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Coffee House => Coffee House Boards => CH / General => Topic started by: PMC on November 17, 2004, 03:35:46 PM
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What was your first computer / console?
We're sat in the office swapping stories on our first computers right now, mine was a Spectrum +2, another guy started out with a Vic 20 and one of the younger chaps had a Nintendo SNES.
My brother has an orginal Atari 2600 lurking in his attic somewhere too, complete with about 20 odd cartridges, joysticks / paddle controllers... Must be at least 25 years old!
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Mine was a Spectravideo SVI-728 (MSX).. wrote first programs from magazines when I was six years old. Too bad it broke down in the early nineties. After that it was all just x86s. Bought my first Amiga in 2002 :-D
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A ZX-81, when I was about 4 or 5. No sound, no colour, no graphics except text blocks. It came with only two games, Bomber and Space Invaders, and the latter never loaded. We did buy a third, a sort of Elite-like space trading game without the graphics, but I don't remember anything about it and we seem to have lost it. I still have the manual though. Looks in-depth, but how indepth could it have been on 16K? The games were too expensive and rare to buy more.
You could also program on the ZX-81, but by the time we started getting the magazines with BASIC listings to make your own simple stuff the ZX-81 was hardly supported any more.
Bit of a waste of money in hindsight...and it was really quite expensive, especially considering it was during a very hard time.
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Yeah mine was the ZX81 with no ram pack just 1k of ram, I sat and typed in a 1k program out of a magazine just to run it and see an asterisk run alomg the screen chasing a graphic block.
Not even a tape recorder at the time just the ZX81, are those were the days............
And do you remember the 16k rampack and you would save the program only to accidently move the rampack and lose the lot.
Yep great fun wasnt it...... :lol: :lol:
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Oh crikey... I never used a ZX81, but I can imagine it taught you how to program. I remember making all kinds of BASIC programs for my Speccy for graphics and stuff. I'd spend hours typing in some code and then the thing would either fall over due to dodgy electrics on our house or the end result would be uninspiring in the extreme.
I seem to remember Spectrums were limited to 8 colours (with two per 8x8 pixel grid), tinny beepy sound and loading games by cassette. It was very much the underdog, but most people seemed to have them.
Mates with C64s liked to show off and friends with rich parents bought Amstrad CPCs. Those chaps who's parents had no idea bought them BBC Bs....
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ZX Spectrum 48k. :-)
My dad bought it in 1084, I believe. In 1986, he bought us a C64c, and sold the ZX Spectrum 48k. I was sad that the Speccy had to go, but in my dad's mind, when you upgrade, the "old" computer/device/machine/object/whatever is no longer required. :-x
I must admit that the MOST fun I've definitely experienced with C64. :-)
I got into Amigas in the summer of 1995 (late start, I know).
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While we're on the nostalgia thread, does anyone know where I can find some (Legal!) emulator programs for those old machines?
I've struggled to find a useable C64 emulator for my PC and on the Amiga side I've had good results from Magic64. I found a great Amiga Speccy 128 emulator, but for some reason it now locks up whenever I attempt to load it, despite me having tried to reinstall it... A broken library file methinks.
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A ZX81... My father wrote a little "etch-a-sketch" Program for it... that kept me amused for hours... This was when I was about 3 or 4... when I was about 6 or 7 I found the ZX81 Basic Manual and wrote loads of programs most of while I pain-stakingly saved to cassette, only to find most would never load again...
You had to be really careful too if you wobbled the power jack the machine would reset.
In '88, I was in acomputer class at school and my teacher was really impressed as I was far in advace of the rest of the class... he asked me if I had a BBC at home, I told him I had a ZX81... he got really excited and dissappeared for about 10min, only to return with a 16K ram pack!! Which he have to me. THat was nice, I could then load up a chess game that needed 16k...
Then in 1989, it was decided to get me a new computer... I wanted an 286 like my mate had... or maybe an ST like another friend... then in the back of the shop there was an A500, which after about 10mins of playing with I decided I wanted.
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PMC wrote:
While we're on the nostalgia thread, does anyone know where I can find some (Legal!) emulator programs for those old machines?
I've struggled to find a useable C64 emulator for my PC and on the Amiga side I've had good results from Magic64. I found a great Amiga Speccy 128 emulator, but for some reason it now locks up whenever I attempt to load it, despite me having tried to reinstall it... A broken library file methinks.
I have a ZX81 Emulator for DOS (Works fine in NT though). I can Email it if you want it.
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At home, until 1988 (when I was 8) at home we only had a self built computer
no games on it
After that, we had a 386SX
Got my A500 back in 1997, for the purpose of playing games
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PMC wrote:
I've struggled to find a useable C64 emulator for my PC and on the Amiga side I've had good results from Magic64. I found a great Amiga Speccy 128 emulator, but for some reason it now locks up whenever I attempt to load it, despite me having tried to reinstall it... A broken library file methinks.
What do you think of WinVice?
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Spectrum 48k here, then 128k+2 (the grey model), then a GameBoy, then a P75 with 16MB ram (top of the range in those days ;-) ), then the A1200 in 1997.
Now though I've got 2 MegaDrives, a MasterSystem, 2 A500s, an A500+, an A600, 2 PSX (MkI and MkII) and a PS2.
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TRS-80 model IV, then a C-64, Amiga 500, 2000, 386, pentium 133, pentium 200MMX, pentium II 300, pentium III 733, Tualatin Pentium III 1.13Ghz, Athlon XP 3200+.
I have never owned a console gaming system...though I've often considered it for final fantasy X and X-2
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The Amiga! What else?
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A pirate-version of the NES. It had 20 games built-in, and I guess I had around 15 original games for it.
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An secondhand A500 just when the A1200 was launched. :-P
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Well, for me it all started with those fold-out hand-held games: anybody remember Donkey Kong? This is what I had:
http://www.ggdb.com/GGDB/DetailsZoom.asp?Cat=All.Handheld.GameWatch&VID=5764&PID=1388&NID=3&TID=Game
Edit: I forgot about Phaser Strike. I loved it:
http://www.handheldmuseum.com/MB/MVPhaser.htm
And after that I got Epoch man (a pacman clone):
http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Epoch/EpochMan.htm
This brings back memories, I can hear the little beeps and imagine the texture of the jump button on the Donkey Kong. At school breaks we had regular get-togethers, looking to see who had recently got a new game, and then we'd swap for half an hour and play them. I remember one guy had a triple-screen game and we were all in awe of it.
Then I got an Atari 2600. That gave me a lot of joy, especially with games like Demon Attack, Planet Patrol, Berserk and Yar's Revenge.
It's funny that nothing gives you the same feeling as that Atari 2600. Then I went through a typical computer evolution:
C64 (our school was polarised, Speccy vs C64, and I chose the right team) :-P
A500 (1991)
A600 (1993)
B2000 (1993) (after ditching the A600 after 2 weeks)
A1200 (1995)
another A500 second hand (had sold the first one in '93 and got the second one in '95 because I wanted the monitor that came with it. The guy wouldn't sell it separately.)
A4000T (1996)
I still have the A500 and the A4000T.
Then I got a PS2 in late 2001, and I only finally 'defected' to PC in late 2002 because of my research. I actually felt sick paying for it. I would have preferred a Mac but I had been doing unpaid research for a year and money was tight, so I got a £400 PC. It has been surprisingly well-behaved.
I've often thought of selling this A4000T because I don't actually need it for anything, but it has sentimental value and I just can't let the old girl go. At some stage I might take it out of the original case and have a custom case made for it, a lot smaller, and with better access to the inside, kind of like an A4000D, but not that cramped, and way better looking.
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@X-ray
During my very brief school career in Cape Town (circa 1987-88) I recall our school had several Spectrum 48K machines, some of which were modded with Saga keyboards.
I was dismayed one afternoon to discover several PCs being installed in our computer room. I was quite amused when Mr De Jager (our IT teacher) explained that the large metal box was mostly empty and the PCB was little bigger than that in our beloved Spectrums...