I got my first personal PCs at around 2005, they were two NEC Versa FXi laptops, a Gateway Solo 2100 laptop, an HP e-PC C10, and a Compaq EVO D510 e-PC. It sounds silly for me to end up with that many computers as a 5-year old kid, I believe most of those computers (everything except for the Gateway laptop) came from my dad's old workplace since they had so many computers there, they had to get rid of them, so my dad took those home for me to use. I don't remember where we bought that Gateway laptop, but I do remember that it came in a box, so maybe my parents bought that one on eBay?

The Gateway Solo 2100 was a Pentium 1 (non-MMX), the NEC laptops and the HP e-PC C10 were Pentium IIIs, and the Compaq desktop was a Pentium 4.

At one point, I remember trying to install Windows XP on the Gateway laptop, but it didn't work because the setup said there wasn't enough memory for installation. It ran Windows 98 and 2000.

I’m a little younger I guess, my first ‘own’ pc was an IBM PC330 from ‘96 or ‘97 (Pentium 133MHz), I got it for free (I believe, not sure anymore), I guess somewhere in 2003/2004ish. Unfortunately it couldn’t run 3D games with its onboard S3 Trio something. Before that I used the 486 and later in 2000 a PIII pc of my dad.

My first personal PC was an Atari 800XL in 1987. My father bought it out of his curiosity, pretty much, but within months it was mine as a gaming computer and I was coding in BASIC in 1988, one year after learning to read and write in elementary school. However, if that doesn't count, then I guess I would say it was my Amiga 500 in 1990. If you really mean an IBM Compatible PC, then that was my 486 DX33 with 4MB RAM and 1MB Cirrus Logic VLB VGA in 1993.

Thinkpad 755CX.

Does the "family" computer count if I was the one who spent my money upgrading it and then eventually traded it away for my first car and a parts car?

It was a custom built 80386sx-25Mhz with 4MB RAM and a 120MB HDD, a trident VGA card and not sound card. We got it when I was almost 12.

Upgrades included:
PC Symphony sound card (Adlib clone)
Disney Sound Source (not sure whatever happened with it. I know I wasn't impressed)
Opti930 based sound card with onboard wavetable - the only part I kept from that machine and still have. Paid $5 for it from a local electronics store.
387 co-processor
1.2GB HDD. I saved up for quite a while to get this. Spent $120 on it at the time.

Tried a 386-486 clip on upgrade but it didn't work. Returned it.

Then a couple years later I found a 486 ISA/VLB motherboard in a dumpster. It had coffee all over it. I took it home and sprayed it down with rubbing alcohol until it ran clean and then let it dry for a few days. I don't remember what processor was in the board when I got it, but I ended up buying a used 486-dx2 66 CPU for it not long after. Rode my bike all the way from where we lived to way, way, way downtown to buy it. Pretty sure it took me about 1.5 hours to get there. Overclocked that system to 80Mhz. I thin kit was in this build that I upgraded to a VLB video card. It was soooo much faster.

After that I bought a new motherboard in order so that I could upgrade to an AMD 5x86-133. First motherboard I got claimed 5x86 compatibility but it would always BSOD when installing Windows. Took it back to the place where I bought it and they tested it, couldn't get to work properly even after trying a new board of the same model so gave me a free upgrade to a slightly better motherboard that worked great. I promptly overclocked to 160Mhz.

I also transferred the parts from the 486 computer to a different case so we then had 2 computers and the 5x86 system became the main system if I remember correctly.

A while later I built my first build that was really all my own. It had an AMD K6... probably a 233 was what I started out with. The motherboard was a FIC VA-503+. I went crazy with upgrades during the SS7 days, eventually having a K6-2 550 that I overclocked to 660Mhz on an ASUS P5A. I was working at a local computer store for part of the time and got really good discounts on hardware.

Before I started working at the computer store is when I traded the 486 build for my first car.. a 1980 Pontiac Sunbird which also came with a parts car. I had to rebuild the engine, and boy was it "fun" getting all the needed parts for that specific engine.... but when it was finished, it ran great.

I actually don't remember the specifications of my first PC; because my parents made me throw it away before I really got into computing. All I know is that it used to be my cousin's and that it ran Windows 95. My father once told me that if I really wanted I would be able to upgrade my OS to Windows 98, but nothing a whole lot later than that. From the little things I remember all together I assume must have been a Pentium MMX or AMD K6-2 kind of deal. The PC I used to have looked very similar to a PC I recently picked, though not quiet the same; the roundings and the power switch are identical, but the one I picked up recently has got less drive bays. 😀

My first PC was a used commodore 286 (PC-40 I think don't remember) with VGA and an Adlib clone that I got in either 91 or 92, not sure there.

It had a 20MB HDD and a 5.25" HD disk drive that I still have today. I don't know if it still works it has been sitting unused in a box for over 20 Years now.

Unlike most other people here who want to rebuild their first PC, I have no interest in reacquiring that POS. The Bios was so incredibly limited that it support less than 10 hard drive types and no support for 3.5" drives at all. I had that thing until 94 when I got a 486 sx33 (the uncommon UMC one, still have that CPU) when I stripped it for parts.

An NCR 3200 series (386SX) like this one...

Around 1992/1993 if I recall correctly

My first soley mine computer came out of a building in Fort Worth in 2000 during a Tornado, my dad got it and a bunch of other computers from a dumpster during cleanup.

Pentium 1 133
Socket 7 Board (unknown info on it don't remember anymore)
TI ISA Video card
3gb HDD
Windows 98SE

I later on bought a Riva 128ZX and a Soundblaster 16 PCI for it, and in 2002 replaced it with the first I paid for, an Athlon XP

I had an ibm aptiva and a packardbell socket 5 mini tower they were second hand and this was around 2003

My first "Own" computer would have been a hand-me-down IBM PS/2 Model 55SX in the late 90's from a relative. I would have been perhaps 7 at the time. Came with a Model M and an NEC Multisync 3DS.

Eventually it developed problems, and sat in the basement until it was unfortunately disposed of. I still have the Model M though, it's my good retro keyboard.

Before that we had a semi-functional Digital Rainbow 100, that came from another relative and nobody else ever used, but I don't think it was intended for me. Green and white screen and 2 floppy drives, but I think the only disks I ever got to work was the CPM boot disk and what was essentially the advertising disk for the unit. I was way too young to know what else to do to get it going before it was tossed.

Epson branded 8088 - 10mhz, 512kb ram, CGA, 2x 5.25" 1.2mb Floppy drives

I got a commodore 64 in 1983 and thanks to learning programming with it and managing to sell one of the programs I made, I was able to buy a 80286 12Mhz PC with 1Mb ram, a 256Kb trident VGA card, a 40Mb seagate hard drive, 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives and 15" VGA monitor in 1988. I paid 14000 Finnish marks for the PC. I remember thinking about it for few months if I should buy PC, Amiga or Atari ST back then but then eventually I decided that the PC was the best choice.

The first computer I bought myself was in late 2004. I was in second year college at the time and finally had a bit of money due to my part time job. Pentium 4 @ 3GHz, 256MB RAM (I think?), ASUS P4P800SE, ATI All-in-Wonder 9800 Pro (not originally, but I remember getting it via some sweet boxing day deal from Future Shop). I bought all the parts individually and built it myself. I recall using one of those Inwin beige cases that a friend gifted me and it had terrible airflow so I had to replace it with someone else as the whole thing ended up running really hot. I also remember having problems with the PSU and having to replace that as well within a month... one of the lines had voltage that was not exactly very steady, and I'd get bluescreens, random crashes, etc. I remember I built this originally to play WoW, having been in the beta and I really wanted a good computer to play it. I played a lot of WoW on this thing.

The first computer that was shared between just my brother and I (as opposed to the entire family), started out in 1998 as some low-end Pentium that I don't remember the exact specs of. Guessing a Pentium 100Mhz or so. I remember playing Starcraft on it and it taking very noticeably long to save games (and load), but otherwise played fine. My memory is a bit hazy, but I think it might have been upgraded a bit around 1999 or so, as I do clearly remember playing Diablo II on a slower machine we had (but still playable, barely). Sometime in 2000, we got it upgraded to an AMD Duron 800Mhz, 128MB RAM, and some 2MB AccelColor PCI graphics card. Diablo II (which my brother and I both loved dearly) played much better on this! Later on, we upgraded to a Diamond Stealth III S540 Savage4 Pro. I remember trying out Quake II for the first time on this card and being blown away. This was an otherwise boring low-end machine for the time, but I am probably most nostalgic about it of all the computers I've ever used or owned, because I spent a TON of time on it teaching myself various programming things. I owe my current career to this machine.

Our first family computer was a 386 (DX I think), 4MB RAM, 20MB harddisk. I mostly remember playing Myst, Wolf3d, trying to play the Doom shareware episode at terrible framerates, and learning QBasic on this computer.

An Emerson with a 286-16, 1MB of RAM, 20MB hard drive, and EGA card.

Compaq Presario 9232 -- I still have it and it works great. 120MHz Pentium, overclocked to 133MHz. 40MB EDO RAM (8MB onboard + 32MB added). The original 1.2GB Quantum Fireball died, so I installed a 4GB Sandisk Extreme CF card with Windows 95. The quad-speed CD-ROM is a replacement from Compaq when it was still under warranty, which is why it is slightly a different color. I recently installed a Dreamblaster S1 wavetable, and Matrox Millenium PCI card. Back in the late 90's I had a Voodoo Banshee in it, but that card was tossed after it started artifacting many years ago. Also, like an idiot, I threw away the original Compaq QuickRestore discs for this machine. I specifically remember throwing them away in the early 2000's thinking I'd never use them again. I'm still trying to find a set now 🤣.

XT Clone, 4.77Mhz, Hercules Graphics and display, 20MB (Yes MB) Hard Card, Don't remember how much ram.

This machine got an upgrade later to EGA and an IBM 5154 Monitor but that was the extent of it.

I've got pictures at home, but I'm quite far away at the moment. My first system was a laptop made by the OEM Uniwill. Model N351S1 and sold and badged as a "Huge Bee"

We paid about $1000US in 2003 off of eBay. My father bought it as a "family laptop", but it was exclusively mine. I learned a lot about fixing and maintaining computers from it: from DMA issues on optical drives to hinge repair. The family computer at the time was a White Box Pentium III 1.0GHz. We had it from 2003-2006 or so, when it was replaced with an HP dv8000t with the Yonah Core Duo T2500.
Specs:
Pentium 4 2.4GHz
SiS 645DX/961 Chipset
512MB DDR-333 RAM
Toshiba 40GB HDD
nVIDIA GeForce4 Go! 420 32MB
AU Optronics SXGA+ LCD
DVD/CD-RW Drive
Floppy Drive

Mine was a generic Baby AT mini-tower with a Pentium 60 inside. It had a Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 installed, attached to a Creative-branded CD-ROM drive that took CD Caddies, of which I owned exactly one. The HDD was from Maxtor and there was a 3.5" 1.44MB FDD but that's all that I really remember about it. My brother eventually upgraded it to Windows 98SE using an upgrade CD (that I still own) and after that it was insufferably slooooooow.

I still have the motherboard; it's on the shelf in an anti-static bag, full-length with OPTi chipset, PCI and VLB slots, and a built-in NCR SCSI controller with a 50-pin connector but no other onboard I/O. I should really photograph it and upload it sometime to see if someone can identify it, as it has zero identifying marks or model numbers on it whatsoever...