What Was Your First Computer

[Canary42]

This is a tad specialist, but is inspired by a couple of entries in Smow's random facts thread, (bhg441's Ferranti Pegasus and TTT's Vax 11/730).

Mine was also a Ferranti (at around the same time as bhg441), the Orion. Ended up coding at machine code level as the compiler for its high level language NEBULA took 60-80 hours or more to compile (non-restartable) and the machine's MTBF* tended to be less.  It was a wonderful machine for its time, with a 48-bit word (against the more common 24-bit) which gave it an immensley powerful instruction set.  However it sold so few that it never really became commercially successful. The technical manual included an appendix of all sites (from memory the Pru had one, there was one in Sweden, and one or two elsewhere). I used to have a newspaper cutting from Computer Weekly of the removal of the one from the Pru but sadly I can't find it now.

P.S. Much was made by its detractors of the anagram of NEBULA being UNABLE. NEBULA as I recall was an acronym of Natural Electronic BUsiness LAnguage.

 

I guess most people's answers will be for their PCs, which should raise a few interesting examples (e.g. ZX81)

 

*MTBF = Mean Time Between Fail, i.e. how long it could keep running without crashing.

[bednobs]

zx81.

it had 1k of memory

[Lie-in King]

My own first was indeed a ZX Spectrum 🙂

Canary - is this the article you mentioned? A bit difficult to read without enlarging it (& I didn't look for the Pru, sorry) -

https://tinyurl.com/4nnm85v9

[Canary42]

Not that one LIK.  I'm beginning to doubt now whether it was  Computer Weekly, may have been one of the other specialist computer newspapers whose name I can't recall.

[ferlew]

A 32K Acorn Electron

[Lie-in King]

Fairy nuff, if you don't mind, I shan't go searching! 😉

[bednobs]

but you could buy a 16k upgrade you plugged into the back

[Cloverjo]

ZX Spectrum.

Remember loading games from a cassette? 
I also spent hours typing in programs from magazines.

I loved it.

[Squitty]

This takes me back - aged 18 working for barclays in willesden on an IBM 370/168. Loads of switches on the control panel - bought the whole thing down one day by idly flicking them because i was a bit bored.

I also worked with the VAX - you must remember the tanks game that you could play as multiplayer from different terminals.

[Canary42]

Thanks for trying LIK. I've now found the cutting which seems to be a montage of more than one (I don't remember making it).  

I haven't got a scanner at the moment so here is a photographic reproduction.

https://ibb.co/55312d1

[david small]

A PCW 128. Green Monitor. Dot Matrix Printer.

[JimF]

First machine I ever worked on was an IBM System/360. Earliest home machine was an ICL Black Box which ran CP/M, which I replaced with a Commodore PC-10 running DOS 3.21  several years later. Paid the extra to include a 3.5" floppy disk and 32MB hard disk instead of the standard 2 x 5.25" floppy system, and the RAM upgrade from 512KB to 640KB.

[Lie-in King]

Well found, Canary!

Barring some very basic COBOL, I didn't code but ran operator shifts for a few multinationals, all on IBM kit (370 & 4XXX?, I think).

At one, I spent around a year updating & de-bloating all the Job Control Language they had in place. 

I used to love night shifts - not being sarky, I really did.

Squitty - I used to live in Willesden 🙂

[piggynose]

Apple Emac G4

[Peter Pedant]

Missed out on the ZX 81 - always suspicious of Clive Doodah.

Beeb - - BASIC and cdnt really do machine code. NOT encouraged by members of the family who then went onto fail themselves. Odd that. - oh and before that Commodore. People were very territorial about their machines in those days.

 

[Peter Pedant]

canary  is your name really Ron Condom?

[The Builder]

Spectrum for me too. Like Cloverjo, I used to type in programs from magazines.  Great fun, but the BASIC was a little slow, so I bought a book and taught myself ASSEMBLER machine code.

I particularly liked writing sound effects. Explosions and alien guns were so much more satisfying than the Spectrum's 'BEEP' command   😁

[-SharonA-]

I first worked on an IBM card punch. Next was a VDU. How times have moved on.

[Radagast]

Apple II Europlus. 64k.

[Ellipsis]

I won't talk about my first computer, as it will age me, but much later in my programming journey, and at home (rather than work), I loved the BBC Micro Model B, especially the game Defender which had amazing audio; and also typing The Stranglers' Golden Brown into a program and being blown away by the result!

[Ellipsis]

This was it ...