Hardware Happy 30th Birthday, PC

My first PC, that's interesting because i was lucky to have a computer enthusiastic father, with knowledge in both software and Hardware.
When i was born my father had an Atari 800 laying around and he never let me use it afraid that i was going to break it. Eventually i broke the Atari by revenge.
Then he bought an IBM PS/1 with 386, mathematical processor, windows 3.11 and 80Mb of HardDrive (wasn't enough disk space), Sweettttttt. But he still didn't let me use it that much afraid that i broke-tit again.
When he bought the PS/1, i asked to have a computer of some sort, well, i was lucky this time, Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128k with the floppy disk reader on the right of the thing. Many games to play, played 6 and 8 hours strait. Getting older i begin to experience some coding on the spectrum, then my father let me use the PS/1 to code.
Many machines passed thru my hands since then, wich since around 1997 i build them witch a pricipal in mind Money/Performance. Now i just need to read bit-techs hardware guide to now what to buy i no much effort.
There was a good thing having my father forbidding me of messing with his computers, (the forbidden fruit is the most desired) and that i thank him, now im a mediocre sucessfull Program Writer, lol.

 

This article makes me feel old.

I am a little surprised by bit-tech staffs first PCs - P133? 486? I would have thought they had gotten in to PCs before those days.

This article makes me feel old.

 

Herman Holloway? I think you mean Herman Hollerith.

 

To be fair a PC is quite expensive for a child to buy themselves

 

I came in at just the right time with my very first being a P75. Had to upgrade my 8MBRAM to 16MB in order to play Quake, I remember that much. Also accidentally clicking 1280x1024 in Quake 2 using Software rendering was a bit of a mistake

 

My dad used to bring home PCs to do work on in the early 90's. We would play games on them of course. Our first computer was a Mac Performa 5400 that we got for Christmas in '96. I would have been 5 at the time. Most of my memories of that machine involve Doom. It's still in the wardrobe.

 

Read my entry again - my PC was the first PC.

 

1st proper PC, Amstrad 5286, 286 @ 16mhz, 40MB HDD, 1MB Ram (640k conventional, 384k Extended) VGA 256 colours @ 320 x 240 or 16 colours @ 640 x 480.... what a beast!

 

That's not a "convertible" - that's a sentry gun control unit from Aliens!

Well, OK, it's not, quite. But it very nearly is.

 

In paragraph 1, the inventor of the punched-card system should be Herman Hollerith. Great article, though.

 

My first 'PC' was a 286 with 2MB of RAM (upgraded from 1MB). I had previously been using a Commadore 16+4 to play games though.

 

Oops, fixed now

 

I have the same birthday as the PC, awesome!

 

First 2 computer were an Acorn Electron and an Amiga 500. I was then donated an old IBM XT PC by my cousin. From then it went to a Pentim 4 (early Time Machine) and then laptops up to my current i5 13" Acer laptop and an i2600k beast

I remember copying out code from an Acorn magazine and saving it to a tape drive - happy days!

 

ahhh windows 98 Haha, that was my first PC- Dont remember the specs properly as I was still relatively young! Cost a fair bit though, and played Unreal and Turok very well...

Just to add, I was born just after the internet was supposedly created (19 years ago for me, 20 for it)

 

Excellent little article BT. I built a 486 DX2 with my dad out of spare bits and bobs he had. I was maybe 8-10, so you can guess who really did most of the building. Built everyone of my own from that day since.

 

One of the best articles I've read in recent years. Well done guys. My first PC was a White toshiba laptop running windows 3.1, played lots of educational games when I was about 3

Then had a Black Higrade laptop running windows 95 on a 1.25GB HDD. loved my Roller Coaster Tycoon. Loved that machine, managed to melt the underside of it

Then got my first desktop, a K6 600Mhz, 128MB, 4.3GB HDD, Win 98SE, and a Geforce 2 GTS. lovely little machine.

When that died, I built my first machine aged 11. She was an Athlon 3200+ 939, 512MB RAM, Gigabyte board, reused my Geforce, etc etc.

History of PC's is amazing, let's hope the future is just as interesting

 

I remember having FIFA96 in floppys, and to load them one by one... I remember my frustration when one broke down, cd's were a "myth", too expensive...

 

In 1996 I threw away an IBM XT as shown in the photo, monitor and all...it still worked as I started it up before binning it!

It would probably be worth a bit now as a collectors item...

 

That was awesome, and its amazing how technology has progressed in the last 30 years (im 30 soon) so i cant wait to see whats in store over the next 30 years, long live the PC.