What was your first computer?

[iru]

Kaypro....

I had experience with things like Z80s but first computer I owned was a Kaypro 2 (2 floppy disks) purchased in 1984.
I upgraded this with a new I/O board and a 10MB hard disk.
Worked for years. A lot of programming in Pascal.

I still have the Kaypro2 but one of the video driver chips has failed and things have gone dark.....

[Thaddy]

Hm. There is this week an interesting observation on one of BBC world service science programs:
It is about the - correct claim - that if one claims that a computer is defined as
- task
- definable but variable input
- output
One must assume the loom found in recent Chinese excavations dating from 143 bc western date to be the world's first KNOWN computer since the loom is programmable with something alike the much later punch-cards of our time. It was even - sic -multithreading since a single program could serve upto ~100 looms with the same pattern at once, weaving silk.
This predates Babbage some 2000 years.

Makes me think: my first programmable item was NOT the 1978 TI57, but my mother's programmable - but fully mechanic - knitting machine from 1963: quite some time before that.

[dbannon]

.... the loom found in recent Chinese excavations dating from 143 bc western date
.... my mother's programmable - but fully mechanic - knitting machine from 1963

Yeah, I think FPC supports both of them doesn't it ?

Davo

[Weiss]

Hm...
Makes me think: my first programmable item was NOT the 1978 TI57, but my mother's programmable - but fully mechanic - knitting machine

this makes me think, my first computer (it actually was called "computer" in English) was navigator's logarithmic slide ruler. It was actually quite handy.
one of those:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3ueuinODohU/maxresdefault.jpg

[LV]

In 1642, Blaise Pascal invented the first operational mechanical calculator[1] with better tens-carry. 😁
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_calculator

[valdir.marcos]

Hm...
Makes me think: my first programmable item was NOT the 1978 TI57, but my mother's programmable - but fully mechanic - knitting machine

this makes me think, my first computer (it actually was called "computer" in English) was navigator's logarithmic slide ruler. It was actually quite handy.
one of those:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3ueuinODohU/maxresdefault.jpg

This link tends to break after a while, so I've attached its image.

[backprop]

ZX Spectrum 48K, from 1984 I think. I still have it in working condition as I tested it few years ago when I have make small, nor permanent adjustment to get clean composite video signal out. In the same time I have manage to buy two C64 in questionable conditions, one with perfect earliest  keyboard (which reminds on VIC-20, as first C64 comes with them, with C64 logo) and I have manage to repair one and use second one for spare chips...

[Handoko]

I moved from a village to a small city. Right behind the block of my new house had a small computer shop. Every time I walked pass the shop, I wondered why people sat in front and stared the screen. There must be something interesting. So I asked my parents to buy me one. Months later, they agreed.

Never knew computer was so pricey, so I chose the cheapest one. I got my first computer 8088 with no HDD in 1993. It was very slow, but on the positive side I had to force myself I to write faster code.

I started from BASIC. Later I knew that Turbo Basic can include obj files, so learned Assembly. I wrote Assembly code using debug.com and saved them as obj files so they could be used by TB. A year later I got Pascal 5.0. It was far superior than TB. The generated binaries ran very fast and could access hardware directly. I did not use CRT and GRAPH units. I wrote my own, the display output was performed by direct memory mapping.

[geraldholdsworth]

Wow. Nostalgia time.

My first computer was, in 1984, an Acorn Electron. I later got a BBC Master Compact to go alongside it.

I never got a PC, or even heard of Microsoft or Windows, until the early 90s when I started programming with Delphi version 1.

My old computers got given to my uncle. However, I have since re-aquired another Electron, along with 3 Commodore 64, BBC Master 128, a ZX81 and an Acorn Atom (from 1979). Still got my Acorn RiscPC from when it was brand new in the mid 90s.