Your First Ever PC.

[Encolpius]

Hello,

It really is quite alarming that computer power has spiralled in the past 30 years and costs plummeted. So. What was the first PC you or your family ever owned and its specification? And when was it and how much did it cost?

This is what my family had in 1995 when I was but a wee lad:

- Pentium Classic at 60 MHz (which lasted about a few months before it cooked itself and we had to get a replacement of some sort)
- 8 MB RAM
- Seagate 545 MB hard disk
- ATI Mach64 graphics card
- 14 inch CRT monitor
- Small little beige speakers
- No modem, networking, wireless.
- Windows 3.11
- HP Deskjet 600 black and white printer
- 2x CD-ROM drive (read only)

This set us back around £1,300.00 all in.

 

[Rakk]

Now, are we talking PC's in todays sense of the word PC, or slightly older machines?
First one in my house when I was a kid was a BBC Micro B, no idea how much it cost given that it was quite some time ago.

My first x86 machine was a second-hand 386 50Mhz machine with 50MB of hard drive space and negligable RAM

Hmm, I think I'm showing my age here .....

 

[Corfate]

First of mine was some 6 year old Dell machine that my parents passed onto me when they upgraded the family PC.

No idea of the specs, but i know it took 30-40 mins from when you pressed the power button to when you could actual open programs as Norton would scan on bootup so it was useless till you waited the 30-40 mins

I remember it cost like £1,500 or something silly. Imagine what you could get for that now..

 

[Encolpius]

Oh God. Norton Antivirus.

I used to use that on the lappy-I-had-before-this-one. It was rotten. It slowed everything right down. Then it was asleep at the switch and failed to pick up a bank-fraud trojan that lodged itself on my system while I was mooching round the internets and my account got slightly cleaned out.

I got the money back off the bank, thankfully, but ever since then I've used Kaspersky Labs because you get it free with Barclays online banking. It's also less horribly resource-draining.

 

[truegrace]

Think the first 'PC' the family had was an acorn electron, bring on the chuckie egg

Then apart from the master system/megadrive we got a apple performa 400, which at the time was ace.

Cant remember the exact specs of the first windows PC we got, all I can remember it had a 3.14gb HDD, and kept me occupied for many many hours playing C&C, so cant of been all bad

 

[tom_gr7]

We had Acorn a long number of years ago!

 

[keynes]

Atari computer, can't remember the name and it was mid eighties.

 

[Encolpius]

If it was an Atari ST, we had one of those before getting a PC in '95.

8 MHz! 1 MB RAM! No hard disk!

The music industry reportedly ran off those in the 80s.

But... it couldn't run Crysis.

 

[Wozza63]

I guess im pretty fortunate

3.2GHz Celeron D
512mb RAM
ATI Xpress 200
80GB HDD
Windows XP
DVD RW

 

[marvir]

Green screen 486 where I played Karateka and Monkey Island!!

 

[MadMan]

packard bell pc with pentium 4 about 11 years ago.
40 gb hard drive and 256 mb ram i think
cost more than a £1000

 

[dersta]

This is a great idea for a post!

Here is my very first desktop pc which I think I bought from PC World in 1998, I upgraded to this from an Amiga 1200 ( which is still in my loft ).

Here is the amazing spec:-

Compaq Presario 3060
The QuickSpecs publicity leaflet from August 1999 states

"A breakthrough in PC design to best fit your home and lifestyle! Get all the power, performance, and upgradability of a full-sized desktop. State-of-the-art features deliver total satisfaction like the Intel 200 MHz Pentium processor with MMX™ technology and a DoubleBright TFT display for crisp vibrant images, 4-Disc Autoload CD-Changer offers one touch access to CDs, Cordless Mouse for hassle free setup and use, JBL Pro speakers for outstanding sound performance, Video Phone -Receive capabilities for the latest in communication features, a 33.6K modem for fast Internet access. A friendly, elegant design that’s compact and mobile makes this PC fit into any home decor."

STANDARD FEATURES
Dimensions & Weight (d x w x h)
Unit: 9.12” x 15.10” x 19.0” (28 lbs)
Display Viewer adjustable DoubleBright TFT flat
panel display (12.1” viewable area) - provides rich,
vibrant colors, high contrast, low glare and low
power consumption. Stylish design with tilt display.
Processor 200 MHz Intel Pentium® processor with
MMX™ technology
Hard Drive 3.8 GB Hard Drive
Memory 24 MB EDO RAM (8MB on system board),
expandable to 128 MB
CD Drive Internal 4-Disc Autoload CD-Changer.
One Logical Drive for all 4 CDs makes CD installation
and access seamless
Cache Internal 32-Kbytes, External 256K Pipeline
Burst Cache standard
Diskette Drive 3-1/2” 1.44 MB diskette drive
Peripherals
• Compaq Standard Keyboard
• Compaq Cordless 3 Button Mouse
Graphics
• 2MB EDO video memory
• High performance PCI 64 bit accelerated graphics
• Maximum flat panel display resolution 800 x 600
x 16M
• Maximum non-interlaced resolution of up to 1280
x 1024 x 256 (when supported with external
monitor)
• Full motion MPEG video playback
Stereo Sound
• JBL Pro stereo speakers
• Integrated 16-bit Stereo Sound
• Wavetable audio
• Spatializer® 3D Surround Sound
• User controllable volume/bass/treble, with 3 Band
Equalizer
Compaq Multimedia1 Audio CD player, Video Player
(AVI, MPEG, and others), WAV maker/player/editor,
MIDI maker/player/editor, voice recorder
Video Phone-Receive Software Compaq Video
Phone software allows full color video receive
capabilities
Speakerphone Simultaneous, 2-way (full-duplex)
speakerphone with Adaptive Echo Cancellation.

Talk and Send DSVD Modem 33.6K/14.4K bps
data/fax modem. Compaq software allows simultaneous
transmission of digital voice and data (DSVD)
Fax Center Receive, mark-up and save incoming
faxes; send faxes, with options to schedule, send
or group broadcast
Compaq Phone Center Includes telephone
answering capabilities, more than 4 individual,
password-protectable voicemail boxes; electronic
address book with speed dial; and remote access to
voicemail boxes
Compaq SmartQ Includes Help Center, Technical
Support, and ability to create up to eight (8) customized
Windows 95 environments
Easy Access Buttons CD Select/Speakerphone/
Phone Message/Message Indicator Light/SmartQ Help/
Sleep/Display Brightness
Compatibility Plug and Play compatible
Power Supply Steady-state 85 watts; Energy Star
Compliant
Expansion Slots
• Two ISA expansion slots (one with modem)
• Two PCI expansion slots (one with graphics card)
I/O Interfaces
• 2 USB Connectors4
• Serial RS-232C compatible, DB9 connector (16550)
• Parallel EPP/ECP standard centronics-compatible
interface; (DB25 connector)
• Joystick/MIDI compatible game port
• Two RJ11 phone jacks (1 input, 1 output)
• Four Audio (headphone/speaker, microphone,
line-in/out)
• Mouse and Keyboard ports
1- Compaq Exclusive. 2-All callers under 18 years of age must have
guardian approval. 3- Subject to change without notice. 4- Drivers not
included. 5- Optimized for use with Presario 1425, 1525 and 1725
monitors. 6- Libraries include 100 clipart images and 10 TrueType®
fonts; Corel VENTURA 5 not included.
All Hardware and Software specifications subject to change without
notice. Products mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective companies, including Compaq. The Intel
Inside Logo and Pentium are registered trademarks and MMX is a
trademark of Intel Corporation.

I took it into PC World for a service and also to check that it was Y2K proof. the dreaded millenium bug!!

They broke it during the service and I got vouchers with which I bought a crappy Advent

( I found the picture and the spec on a great site here :- http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/ if you want to find yours )

Dersta

 

[Encolpius]

This is a great idea for a post!

Here is my very first desktop pc which I think I bought from PC World in 1998, I upgraded to this from an Amiga 1200 ( which is still in my loft ).

Here is the amazing spec:- *snip*

Ye Gads! That's... that's... probably the ugliest thing I've seen since Chyne White's sex tape.

And alarmingly, you go into PC World nowadays and you can get Dells and HPs and Lenovos and Macs where all the innards are stuffed down the back of the monitor just like that, so they weren't as stupid as you would have thought, clearly.

Loving the mouse holder though.

 

[dersta]

What a powerhouse it was!!

Superb High Spec...

Processor 200 MHz Intel Pentium® processor with
MMX™ technology
Hard Drive 3.8 GB Hard Drive
Memory 24 MB EDO RAM (8MB on system board),
expandable to 128 MB
• 2MB EDO video memory
• High performance PCI 64 bit accelerated graphics
• Maximum flat panel display resolution 800 x 600
x 16M
• Maximum non-interlaced resolution of up to 1280
x 1024 x 256 (when supported with external
monitor)

What a joke those are now lol

 

[nickaura]

My first PC was was purchased as a family computer back in '95
The computer shown in the below video looks exactly the same as the one I had, only a slight difference in specs.
Mind you, it clearly didn't have a flat LCD monitor, it had a rather fat CRT monitor with built in speakers on each side.

Packard Bell Executive Edition

100 MHz Pentium® processor
8 MB EDO RAM
800 MB hard drive
3.5" floppy drive
CD-ROM drive
Windows 95
Packard Bell Navigator 3.5
Manufactured November, 1995

[video=youtube;3KKy8Y3zOJ4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KKy8Y3zOJ4[/video]

 

[Gorman]

First PC type thing was the Amstrad CPC 464

First x86 type machine was a 386

 

[Stappa]

ZX81 and a Vic 20 when I was a lad.........they were the days.......manic minor&defender of the crown ummmmmmmmmmm,then a gateway(mid 90's) Pent 3@700ghz 192 mb ram 20 gb hhd Voodoo Gfx card win95 lol and a modem for the fine tinternet lol(btw my old gateway still works),my fav first windows game was baulders gate I think??

 

[Encolpius]

Baldur's Gate, good choice my friend.

My 60MHz Pentium wasn't the first x86 box that I used, though. As a kid my pal Oliver had a... 286.

Ohhhhh yeah!

 

[mantadog]

Back in the year 2000 is the first PC we ever had, i still have it packard bell, £1000 worth of pure performance.

The CPU was 1.8Ghz (can't remember what type)
Some sort of integrated graphics
256Mb RAM
30Gb HDD
Windows XP
Floppy drive
CD RW drive
56.6k modem

I remember listing the specs to people at school and they were all blown away. I distinctly remember one of my mates saying " WOW how will you use all that HDD space"

It was great, it could play every game out no toruble, yet by the end of it's life i wanted to smash it because it was such a heap of junk that too half the day to startup.

My one memory of that time was having to use dialup internet, i'm surprised we even bothered to be honest. Youtube didn't exists and it took half an hour to download the smallest file.

I think i might fire it up soon just for a laugh!

 

[kokabel]

I was 14 (so... 11 years ago) when my mum finally got a family computer (after much, much pressure for me). I forget what it was... but it came out of one of those catalogs, like Argos, and included all peripherals as a package deal, and cost nearly as much as my new rig just cost me (over 1k). It ran Windows 98 and had a really teeny tiny bit of RAM. The computer eventually became entirely mine, and lasted until I was 17, with only a small upgrade in RAM and an upgrade to Windows 2000 or whatever it was.

I still remember the tune of the modem connecting to the internet... deedawwwdeeedaaaaw, phhhhrrrrrrrfffff....