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always with a hat or sunscreen
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posted
If I skip my first computer, an Atari 800XL with 256k bank select memory and toggle switched EEPROMs with AtariDOS, SpartaDOS, and a decompiler, along with a phone coupled modem, and go directly to my first IBM DOS machine, my first software packages were WordPerfect for DOS, VisiCalc, and Netscape.

A lot of water under the bridge since then but it was fun reminiscing. Smile

What did you folks start with?



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Posts: 16146 | Location: Black Hills of South Dakota | Registered: June 20, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
For real?
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WordPerfect for my Atari 1040ST.

My first computer was an Atari 800. Then the 800XL, then a 1200XL. I skipped the XEs and went to the 1040ST, then a 4160STe that I bought from the guys at Double Click software then to a Packard Bell 486 and I don’t remember the bunch of computers after that.



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Posts: 7993 | Location: Cleveland, OH | Registered: August 09, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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We had an original pong, tandy color computer, trs80, and then a swan IBM clone that was a precurse to Dell or gateway.

My parents were semi earlier adopters. Mom convinced dad we needed the color computer. I would have been better off with a new pellet gun but it was fun

ETA should have included the important info.. first software was probably the modem dialer for CompuServe, where I would download game code, and then it was wordperfect. Anything else and I had to type it in from a printout or magazine.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DanPatWork,
 
Posts: 284 | Location: Midwest USA | Registered: June 22, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000. I learned to write some BASIC on it and load programs from our cassette player. I had some game where you did actions and moves in two word sets. Like get book, go north, etc. It was some kind of adventure raiders of the lost ark type game. We played for hours exploring the different environments and rooms and challenges. So much fun.
I formally learned BASIC on a tandy TRS80 as well, but that was in school. But my first real computer that was all mine was a Commodore 64. I cant list all the programs I had for it. It was my first modem as well, and I would dial into some BBS in Atlanta.

I still have them all on a shelf in my office.



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Posts: 3576 | Location: Central Virginia | Registered: November 06, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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My first computer was a Mac SE complete with 2 floppy drives....Forget all your useful software like Mac Write, Mac Paint, etc...I had Mac Playmate, complete with a "panic button" that would launch a spreadsheet!
 
Posts: 3987 | Location: Peoria, AZ | Registered: November 07, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Descriptions Now! and Policies Now! by Knowledgepoint.

PkZip by PKware.


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Posts: 15844 | Location: Florida | Registered: June 23, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I had a Commodore VIC 20. I think it was hooked to a small black & white TV. It had a cassette player for data storage. Datasette?? I really don't remember much about software for it. This was early to mid 1980's.... Wink


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Posts: 2769 | Location: Middle TN | Registered: March 22, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by redstone:
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000. I learned to write some BASIC on it and load programs from our cassette player. I had some game where you did actions and moves in two word sets. Like get book, go north, etc. It was some kind of adventure raiders of the lost ark type game. We played for hours exploring the different environments and rooms and challenges. So much fun.
I formally learned BASIC on a tandy TRS80 as well, but that was in school. But my first real computer that was all mine was a Commodore 64. I cant list all the programs I had for it. It was my first modem as well, and I would dial into some BBS in Atlanta.

I still have them all on a shelf in my office.

My first computer was a Timex Sinclair too. I learned BASIC on it.
After that I used a TimeShare connection, with an acoustic coupler and a teletype machine (no Monitor). If you screwed up, you had to start all over again.
Trash 80 after that.

My first useful PC was an IBM PC with a 4.77 MHz 8088 processor, running DOS 3.0 (or 3.3?). It had a 10Meg hard drive (that cost something like $800 - real money in 1987).

After that it was a 80286, 80386, 80486, Pentium, etc.
Never got into Apple or the Mac.
 
Posts: 2322 | Registered: January 15, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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There was a data base manager I paid $100 for to run on my 16k Apple ][, before Visicalc, et al.

I no longer remember the name, and do not believe I ever got it to run succesfully. It was exceeded in it uselessness only by its complexity.

For decades thereafter, I refused to buy software unless I could get a pirated copy, see it run in my system and satisfy myself that it was what it was represented to be. Then, and only then, was I happy to pay for a legit copy.




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

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"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Big Stack
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Are we counting games on an Atari 2600?
 
Posts: 21240 | Registered: November 05, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Just because you can,
doesn't mean you should
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Apple II with no hard drive and two floppy disk drives.
The "software" makes DOS look advanced now.
Things have come a long way but not always for the better.


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Posts: 9456 | Location: NE GA | Registered: August 22, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Optimistic Cynic
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IBM 1401 with 8KB of core (hard-wired BCD), had to upgrade it to 16KB before it would print a 30-year amortization table on the chain printer. Software packages? We eventually got the Fortran compiler running, but mostly we wrote in assembler (punch cards). The high school actually owned it, but it was mine!
 
Posts: 6400 | Location: NoVA | Registered: July 22, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
delicately calloused
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My first computer was a 286 something-or-other. I think I bought a starwars game on 5.25 floppies. Lol



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Posts: 29607 | Location: Highland, Ut. | Registered: May 07, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I cant recall.... but do remember floppy discs.


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Posts: 16005 | Location: Marquette MI | Registered: July 08, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Baroque Bloke
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A FORTH assembler (MacForth). For my fat (512K) Mac. FORTH is an interesting threaded programming language. Produces very compact code.



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Posts: 8854 | Location: San Diego | Registered: July 26, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Zowsa - It has to be the Commodore 64 at the house. Staying up way too late on school nights entering lines of code from the latest COMPUTE magazine to make a little sprite dance on the screen. Only if, you were able to effectively debug the code.

Prior to that we did have Pong. Lucky kids~
 
Posts: 904 | Location: Valley Oregon | Registered: May 23, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Serenity now!
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My first computer was a TRS-80 with 4k RAM. My second computer was a Commodore 64, and the first 'real' application I used was the Panther Assembler, so I could write machine language (assembly) code games.



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Posts: 4923 | Location: Highland, UT | Registered: September 14, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Shaman
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Writing BASIC code for TRS 80s.





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Posts: 39716 | Location: Atop the cockatoo tree | Registered: July 27, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by 220-9er:
Apple II with no hard drive and two floppy disk drives.
The "software" makes DOS look advanced now.
Things have come a long way but not always for the better.

Me too. And the software instructions encouraged you to make a copy for regular use and store the original.
 
Posts: 7320 | Location: MI | Registered: May 22, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Atari 800 upgraded to have 48K RAM.
 
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