While I was introduced to some early Apple computers at a young age in grade school (Oregon Trail, Logo, etc), my first real exposure to PCs was in 1991 when my parents purchased a Packard Bell 386SX-16 - a 16Mhz, 386 (SX) processor with 2MB of RAM, a 130MB hard drive and a 13" CRT. It ran Windows 3.0, and I primarily used it for Print Shop Pro, school work, etc.

Gaming was fairly limited on there, but I played the hell out of Stunts, Jet Fighter 2 & Castle of the Winds! I also played some of the early side-scrollers like Jill of the Jungle, Commander Keen, etc. Some of the earlier point-and-clicks were popular as well - Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle, etc. Back then I didn't realize the memory could be expanded, and since it only had 2MB, I couldn't even run DOOM when it came out (not that it would run well at all). I went from this system to a massive, full-tower Gateway 2000 P5-75 in 1995 - quite the jump - and this is where my obsession with this stuff began. This was a beast of a system, and ran all the FPS games flawlessly. This was also the first time I was exposed to MIDI wavetable synthesis, as the system came with a 2MB Ensoniq SoundScape card. I couldn't believe the difference and quickly became obsessed with game soundtracks that used MIDI. I think Clint from LGR is going to cover this Gateway 2000 system soon so I'm pretty excited.

That Pentium 75 was overdrived to 125Mhz, and I added a Orchid Righteous 3D 3DFX Voodoo card in late 1996 or early 1997. I have never been the same, and 1996-1998 was definitely my favorite period for computers/gaming in my life. I think my collection reflects that pretty well. 😎

My first PC was, like most, our family computer growing up.

It was purchased in '88 I believe. It was a Unisys PW2/300. My mother worked for Unisys at the time and was able to purchase it on some sort of plan. That model number basically meant it was a 286-10 clone in a slimline case, riser board for three ISA slots. It has a single on-board 9pin serial port, a parallel port, and AT style keyboard connector. It came with 640K of RAM and a 20MB MFM seagate hard drive (ST-225, I believe). VGA Video was on board (I believe it came with a WDC Paradise WD90C30 chip and either 256K or 512K of dedicated video RAM). The first ISA slot held a Western Digital MFM+Floppy controller ISA card. We also had a Unisys AP1327 24-pin dot matrix printer. I believe it was an OKI OEM. I remember the thrill of realizing I could print "WYSIWYG" with graphics in Windows 3.x later in 1990 just by using the "IBM Pro Printer" driver.

It was the first computer I ever took apart... without my parents permission no less. They freaked out and thought their $3000 (which they were probably still paying off) had just gone down the drain. It went back together fine and the rest of my life in engineering is "history" as they say.

Overtime, the 286 was upgraded (by me) with additional RAM chips on the MB to get up to 2MB of RAM. We also added one of those Hardcard XL's (HDD+controller on a full length card) because the BIOS only had pre-set drive types and didn't have such a thing as a Type-47 configurable drive type. The Hardcard had it's own BIOS and took care of that. I also added a SB 2.0, and a single-port serial card and 2400bps modem so I didn't have to unplug the mouse just to use the modem. However, with only one free ISA card left. I also had to choose whether to have the SB 2.0 in the computer (if I wanted to play games), or the serial card (if I wanted to dial up my favorite BBS's, use FidoNET, or even Prodigy).

Ahh... good times.

first computer I remember using is a toss up. I'm not sure if its the C64c my dad bought me or my cousins Tandy as it was all around the early 90's.

It is possibly my cousins Tandy 1000. not sure of the model. I remember going over there with my mom and seeing him playing Thexder (I didn't piece together what the game he was playing was till many years later) and it completely fascinated me. I ended up walking up the street (back when parents didn't actually get visits from the CPS for giving there kids some freedom) to his house and sat at the door and waited for him to get home from so he could let me play the computer. I have some good memories of him playing through all of space quest with me watching. looking back I was probably pretty annoying about it. I'm glad he was a good guy and had some patience for a pestering little kid.

I didn't actually own any PC or PC compatible till probably 1996ish. it was an AST Pentium 133 (or maybe 166?) with Win 95. prior to that as I said I had a c64c and my dads Amiga 500.

Ttttsss Young people here... Wel... my first computer was a Tandy 1 clone from EACA, the videogenie 1.

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=419&st=1

And second the Amiga 500+ in tiger design whit 512k extra Ram.

And the games i played, on the Videogenie there were cool games like a space invaders clone called Galaxy invaders and i rememer a Basic game called Regierungsspiel, whit was a kind of kingdom simulator.

And on the Amiga 500, oohhh lots of games like Lotus Challange, Turrican, Klax, Blockout 3d and plotting. Well there were lots more but those i remember well. oh and Xenon II...

First computer I ever remember using was my dad's 486 system circa 1995. I was maybe a year old at most, and, of course, I don't really remember all the details of that system other than it was a generic clone system, made by "Cardinal Computer", which was (and still is!) a local computer shop, and the fact that it was running Windows 3.1. And my dad's stories of me "hijacking" the system and doing all kinds of crazy stuff with it while I was on his lap. 🤣 I think that's where the real fascination kicked in. I didn't get a computer of my own until much later, a Pentium III-733 Dell Dimension that I managed to get for my birthday one year.

My first computer was my dad's ZX Spectrum 48k and I remember playing Arkanoid and Grand Prix the first night when he brought it home 😀

386. Can't remember what was in it hardware-vise. We used Windows 3.1 a while and later Windows 95. We kept using 95 for a while even when Windows 98 became standard.

My brother had an old 386sx (16mhz I think) that he played F-19, Jetfighter, and Falcon 3.0 on. I pleaded with my parents (I think i was 12) for our own PC computer. We had an Apple IIc (hard hat mack !!), but I wanted a PC. That Xmas I got my first PC computer, a 386DX-25Mhz with I think 2MB of ram and an 80MB or 120MB hard drive. Later on we doubled the ram for a couple of hundred dollars, not knowing that the error "not enough conventional memory" meant the first 640K!

About a month after I got my computer I bought a Sound Blaster 8-bit card from Software Etc and booted up Wing Commander.....and that was it. There's very few "HOLY SHIT THAT IS SO COOL" moments in your life. Wing Commander with a sound blaster was it. I fell in love with PCs and computer gaming and I've been doing it ever since.

Now I own all of the old hardware I wished I had growing up. I have a Roland MT-32 and SC-55 (that stupid option in Falcon 3.0 pissed me off each time back then...like, NO...YOU CAN"T HAVE ROLAND SOUND...you F'ing loser! You HAVE to pick SOUNDBLASTER for music and LIKE IT). I have my 540MB IDE hard drive. I have an EISA system. I have my ISA and VLB IDE caching controllers. I have my Sound Blaster Pro (a lot of them!). I have my NEC Triple Speed CD-ROM drive. Etc etc etc.

I'm still looking for my 17" brand new in box CRT though. I have a 20" CRT, but its too big IMO for the true retro feel. Only graphic design studios and big companies had 20" monitors back then. They cost more than the computer!

Great stories, hope to read more.
My first pc (not C64 already used as console) seen/used was a friend's new 486SX 33Mhz. I can still remember seeing Stunts and MotoGP into it coming from 8 bit platforms. It was a shock to me for graphic and realism. Was probably the late 93 and after a while I had my pc compatible not-socketed slim-case 386SX-16/20 with 1Mb ram with 40mb disk. I used it for long years, upgraded to outstanding maximun maybe 4MB 32pin and much later switched for a new K62-350 (that was a jump!).So on up Athlon64 era where I decided to stop upgrading and begin downgrading.
The era from 386/486 to early Pentium is my favorite even if I have some great memories and competitions from the Athlon/V3/V5/Maxx/Geforce era.

Regarding the most incredible PC moment is difficult but certainly Stunts 3D based engine was one. My first home 2D->3D switch to my eyes that could have never been the same in gaming graphic probably similar to the time I've seen Wolfeinstein3D. That was incredible too.

First computer was Dads Apple IIe For a long time we weren't allowed to use it accept the occasional game of hangman but wasn't that interested in playing it anyway. As I got older and trusted I got a bit more interested, had a few disks of games but Conan Hall of Volta, Moon Patrol, Hard Hat Mack, Sammy Lightfoot were the main games. Even then I found it a bit boring.
Then in 95 we got this PC that I'm just doing up now Osbone 486 DX2 66 VL-Bus (My 1st PC ever)
This is still my favourite PC and 486's are still special but my favourite era is the Slot 1 P2 P3's. Partly cause that was MY first pc and partly casue they are perfect for my golden gaming years from Doom though to Need for speed Porsche or GTA3.

I will always remember playing C&C for the first time. I was round a friends place (and not a close friend but one of the few at school into computers) and we started a Null modem multiplayer game. I had no idea what I was doing so I lost every time but I was hooked, and C&C1 and RA1 are usually the first things set up on any new PC build after doom only casue Dooms easier

dogchainx wrote:

I have a Roland MT-32 and SC-55 (that stupid option in Falcon 3.0 pissed me off each time back then...like, NO...YOU CAN"T HAVE ROLAND SOUND...you F'ing loser! You HAVE to pick SOUNDBLASTER for music and LIKE IT).

What's so bad about SB?

First PC was my uncle's Packard Bell Legend with a 486DX-33, 4mb of ram, integrated 512K Oak video, 3.5 and 5.25 floppy drives, 60MB Seagate hard drive, 1200 baud internal modem, 14 inch monitor, Epson dot matrix printer, DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0. He got it to help with his accounting job at the time (and only a 486 would do, nothing else was acceptable) and to learn about computers as well.

This was the first time I could use a computer up close and personal; all my previous experiences had been with either terminals or mini computers that were tightly locked up. I helped my uncle upgrade it several times, learned a lot about how PCs worked and behaved, and became my very own computer lab and experimental subject 😈 . When my uncle brought home a copy of Doom in May 1994, I was completely hooked; by late September of that year I had my very own PC - a Pentium 100 with a generic SIS Socket 5 motherboard, 8MB of RAM, Trident TGUI 9440 2MB video, Aztec Sound Forte or Sound Galaxy, Panasonic 2x CD-ROM, WD 500MB hard drive, 14.4k internal modem, 14 inch Samsung monitor, Brother inkjet printer, DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.11.

For me, the Pentium 1 era was the most interesting and fun (1993-1997). Lots of interesting changes and advances in PC hardware and software, the 3D wars were getting started, and games that were almost too good to be true (Doom/Doom 2, Descent/Descent 2 and Duke Nukem 3D are still among my all-time favorites - "the three D's" as I like to call them 😁 ).

First computer I ever put my hands on was an Apricot F1 (256KB RAM, green monochrome graphics, 3.5" floppy, no HDD and an IR keyboard) in 1985, computer class, first year in high school. We were getting lectures on programming in BASIC and that was it. We were running MS-DOS 3.30 and also remember playing a character mode stupid golf game.

After that, in 1991 and 1992, during university years, my two home mates were computer science students, so we had two PC's at home: An IST brand 386SX-16 (Hercules graphics, 3.5 floppy but no HDD and 1MB RAM) and a Commodore 8088 (with 20MB Hardcard and Hercules graphics). These were the days I first started playing PC games seriously; Leisure Suit Larry, Prince of Persia, Death Track, Strip Poker, Grand Prix, Tetris, Blockout, NBA Basketball were the hip things (we were limited to Hercules graphics and CGA emulation of the same).

In May of 1992, I purchased my first computer:
- Intel 386SX-16 CPU on a Hedeka brand board
- Oak 067 VGA card with 512 KB RAM
- 40 MB Seagate ST-157A HDD
- 1MB RAM (8 x 44256 chips on board)
- 3.5" 1.44MB and 5.25" 1.2MB (TEAC - I still have it and it still works) floppy drives
- No-name multi IO card (floppy, IDE, parallel port, game port, and two serial ports)
- 12" monochrome VGA monitor
- No name 3-button serial mouse
- Focus 2001 keyboard (only luxury thing in the package - I really loved those clicky keyboards)

Running Wing Commander first time in this computer was probably my most prominent "hallelujah" PC moment. VGA, even monochrome, was a huuuuge improvement over Hercules graphics and monochrome CGA... 🤣 I beat that game in a monochrome monitor, with mouse, and without sound card.

With the upgrades below, it served me until I finish university and upgraded to a Cyrix 486DX-33 by the end of 1994:
- RAM from 1MB to 5MB (maximum allowed by the board)
- Intel 387SX-16 FPU (good old days of crunching numbers with FORTRAN)
- A Matrox 7210 AT 210MB as second HDD
- Trident 8900 or 9000 1MB VGA card
- An OEM Hercules display adapter just for the second parallel port (LPT1 was connected to a dot matrix printer, I needed the second one for Laplink)

And the upgrade story goes like below:
CPU:
Intel 386SX-16 (1992)
Cyrix 486DX-33 (1994)
Cyrix 5x86 120 (1996 - overclocked 100 MHz)
Intel Pentium 120 (1997)
Intel Pentium MMX 233 (1998)
Intel Pentium II 400 (2000)
Intel Pentium III 733 (2001)
Intel Pentium 4 1.4 (2003)
AMD Athlon64 3200+ (2006)
Intel Core2 Quad 9550 (2009)

Motherboard:
Hedeka 386SX-16 (still have it, one of my ongoing retro projects)
Several 486 boards starting from all ISA, going towards to ISA+VLB to ISA+VLB+PCI, nothing special or known brand (1994-1997)
Gigabyte GA-586TX2 (1997)
Asus P5A-B (1998)
Asus P3B-F (1999)
Asus CUSL2-C Black Pearl (2001)
Asus P4PE with LAN and Firewire (2003)
Asus K8N-E Deluxe (2006)
Asus P5Q Premium (2009)

Display Adapter:
Oak 067 512KB (1992)
Trident 8900 1MB (1993)
Many not so special display adapters including a Cirrus Logic VLB, a couple of S3 PCIs (Virge and Trio64), and a Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 (1994-1997)
Asus 3DP-V3000TV 4MB PCI (1998)
Asus V3400TNT-TV 16MB AGP (1999)
Asus V7700 Deluxe 64MB AGP (2001)
GigaByte FX5700 256MB AGP (2003)
Asus ENGTS250 512MB PCIe (2009)
Asus GTX560 Ti 1GB PCIe (2012)

Sound Card:
Sound Blaster Pro 2 ISA (1994)
Sound Blaster 16 PNP ISA (1996)
Sound Blaster AWE64 Value ISA (1998)
Sound Blaster Live 5.1 PCI (2001)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZX PCI (2006)
P5Q Premium Onboard (2009)

OS
MS-DOS 5.0 + Windows 3.0 (1992)
MS-DOS 5.0 + Windows 3.1 (1992/1993 - also tried Novell DOS 7.0 for a very short time)
MS-DOS 6.22 + Windows 3.1 (1993/1994 - also played with OS/2 Warp for a short time)
Windows 95 Beta (1995)
Windows 95 (1995)
Windows 95 OSR 2.0 (1997)
Windows 98 (1998)
Windows 98 SE (1999)
Windows ME (2001)
Windows XP Professional (2006)
Windows 7.1 Ultimate (2013)

I also checked my photo albums, and realized that I have a surprisingly low number of photos somehow including PCs. It's strange actually, considering the amount of time I spend in front of computers:

1996 - The mini tower was my homemate's, and the midi tower at the back was mine. should be some sort of 486, might even be a Cyrix 5x86 100. a Quickshot Python 5 joystick is also in the view (had been purchased with the sole purpose of playing X-Wing).

1996 - My girlfriend (now my wife) and her classmate were preparing their project reports. My beloved Focus 2001 keyboard and an A4 Tech serial mouse are in view. Monitor is an 14" ADI 3E. I still have that Sony floppy box. 😀

1998 - Just a couple of weeks before my wedding. Trying to put together our new home, and apparently the computer desk was not arrived yet. Citizen Swift 200 24 pin dot matrix printer, APC UPS, Focus 2001 keyboard, A4 Tech serial mouse, Quickshot Soundforce 600 speakers (still using them today), an upgraded ADI monitor (4P?), Microtek Scanmaker 310, and my secondary computer with an old monochrome VGA monitor are in view. CD-ROM drive is apparently a Creative Infra. the card is a SB 16, probably I just upgraded to an AWE64

1998 - Putting together my new computer desk. I'm still using it today.

1999 - Our cat Seker (sugar) rests at her favorite place. Not much change from 1998. This is the sad year that my beloved Focus 2001 died. Still have the same AT case. Speakers are different and I really don't know why. I also had my first CD recorder (Phillips 4X).
1999

2000 - This was apparently after I upgraded to my first ATX board (P3B-F). My AT case repurposed as spare PC, again with that old monochrome VGA monitor. Those mysterious speakers (that I still have no recollection of owning) were there again. In the back, my (then new) HP 840C.

2001 - We were in the process of moving our home from Istanbul to Duzce. I was probably packing my gear. In the front is secondary PC, in the back is the main rig (in an Asus T5 case). The TEAC 1.2MB drive on it was the one from my first PC, from 1992.

2001 - First days of new job in Duzce. PC's are IBM's (Pentium III). the at the back was also my home mate during Universty years. We were notorious about playing Doom (and Doom II afterwards) till the mornings during those studentship period.

2004 - Main rig in a disgustingly cheap case (shame on you Asus, especially after wonderful T5). Scanner is an HP5500, monitor, speaker, UPS are all the same. Keyboard and mosue upgraded to a Microsoft model, Nikon Coolscan IV and a Hayes Accura V92 external modem are also partially in view.

2008 - My daughter was 3 years old. In the back secondary PC in Asus T5 case and ADI 4P monitor.

Today - You can still see the Sound force 600 speakers and PC desk from 1998. 🤣

Rod Primitive wrote:

dogchainx wrote:

I have a Roland MT-32 and SC-55 (that stupid option in Falcon 3.0 pissed me off each time back then...like, NO...YOU CAN"T HAVE ROLAND SOUND...you F'ing loser! You HAVE to pick SOUNDBLASTER for music and LIKE IT).

What's so bad about SB?

Not bad, just not a Roland (aka back then, too damn much money)

My first computer had an AMD K5 PR166 cpu in it and I THOUGHT that meant it was 166 MHz, but it turns out it was only 116 MHz! We got it in 1996 and it has 16MB ram and a 1.2GB HD.

Was kinda funny because when I broke it a while later my dad sent it over to his friend to repair it and when we got it back it had a Nintendo 64 emulator and a bunch of games on it. The games didn't run though. At school I stole another 16MB of ram and threw it in my machine and I was cruising at a cool 32MB. A little bit later I got a 40GB HD. Going from 1.2GB to 40GB was mind blowing. Then I blew my mind again when I got my first GPU (Voodoo 3). Quake never looked so beautiful. Console gaming officially ended when I got my first video card for my PC.

First computer I ever used though was at my aunts house, it was a 486 running Windows 3.11 (only realize this years later, back then I had no clue what it was) and I got to play Doom for the first time. You gotta realize, only knowing 2D side scrollers and stuff like Mario Bros for the NES and then playing Doom was insane!

the first computers that i used were some 8088-based pc-compatibles when i entered middle-school in 1992. at that moment 486 was already released! but any computers were very rare in china by then.

the specs were:
8088 at unknown clock(probably 4.8mhz)
640kb memory
two 5.25inch 360kb floppy drives
no harddisk(for two years i had no idea what a harddisk is)
no mouse
12inch monochrome display(video card was probably hgc compatible as we managed to run some games)
no configurable bios, it just keeps seeking floppy drivers after powering on.
i used dos3.3 on 360kb floppy disks, and i ran a few games but now i can only name two of them: ibm's alley cat(developer died in 1998), and lord runner.

those 8088 rigs remained in service until around 1997, when they were replaced by some 486s.

tayyare wrote:

snip

Awesome post. Really cool to see how it developed over the years.
Wish I did the same.

First computer ever used: C-64 Breadbox..... Black keys's yeahh... 😜
Must have been back in 1985.