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It all started when my pc run games at 1-2 fps
This.Originally Posted by fend_oblivion
I got a job testing faulty Dell laptop hardware in '96. I knew literally sod all about computers before that, then bought my first in '99. Came to PCs a bit late, was already 35 when I bought that first one.
Music. I got one in 97. I'd wanted a home music setup for years, but the cost wasn't just the parts and some software in the early 90s; you'd need a lot of expensive music hardware too. I had a synth, but that was it. The new Logic Audio had just hit the point where it was a plausible, if not an easy way, to make music. You had to bounce down tracks a lot in order to save resources, but it forced you to be cunning. Given the speed of improvement in tech, that seemed to be the moment to jump on board - very much the right decision! Music became my life, and it's given me opportunities I would never have had without it.
Last year, I built what I hope will be my last desktop system. This year, I bought a very powerful custom laptop which I love like it was my first PC.
My DX2 66 was from Escom too. I seem to remember they went belly up not long afterwards.
I had a huge number of O'levels to choose from while at school. RE and art were the only subjects I was not allowed to study at the O'level stage. Anyway as a 14 year old, I returned to school after the summer break only to discover someone had entered me for computer studies instead of O'level history. I then opted for computer studies once I spoken to my house tutor. He just happens to be the Head of Maths and computer studies was under his umbrella. Surely a conflict of interest, now thinking about it. However, he said computers were the future.
In those days, I learnt how to program in BASIC using punch cards and then later with the RM380 PCs with CPM. A year later, I had a BBC model B where I then upgraded it with a floppy disk drive from Viglen computers in order to play Elite. Upgrading was a bit worrying as I had to break a link on the motherboard.
I also took a one week summer course at a London University where I built boolean logic gates using switches as a 16 year old.
Never really take computers all that seriously even though I have played around with Pascal, VBA and HTML. I do enjoy the research and buying of parts for PC which is not so different when I purchase clothes, kitchenware, etc. In other words I enjoy the chase for quality stuff. Building a PC isn't difficult at all.
Having fun while at home.... I like intellectual stuff and don't usually connect with anyone my age, so I had to find my own best friend and that is my PC.
What sparked your interest in (x86) PCs? - Seeing Doom
What sparked your interest in personal computers? - Helping my father build our Acorn Atom in 1982. None of this "just plug everything into the slots" business, this was soldering idividual ICs, resistors, & capacitors onto the motherboard.
Got a VIC-20 for Christmas.... my sisters never got a look in!
C-64 was the real thing for me though... SID chip still rules
Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!
I used to work in a cyber café and the person there build PC's to order and the sparked my interest in PC
Overclocking. When I was about 12, I was so amazed by the copper heatpipes associated with enthusiast motherboards and CPU coolers (at the time videocards still had no heatpipes). From then onwards the bond just grew stronger and stronger which led to a Computer Science degree and me being a DevOps professional now. Quite a wonderful journey, I shall say.
I was working at Plessey Traffic Controls in Poole 1980, I used a Rhode & Schwarz PPC process controller to control test kit - a sort of forerunner to Labwindows !
The PPC was actualy a Commodore SuperPet in disguise and I taught myself BASIC on it. From there on I was never computerless. I even built a NASCOM I, with over 2000 solder joints *AND* it worked first time, useless though it was
My first proper PC was a freebie from a friend, and old and very knackered original IBM with a 10MB HDD and the original 640kB RAM. Horrible thing.
Cheers, David
When I was in the sixth form, we had access to a serial terminal at the college of FE next door, and we learnt BASIC. We also did a bit of FORTRAN coding on coding sheets, which were sent away to be punched onto cards, run, and then the cards and results would come back for debugging - the turnaround was a week - very low bandwidth!
Fast forward to uni, where the mainframe had a whopping 96Mb of hard disk storage taking up a large room. If you exceeded your disk quota, you could ask for a mag tape on a 10 inch reel. The mount command sent a message to the console operator to physically place the disk in the machine.
A bit later the Tandy TRS 80 came out probably one of the first Personal Computers, although not the IBM architecture that was the forrunner of the modern PC. It was too expensive, but later at Uni we used Commodore PETs and I did some real world system controlling with a Apple 2 which had quite advanced I/O controllers - I think I was using digital to synchro converters for controlling synchro (analogue*) based servo systems. I think I built a NASCOM2 at the time - with a 48 Kb memory card, and I built an 8 inch disk drive system for it.
My first introduction to the PC was an Original Apple Macintosh, and I dibnt use a windows PC until Widows for Workgroups. Windows 95 came out and I assembled my first WINTEL architecture PC. Several more followed, including Windows 2000 - the case for that is still in use - some Linux machines and so on to Windows 7. I didnt like the way Windows 8 was going and saw no reason to upgrade (in fact lots of reasons not to) and so I concentrated on Linux systems, the moved to commercial unix based system with an Intel Based Apple Mac - and that is probably where I'll stay for a while. So currently a Linux based server (with tape backup) and a legacy windows 7 machine for a couple of legacy windows only applications, a MAC and an additional Linux machine for when others can't do what I need them to.
(*Synchro systems used to be widely used for high power servo systems, but there use has largely been superseded, except for some specialised applications - small aircraft still use them. For anyone interested, there isa brief description here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchro)
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My broadband speed - 750 Meganibbles/minute
Very similar to Peter - my interest in "PC's" came about because I was already well hooked on "proper" computers, from playing Battleships on an IBM 360 mainframe, to printing pictures of the Beatles on lineprinter paper, using only the characters in their names.
And having seen things like that, I asked the fatal question .... How do they do that?
The answer, of course, is coding. And the rest is history. History that involves programmable TI calculators in the early 70's, languages like BASIC, Fortran, Algol and, of course, COBOL.
Then, moving into PCs, an Apple II, and Pascal, then a CP/M board. And of course, the TRS80s, Aoricots, Sirius and so forth, until finally, eventually, the world shifted on it's computing axis with the original IBM PC, and "clones" like the Amstrads. I've bypassed a lot of he same stuff Peter mentioned, but I too went through submitting jobs on opticsl mark cards, then punch cards, etc. Oh, and ASCII paper tape and uploading programs via a teletype terminal .... including, again, Battleships.
By the time "PC's" came about, I'd already been hooked on computing, and the clear, concise structured thinking using them required, and the sheer beauty of well-written code, for about 20 years.
I credit the TI-59, which introduced me to the idea that you can program stuff and save it. A later assembly course for a Z80 (I think) also helped, and a TRS-80 which introduced me to the idea of having a real keyboard and display. My parents got me a ZX80 that didn't work and was upgraded to a ZX81, and I tried programming Space Invaders for it in machine code (worked to an extent). The rest, as they say, is history.
As for the PC (IBM compatibles), I hated it. I sold Commodore computers for a few months, and told people to buy C64/C128 over the PC's, which were bigger, more expensive, with worse games and terrible graphics. I finally succumbed and bought one (DX2-66) in late 1994 to replace my Amiga, and hated every moment of tweaking autoexec.bat and such for playing games. I used OS/2 Warp (like many ex-Amigans) so at least I could have some decent multitasking and long file names.
It's been a love hate relationship for me ever since. The only part that really excited me was the early days of 3D accelerators (or decelerators, in the case of the ViRGE chips). I still enjoy playing with PC's, but I also still consider it masochism.
Sounds like an interesting charity.
Last edited by ET3D; 30-04-2017 at 12:32 PM.
Ahh good gold memories
a cousine of mine had an Enterprise 128 computer with the built in toothpick joystick. I inherited it about 20 years later. There were games like learn ths keyboard or some arcade stuff where we had to navigate a mouse (4 pixel is the body and other few the legs) and one that was some kind of start wars clone. Then I got my 2nd hand C+4 and much later the 386. I took it apart, couldnt put together, asked a friend and we figured out together and since then I m hooked and work in IT
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