I've just increased the scope of the thread a bit - see new titleI couldn't afford a computer in the 80's, so I really can't contribute much.
It still has to be actual home computers though, i.e. not video game consoles!
Man-Machine 80s and early 90s Home Computer Discussion
- Thread starter Andy_T
- Start date
It still has to be actual home computers though, i.e. not video game consoles!
beancounter
The Fire That Burns Within
I've just increased the scope of the thread a bit - see new title
Thanks IS, that helps. My first computer was a hand me down from my step father in the early (to mid? 90's). Sorry, my memory is fading on the exact year. It was an IBM 286 or 386 with a 100MB hard drive and 2MB of RAM. I upgraded the RAM to 4 MB and it cost me around $125. the first program I loaded was Quicken for DOS, and my first PC game was SimCity. I even eventually upgraded to DOS 6.0 - or was it 6.6. Whatever, it was the final version of DOS before Windows 3.11 (if my timeline is correct...)
It's amazing that we are now in a era where terrabyte hard drives are standard.
ledboots
Peace
OP
OP
Ledboots, more likely 4 MB (swapping the 4 256 KB simms with 1 MB simms), unless you also added a 68020/68030 accelerator card.
I remember that upgrading from 1 MB to 2.5 MB (swapping 2 of the simms) already cost more than 500 $ ... 4 MB was the pure luxury, few people I knew did that.
I remember that upgrading from 1 MB to 2.5 MB (swapping 2 of the simms) already cost more than 500 $ ... 4 MB was the pure luxury, few people I knew did that.
beancounter
The Fire That Burns Within
Joe
Forum Legend
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2012
- Reaction score
- 633
No, I've never used VisiCalc. I think we started with a DOS version of Lotus 123, then switched to the Windows version.
While this may be somewhat irrelevant, at about the same time, we purchased a Smith-Corona PWP electronic typewriter, the kind that let you save files to a floppy disk. It had a built-in spreadsheet function, which let you save files in Lotus123 format, and a built-in word processing function, that let you save files in Word Perfect format. You could transfer files back and forth between the computer and the typewriter using the floppy disk. I remember being pretty happy with Lotus and Word Perfect at the time.
Those were the days... Starting out on the Tandy CoCo with a whooping 48 kilobytes of RAM, buying computer magazines for the source code for applications. Then upgrading to a 486 Windows computer.. Windows really sucked hard back then, used it for probably three months the way it was before scrubbing Windows, replacing it with IBM's OS/2 Warp 3 and later Slackware Linux. It's amusing how far things have come. Sad too, the geek in me (or is that masochist?) feels that computers aren't near as much fun as they were when they weren't "user friendly". I remember times trying to achieve something on my server machine that would generally take days to figure out, ending up getting so engrossed in it the scenario would also be continued in dreams at night. Yep... Those were the days...
Chryssie
Internet Junkie
I remember getting a "toy" computer at Kay B Toys for my kids back in the late 80's. I think it was called Odyssey or something similar. It hooked up to the TV, had a few games, and very basic computing and used cassettes. I was not a computer geek until much later as I suffered through really old school keypunching duties as a freshman in college. I hated it and swore I wouldn't touch another computer! LOL Fast forward to the early 90's when I got a job teaching computer skills to pre-schoolers. The first machine I was using was a 386 with Win 3.1 and then Win 95 when it came out. My boss provided the computer which I was able to use at home; she also gave me the internet in the late 90's and after that business failed I got a job in a "mom and pop" computer store. Then I became a geek building computers for a living.
Jeremy helped by introducing me to alternatives to the evil MS. I loved OS/2 and learned Slackware as well.
Jeremy helped by introducing me to alternatives to the evil MS. I loved OS/2 and learned Slackware as well.
Some of my friends and classmates got home computers in the late 80s. Before that I had been playing games on arcades and a console. I was immediately hooked. My first computer was a Commodore 64. It was amazing. I played games like Commando, Rambo - First Blood, Ikari Warriors, International Karate, IK+, The Way Of The Exploding Fist, Double Dragon, The Last Ninja (1,2,3), Arkanoid, The Great Giana Sisters, Kung Fu Master, Bubble Bobble, Robocop, Barbarian, ...
Then I started dreaming about making my own games. I co-wrote a couple of simple games with a friend: one were you had to blow and suck falling drops of assorted beverages into their corresponding glasses. And another which was a sort of Pink Panther kung fu game. This latter one was never completed as we ran out of memory.
And then demos became a thing, and I was involved in that. I suppose most people today have no idea what the demo scene is/was.
Many of my peers replaced their C64s with the Commodore Amiga, which was also an amazing computer, but at the time it seemed like treason to me. So I stubbornly stuck with the C64 for years, until finally there was a good alternative to the Amiga, namely the 386 with VGA video cards which could do 640 x 480 in 16 colors or 320 x 200 in an incredible 256 colours. So I got a 25 MHz 386 in around 1992. I was still involved in playing and writing games, and the demoscene for years after that. I used MS DOS and hated Windows from the minute I saw it.
After I started university in 95, I gradually got hooked on Linux, and of course the Internet.
Then I started dreaming about making my own games. I co-wrote a couple of simple games with a friend: one were you had to blow and suck falling drops of assorted beverages into their corresponding glasses. And another which was a sort of Pink Panther kung fu game. This latter one was never completed as we ran out of memory.
And then demos became a thing, and I was involved in that. I suppose most people today have no idea what the demo scene is/was.
Many of my peers replaced their C64s with the Commodore Amiga, which was also an amazing computer, but at the time it seemed like treason to me. So I stubbornly stuck with the C64 for years, until finally there was a good alternative to the Amiga, namely the 386 with VGA video cards which could do 640 x 480 in 16 colors or 320 x 200 in an incredible 256 colours. So I got a 25 MHz 386 in around 1992. I was still involved in playing and writing games, and the demoscene for years after that. I used MS DOS and hated Windows from the minute I saw it.
After I started university in 95, I gradually got hooked on Linux, and of course the Internet.
Last edited:
I see your early experiences revolved largely around games, IS. I think that's probably the case for a lot of people but funny enough early on I didn't do the gaming part of it at all. I mostly wanted to challenge myself via system/network administration goals once I got into OS/2 and Linux. It wasn't until probably 2004 that I got into the game side of the home PC. It got to the point where I gave in and started using Windows for pretty much the sole reason of having game options.
I must admit though, I've been hearing companies like Valve are broadening Linux gaming, and WINE has vastly improved too. Going back to Linux has been weighing heavily on my mind. How things with the popular distributions has been dumbed down frustrates me. I'd like to go back to something that's more hands on like the old days if I go back. I want to compile a kernel dang it!
I must admit though, I've been hearing companies like Valve are broadening Linux gaming, and WINE has vastly improved too. Going back to Linux has been weighing heavily on my mind. How things with the popular distributions has been dumbed down frustrates me. I'd like to go back to something that's more hands on like the old days if I go back. I want to compile a kernel dang it!
ledboots
Peace
Yes I think it was 4 MB now that you say that. My husband ended up getting lots of interesting external memory devices, so we could use the mac for quite a few years. And dialup!
Joe
Forum Legend
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2012
- Reaction score
- 633
We got our first Pentium in 1994, and the game that was all the rage at that time was Doom. (I've heard that the U.S. Marines liked it so much they even used it for training purposes.) I spent quite a lot of time playing Doom. Mainly, though, the computer was used for spreadsheets and word processing (believe it or not).
I was a bit disappointed that many of the games I used to play on the 386 did not work properly on the Pentium. They would go at super-fast speed and were therefore useless to me.
I was a bit disappointed that many of the games I used to play on the 386 did not work properly on the Pentium. They would go at super-fast speed and were therefore useless to me.
OP
OP
Ah, that explains my earlier confusion about your age. Most people I know were not as loyal as you and ended ditching (or, well, "shelfing", putting aside for possible later use) their C64s when the newer models with 68000 processor came out. But, I remember being really upset when my mother gave away my C64 that was still at home to somebody in the family wanting "some game computer", when I had actually already upgraded to the Atari ST, later the Macintosh and then even a Windows 386 machine (that was when Windows 3.1/3.11 Windows for Workgroups was launched, as the first somehow usable Windows version). Not that I would have used it again (I was missing the floppy), but still ... maybe one day ... how DARE she simply give it away.
OP
OP
And dialup!
Oh yes!
I still remember the sound of my modem, trying to connect to AOL at a whopping 14,400 baud...
so that it could download the new discussion items from other people and upload my answers to the old ones, as the clock was always ticking when connected via phone line to the server...
Imagine my happiness when I found out that at my university, I could get a user ID for the IBM mainframe system to browse usenet, e.g. to do important scientific research on groups like rec.food.veg or rec.humor.monty.python.
Last edited:
The latter days of the C64 saw some amazing achievements, though - both artistically and in terms of programming.
I can understand your frustration regarding the fate of your C64. I had to sell mine to fund the PC, but ended up buying it back later because I was so attached to it. Unfortunately, I lost almost all the games in the process.
beanstew
Certified horsemeat free.
I figured as much actually. I used Gentoo back in the early 2000's and it was pretty much right up my ally at that time too.
For those not in the know about the demoscene, here are a couple of demos relating to this time period:
This first one is a bit repetitive. We were nevertheless blown away, and this is just one part of the demo anyway.
Then we were blown away by this - finally something awesome on the PC:
... then the Amiga struck back the year after:
... and then we were totally blown away with this one on the PC the year after that:
... and then were were completely and utterly blown away when someone re-made Second Reality on the C64!
This first one is a bit repetitive. We were nevertheless blown away, and this is just one part of the demo anyway.
Then we were blown away by this - finally something awesome on the PC:
... then the Amiga struck back the year after:
... and then we were totally blown away with this one on the PC the year after that:
... and then were were completely and utterly blown away when someone re-made Second Reality on the C64!
I completely disagree with this
I want the desktop version of Linux to be slick and user-friendly, and to have the potential to become as popular as Windows and MacOS. If I want a challenge, there will always be the terminal, new server software to configure, and programming tasks to solve.
beancounter
The Fire That Burns Within
What irks me, is that with each version of Windows, MS hides more and more of the OS functionality from the end user. They've gone from one extreme of having too many configuration options to having very few...unless you spend the time digging them up. Windows 8 and 10 are like a smart phone OS that is almost completely obfuscated from the user. I understand why so many people want to root their phones.
Oh, just an FYI for everyone..MS has renamed Windows explorer in Win 10.
Oh, just an FYI for everyone..MS has renamed Windows explorer in Win 10.