading edge model D. One of the first IBM clones, dual 5 1/4 floppies, an amber monitor, DOS 1.10 and nibbles.

Gotta love Nibbles.

[roachk71]

When Apple Computers Still Used the Rainbow-Colored Logo. The elementary school I attended back then had a computer lab with about two dozen Apple IIs.
Not only that, but when TRS-80 Model I and Timex-Sinclair 1000s were about the only affordable Z80 machines.

[Jack78]

I only started using computers regularly a few years ago (first memory struggling to type in office 95/97 probabably).

[stoodleysnow]

My earliest computer memory? 64k.
:mrgreen:
*ducks*
quack.

[steveneddy]

My earlier computer memory was 32 mb - I think.

[wormser]

First grade and the Commodore Pet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET). It was pre 64.

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/commodore_pet2001_clavier-merdique.jpg

[renzokuken]

BBC computer and Logo



REPEAT 100 [FORWARD 100 RIGHT 75 FORWARD 90 LEFT 65]

[Belliinator]

Black and white macs.

Then the abacus, only due to a cinematic on civ2

ahhhh the good old days ;-)

[nge]

I remember my dad's XT with 4k's of RAM and 4 colors. That's when I was 6 or so ..
Digger is the only memory left beside WordStar. Oh, and 5.25" FDDs.

[jespdj]

You forgot to add the following option to your poll:

When I was about 11 years old, a friend from school (named Richard) had a computer at home. I don't know what model or brand it was, it was one of those computers that were popular in 1982. (It wasn't a Commodore 64, which was my own first computer two years later).

He had a game on it in which you had to fight a Godzilla (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla)-like monster. Note, it did not have any graphics, it was a text-based game where the computer would print out a line of text saying something like "There's a monster coming", and you had a choice to your next move, then the monster would come and destroy the city, etc.

He hacked with hexadecimal code on the computer to change something in the game. I had no idea what he was doing, but I was intrigued.

[Bungo Pony]

Typing in a program called "Shoot The M's" into a TRS-80 Model I.

I also remember the Commodore CBM/SuperPET lab in high school. We all had to take turns loading the WP software off the sole floppy drive in the entire lab :D

[raymac46]

1964 - Visited the Computer Centre at University of Toronto and saw an IBM mainframe. I'm guessing it was a 7094.

[Sandsound]

Atari... but I only used it for Cubase (music-program).

[Kevbert]

Punch card readers and ticker tape (while at school). At work an old PDP-8 with a non-graphic game called Wumpus.

[Bungo Pony]

^^Haha, believe it or not, I actually have the BASIC program listing for Wumpus in a book.

[testecletes]

Dang, you guys are old school.

My earliest computer memory has to be the Apple ][E with the green and black screen. I loved how we got to play Oregon Trail during computer time. The teacher noticed that we would just sit around shooting bison, and she made us play the typing game.

[fela]

I'm only 12, but my earliest computer memory is trying to use photoshop 5 or 6 on our old beige PowerMac G3. Those were the days.lol