What was your first encounter with a computer?

[Sarcany]

First full-sized computer with real hands-on was a TRS-80 Color circa 1981-82-ish. My uncle had one and used to set us loose on it when the folks wanted adult-time at family parties.

We had some pocket computers before and after that: A Timex Sinclair which got returned to the store when it caught fire the first time it was plugged in, a Casio something or other that refused to power-up shortly after I programmed my first dice-game on it so it went back to the store, a TI Z80 something that melted and got returned to the store, and I used a TRS-80 Pocket computer with a tape-drive and a neat little pen-based printer for a couple of years before I got My Apple ][e.

The TRS-80 Pocket Computer is in a box in my parents' basement. I powered it up a few years ago and it worked.

[archipirata]

ztirffritz wrote:
My older brother received a TimexSinclair 1000 that had 2k of RAM. I think he purchased an expansion module that increased RAM to maybe 8k? It had a really crappy tiny keyboard that was made of pressure sensitive touch pads. He had a 3" wide thermal printer and a cassette adapter to save/retrieve programs. He and I would spend days or weeks painstakingly entering pages and pages of basic code from magazines to make a crappy game work. 9/10 times there'd be a syntax error somewhere in the code either made by us, or in the copy in the magazine...used to drive us crazy. Eventually he upgraded to an Atari 800xl, like a Commodore 64 but better.

Timex Sinclair for me too. Christmas 1982 if I remember correctly. And I had the add on cassette tape drive.

[C(-)ris]

Dad bought a Gateway 386SX PC and a modem. Dialing up to BBS systems to download DOS games.

[wave rider]

IBM 360, FORTRAN, and punch cards pushed the start of my computer oriented career years into the future.

HATED those punch cards.

[rz]

Ombligo wrote:
I almost bought a Commodore VIC-20 at one point just to use as a word processor, but it was over a thousand dollars and I bought a used Underwood 5 typewriter for less than a hundred instead.

What? The list price of the VIC-20 was $299. How could that cost over $1,000?

My first encounter was a TRS-80. My best friend's stepfather was a stock broker and they gave him one to use at home. That was probably in the late 70s. We spent an entire weekend typing in BASIC programs from a book they bought to play some games.

[Michael]

Mainframe in grad school in 1976. We never saw the computer; all of our work was done in converted classrooms full of terminals. We used punch cards, as well.

I met my dear wife the next year when I walked into the terminal room and this hot young thing was hitting a keyboard because she couldn't get logged in. I helped and she eventually married me. Her career started as a programmer after her MA and ended up as director of IT in a school system. She figured out the login thing!

[NewtonMP2100]

.....abacus.....just after dinosaurs....

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Oh, so you don't mean FISTO...

Minicomputer at high school with a tape reader about 1974. I don't remember the brand or specs but I modified the lunar lander program to increase gravity/fuel/starting distance and blew a hole through the moon.

[Rolando]

d4 wrote:
RadioShack/Tandy TRS-80.
Might've been a Model III. It was a one-piece.

Ditto. Black and Green Screen.
Running BASIC and Electric Desk Spreadsheet.

High School, Mid 80s

[A-Polly]

Early 70s, at university. Took a FORTRAN class, which allowed access to the mainframe (actually, only to a room full of terminals). And there was even a "computer game" we could make it play, which involved guessing a number between 1 and 100. Wow, hadn't thought of that in years.

The more advanced students were of course printing pictures of Snoopy on the line printer. I'm sure there was other artwork, but Snoopy is the only one I recall. :oldfogette:

Encountered Pong many years later, on a Radio Shack computer owned by my future father-in-law.