Do you feel old yet?

[blackmiau]

I laughed :)

Kids react to old computers

[JorgeM]

That's awesome.

[ddanbe]

I worked years with an Apple II. It was coupled to an atomic absorption spectrophotometer and processed and printed out my measured data.

[pritaeas]

Absolutely brilliant. Now give them an even older one, with punchcards ;)

[blackmiau]

My first computer was the one pictured below. Compaq Presario CDS 520 with a 66MHz Intel i486DX and 32Mb RAM :)

I managed to "break it" on the same day I got it, too. Had to be taken back to the shop the next day. That's what you get for being a curious kitty :)

[pritaeas]

I had this first at home:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Atom

[blackmiau]

I wish I could get my hands in any older computer. I'm curious like that :)

[nullptr]

The first computer I actively used was an Atari 1040ST, mainly to be able to run Steinberg Cubase.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST

[Reverend Jim]

My first personal computer was a Commodore 64, followed ASAP by an Amiga 1000. The first computer I ran a program on was an IBM 1620.

[JorgeM]

My first computer was also a Commodore 64. I wish i had kept it.

[Hiroshe]

Also a Commodore 64. Kept using the monitor as a tv up until 2007-ish. Worked beautifully. It was a hand-me-down though. I'm not quite that old.

[diafol]

I had friends, so I never touched a computer until in was in Uni (1987). :)

[pritaeas]

I had friends

Showoff...

[blackmiau]

I had friends (...) was in Uni (1987)

I was a little kid then, and my friends were my books and the house cat...

[ddanbe]

My first in 1983 was a TI99/4A

[diafol]

Mine was a word processor: Amstrad PCW 9512 - it was crap for everything including word processing. (I was a late starter in 1990!)

here's a vid: epic fail

[DMR]

Now give them an even older one, with punchcards

... And after putting them through that ordeal- sit the poor, frustrated kids down at a Dumb Terminal, connected to its mainframe by an Acoustically-Coupled Modem, and let them enjoy a relaxing game of Hunt The Wumpus (the original command-line version, of course!)

[happygeek]

Mine was a word processor: Amstrad PCW 9512

Blimey, hark at Mr Moneybags. I could only afford a PCW 8256.

I was into the Amiga originally, used to write for various Amiga magazines (there were loads of them on the newsstand back in the day) as well as ezines (anyone remember Just Amiga Monthly, or JAM for short?) and had a hand in a few games on the AmigaDos platform - mainly creating level maps and stuff.

[blackmiau]

On second thought, I feel like a little kid next to all of you...

[DMR]

...used to write for various Amiga magazines (there were loads of them on the newsstand back in the day)

Crikey- you're right... there were loads of Amiga mags available in print back then, weren't there?
I'd forgotten just how popular the Amiga platform was until you just brought it back up... very cool.

[DMR]

On second thought, I feel like a little kid next to all of you...

It's all good blackmiau- hang on to that thought about being a little kid.
And when you get to be around our age... hang on to that thought even more! ;-)

[blackmiau]

I'm a 34 year old kid :)

[diafol]

Blimey, hark at Mr Moneybags. I could only afford a PCW 8256.

Heh - paid with my PhD studentship - it wiped out a large chunk - about £400 if I remember. Worst deal ever. The daisywheel printer was a terrible. C/PM was nice though.

[DMR]

I'm a 34 year old kid :)

Hey, like I said- hang on to that thought!
(I'm a 51 year old kid at this point, and remebering that I'm a kid at heart has kept me alive through at least one or two incidences where I wouldn't be here otherwise). No Joke.

[<M/>]

I am probably the youngest to post here but I am 16 at the moment. My first computer was a thick clunky computer from dell that I got when i was in kindergarden or first grade. Then it was followed by a mac book... Currently I have a MacBook Pro (newest one), 2 iMacs (1 is newer than the other but neither is as new as the latest imac, mine is the version prior to it), a lenovo yoga ideapad... should i start listing out the tablets :D

I wonder what my grandkids would use...

[diafol]

I wonder what my grandkids would use...

Don't let them use anything until they're 18. Then they can make up their own mind whether to use one or not. A bit like religion :)

[almostbob]

PDP 11, monecs fortran and cobol on puched cards
15 year old sneak into Monash University data labs after hours, few locked doors in 1979
built a bunch of specials, one-task data handlers,
bought an ibm pc the day they came out. had it specialled up to 64K ram, 20Megabyte external harddisk, 60 Meg tape drive, and hercules MDA graphics so I could display Hi res 720x340; one color images
took 3 months pay to buy it,
man was I dumb

incidental: ibm pc, ollivetti m24, Sun, are still running, MSdos 3.31, DrDos 6.2 and SunOs 4.1
some games just dont update well
The sparcstation still does graphic raster/vector conversions, it takes 3-5 hours to reduce a 6gig jp2, satellite or aerial, to a 85meg .svg

[mrzoon]

I had a Timex Sinclair 1000 that I picked up at a yardsale, but never really did anything with it. First real programming was on a PDP-11 in highschool; wrote some games and scientific stuff for physics class, and killed a lot of trees (no video). Wrote some stuff for the Apple II in college, including an image processing program in ML, and a game which, if I had known my future wife at the time (a marketing person), would probably have made me a millionaire. Some dabbling with HP3000, IBM PCs, and Apple Lisas was quickly forgotten when I saw my first Amiga in 1985, and really started grokking the potential. Sold them for a while, then did some more PC, Mac, and AS400 stuff in the early '90s before joining an ecomm dotcom to do Paradox and Delphi coding. Now working in IT with mainly Windows clients and Xen virtualization, Linux storage, etc., but I still have several Amigas at home which still work just as well as the day I bought them. Also do LAMP web stuff on the side, and a bit of REBOL coding as well. I'm 53, BTW, and still learning. :)

[Reverend Jim]

When I saw my first Amiga in 1985, and really started grokking the potential.

I noticed the ball from the boing demo in your avatar ;-) I'm still waiting for a port of CygnusEd to Windows so I can see if it is as great as I remember. Know any good (free) Amiga emulators?

[happygeek]

Boing demo, blimey that brings back memories. Mainly of the demo animations at the start of cracked game floppies on the Amiga, it has to be said :)