First I ever used was Apple II, no clue what software it had on it, I think it only used 5.25" disks and no hard drive. First one my family owned was Windows 3.1.

Emacs and whatever the Pascal compiler was on the DECSYSTEM-20. Later FAIL (a faster, lighter assembly language for the -20) and MACRO-20, DEC’s assembly language for the -20. Fun and games with the KL-10. Good times!

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
IBM 1401 with 8KB of core (hard-wired BCD),

Software packages?

We eventually got the Fortran compiler running, but mostly we wrote in assembler (punch cards).

The 1401 we used only had SPS and Autocoder. Basically a baby step above machine language. But the question was about computers we actually owned. The 1401 didn't think fast. You could actually watch the lights and tell where it was in your program by the lights. The joke was you could out think it, but it just kept thinking and you'd get tired.

Our first family computer was an IBM DOS. We also had a 10 meg hard drive. The liar/salesman told us with that much storage, we'd never need more. The laptop I'm using right now has over 500 gig. Lots of computers since then.

Maybe the best part was a few years later. Youngest son and his best friend were in school together. Their school got a PC for each class. The teachers had to take a summer school class to learn about computers. Those that can, do. The rest of them teach. Or try to.

Anyway the first few days of class they unpacked the boxes and the all knowing teacher tried to figure out what all the parts did and where the wires went. The little kids (first graders) giggled. She finally gave up, got pissed off and told the kids if they were so smart, they should come up and do it. Jeff and Chris had it wired in a few minutes, to the hatred of their teacher.

Lord, all the programming comments had me recalling the Navy's venerable 32-bit AN/UYK-5(V) with its 9 track reel tapes and card reader punch. Programmed COBOL on that thing back in 1975 which was before I got my first 'puter, the aforementioned Atari 800XL.

Apple IIe, dual 5 1/4" floppy drives (one for the program disk and one for the data disk), extended 80 column card (extra 64kB for a total of 128kB of memory baby!), a green phosphor screen, and an Epson 24 pin dot matrix printer (subscripts and superscripts). If think the whole setup was $2,500 and we got a bike because we bought it at American TV in Waukesha, WI. TV Lenny giving away the bicycles!

I used WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. I had VisiCalc, but didn't use it.

I haven't owned and Apple computer since.

First "computer" I ever started programming was my HP-41 calculator. I then bought a Toshiba 5200 plasma "luggable" and bought my first software Wordperfect, Quattro Pro, Paradox, and C. I had used xt's and at's in college learning Pascal for engineers.

I wasn't an early adopter of windows but opted for desqview instead. Anybody remember xtree pro for file management?

Ken

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
Writing BASIC code for TRS 80s.

And mine had no way to save it

My earliest software was a cabinet CAD-CAM program called Cybix, IIRC. Ran on an Apple IIe with a light pen. Back then they sold everything as a package; computer, printer, software, interface. That setup was stolen from my office and for a few years I used an Apple IIc with Excel and wrote a spreadsheet to calculate cabinet parts. Then I bought Cabinet Vision. The CV package came with a 286 PC. Cabinet Vision (V-10) is still the premier CAD-CAM for custom cabinets and my son uses it everyday. As JA said, it was aggregating trying to determine if a software was worth the price. I once offered to pay CV full price up front for their expensive upgrade to CV Solid but let me evaluate it for a month. If I didn't want it, they refund me minus $500. They declined. Finally bought it. anyway. As for pirating, CV has always used a security key.

So many references to the TRS-80 warms the cockles of my black heart.

Because, you see, I was an Atari 800 man (boy) at that time and I would laugh at and mock my friends with their feeble Trash-80s!

I actually got accepted to some summer academic thing sponsored by Duke in maybe.... 1980? Maybe 1981 because after I spent a few weeks there I convinced my dad that if I did not have the hottest computer right in our house then I was being left behind.

He got me an Apple II and I promptly wrote a program in BASIC to have a rocket launch up the screen. It took about two hours but when I showed it to him he said “This is what you are going to do”.

Nah, I fly airplanes now but I still luv me some computers!

Heathkit H89. CP/M, Basic.

quote:

Originally posted by KenS:
Anybody remember xtree pro for file management?

Yup. Great stuff. I used it for years until it was no longer compatible with newer OS versions.

For grins I just did a search and found this, which they say is modeled on the old XTree Pro but works with today's OS versions. I've been using Explorer+++ but it hasn't been updated in a number of years and can act up. Might have to try this new one. (http://ztree.com/)

10 PRINT
20 PRINT.........”
30 PRINT........”.”
40 PRINT........”.”
50 PRINT.......”/.\”
60 PRINT.......”|.|”
70 PRINT.......”|.|”
80 PRINT.......”|.|”
90 PRINT.......”===“
100 PRINT....
110 GOTO 100

Or something like that was what got me a shiny new Apple II in the day!

Obviously, I wasn’t an early adopter. Our first home computer was a Micron and I don’t remember much more than that. It was a pretty good computer though. Other than the software it came with, about all I added were military flight sims from Jane’s, like “U S Navy Fighters” and others. I thought this was all late 80s, but it’s not—a decade later.

LOL I tried to quote the rocket but got denied.

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:
But the question was about computers we actually owned.

Oops, I missed that part. I was just going off, “What did you folks start with?” As far was what I first bought, it was a well thought of at the time PC AT clone with an 80286 processor, a whopping eight K of RAM and an upgraded 40MB hard disk drive. The software packages that I recall were Borland’s Turbo Pascal and Mince, which stood for “Mince is not complete EMACS”, but was close enough that it worked for me.

ETA: In response to furlough’s point, the Trash-80 was the first thing I did paid work on (I wrote a lumber bidding package for a local lumber yard). It was a really high-tech one though, it had two of those big crappy floppy disk drives. What were they, 8”? Humor value.

First program I can remember is Sargon Chess running on the tape drive of our Commodore 64. 5.25" floppies were a step up at that time.

Commodore 64 and Basic. Eventually Windows 3.1.1 on a pile of diskettes. I was just thinking the other day how similar modern Windows really is to Win95.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
Writing BASIC code for TRS 80s.

And mine had no way to save it

My TRS80 Model 4 had 64k of RAM, two full-height 5.25" floppy drives, and a cassette drive.
The whole shebang cost my parents $600 back then, and I had "Scarfman" (a crude PacMan sort of thing) on Cassette which I played a ton.

I also had a dedicated Pong machine that hooked to the TV, a VIC20, a C64, a TI994A, Atari 2600, and so on. By 1982 I had rolled over Defender (at a million points, it could only count up to 999,999) on the Atari 2600.

My first modern day Hard Drive was 10MB on my 8086 setup, pre-Windows. It was $1200.

In '81 I was playing online games already, Zork II that was on an AT&T Mainframe. My friend's dad was an Engineer for them and had an acoustic coupler setup to modem in and do work stuff, and play the game.

I distinctly recall getting my first 1200 Baud modem and thinking "the future has arrived".

quote:

Originally posted by furlough:
10 PRINT
20 PRINT.........”
30 PRINT........”.”
40 PRINT........”.”
50 PRINT.......”/.\”
60 PRINT.......”|.|”
70 PRINT.......”|.|”
80 PRINT.......”|.|”
90 PRINT.......”===“
100 PRINT....
110 GOTO 100

What is this? I remember doing it in elementary school. We had to draw patterns using it.