The first home computers

[Sunglasses_Ron]

I watched the Steve Jobs film last night and I have a question.

What were the first home computers used for?

Were they just glorified calculators or did they serve a genuine purpose?

 

[McGherkin]

8 bit p**n.

 

[Addicted]

Monster Truck Madness! ( a little later than the very early ones )

 

[MarkCup]

Word processing mostly IIRC. When we first got one it consigned the typewriter we had to the scrap heap.

 

[Chrisgti6]

What sort of year are we talking about? I remember my dad having PC's very early. Must have been late 80's early 90's.

 

[Advikaz]

For me, as a youngster, p**n, MSN messenger (unreal web cam potential) sorely missed.. and colin mcrae rally.

 

[Inequality Street]

My parents have spoken about the first time they saw a PC in the home. My uncle bought one, and tried showing them this thing called "The Internet" and they thought "That'll never catch on".

 

[iain187]

Doom

 

[Chrisgti6]

My dad's first PC had an Intel 286 processor, couple of years later he upgraded to a 486. I remember them costing ££££ too!

25 Mhz processor FTW!

 

[Budgie]

For me, as a youngster, p**n, MSN messenger (unreal web cam potential) sorely missed.. and colin mcrae rally.

Add football manager games and you summed up about three years of my life.

 

[Sunglasses_Ron]

Nah I'm talking about the stuff like Steve Jobs first produced in the 70's. The Apple 1 iirc.

 

[Gavin.]

Mine was an ibm386 running Windows 3.1, bar word processing and mine, they wasn't much else to do on it

 

[MarkCup]

Nah I'm talking about the stuff like Steve Jobs first produced in the 70's. The Apple 1 iirc.

I remember the Commordore Pet and the most prehistoric IBM PC running very early MS DOS...thinking back now I too wonder what the f*** we did with them!!! This was all before the Windows OS was even an idea.

 

[Sunglasses_Ron]

I remember the Commordore Pet and the most prehistoric IBM PC running very early MS DOS...thinking back now I too wonder what the f*** we did with them!!! This was all before the Windows OS was even an idea.

I had a Commodore 64 in the 80's and it was used solely for games.

But I've asked @Nik about these Apple 1's etc and it seems they were just glorified calculators. If you wasn't a maths/science geek they served f**k all purpose.

 

[dangerous dave]

My dad had his own business and used a 286 or maybe it was a 486..

We used to play leisure suit Larry, police quest, space quest, monkey island, prince of Persia and a ton of other games that would make you crossed eyed now they were such poor quality, but amazing then..

Manually going opening files, exes, dos etc... I didn't have a fking clue what I was doing.. Then Windows came along!!! YES!

 

[dangerous dave]

Our first home games machine was a mattel intelivision, snafu or snake to you youngsters, b17 bomber with a really poor voice box add on, but most games were utter pony..

 

[Nik]

I had a Commodore 64 in the 80's and it was used solely for games.

But I've asked @Nik about these Apple 1's etc and it seems they were just glorified calculators. If you wasn't a maths/science geek they served f**k all purpose.

If you fancied typing the code in yourself you could play some simple games on it.

 

[DrR]

I remember mine, had a 66mhz processor, was jealous because my mates had 70mhz.

I remember upgrading the cd drive from 2x to 8x lol. Bet these youngsters didn't even know they had different speeds.

 

[bampot]

It's funny seeing the kids of today reaction to old computers. Lol at the facepalm at 5:40.

 

[iain187]

I can remember our first PC was a 386 and I vaguely remember DOS.

My dad has always liked buying magazines so used to buy PC gamer, I can remember getting the demo disks where they would put on a competition for a high score on one of the demos and you had to take a screenshot and mail it to them on a floppy disk

 

[Ol’ Tarby]

RM nimbus!
MS Dos
Cd\
Etc etc.

Then came windows 3.1 on 7 floppy disk, yet it never ask for any after disc 3. What were the other 4 discs for?!

I remember upgrading from 3.5" floppy to a Creative CD drive and being amazed at playing my dads Genisus CD through the computer.

Good old days

 

[jesus]

Does anyone remember 5 1/4 floppy? Don't think it really took off!

 

[Typhoon]

Does anyone remember 5 1/4 floppy? Don't think it really took off!

Off topic but do you remember minidisks? No idea what happened there. No interest whatsoever and died out in record time.

 

[Ol’ Tarby]

Does anyone remember 5 1/4 floppy? Don't think it really took off!

Yeah I had "Ford Racing Simulator" on 5 1/4 floppy lol

 

[MarkCup]

I had my Computer Studies school work on 5 1/4 inch floppys, I wrote a program on the BBC model B that curve stitched a circle.

They did take off, they were standard storage medium until the smaller 3.5 inch ones came along.

 

[MarkCup]

I had a Commodore 64 in the 80's and it was used solely for games.

But I've asked @Nik about these Apple 1's etc and it seems they were just glorified calculators. If you wasn't a maths/science geek they served f**k all purpose.

I lusted after a C64 but all I/my parents could stretch to was either a Vic 20 or an Oric 1...and the Oric 1 won the day. Awful awful thing, 20 attempts to load each game from the cassette player, grrrr.

 

[ilovewilly]

My first PC (early to mid 90's) was solely used to play Chip's Challenge. Windows 3.1

I remember getting Encarta 96 new. I was 9 years old. That and some DK Human Body software, was all I used it for. Nothing else.

Windows 95 was a nice upgrade. When we got a machine with Windows 98 I remember it had a 4GB HDD which was immense. Unfillable.

The internet came and suddenly my mind was corrupted forever. Many a vinegar stroke was wasted whilst the image gradually loaded from the top down. You'd get to the waist to find the underwear was still on.

 

[Sunglasses_Ron]

I lusted after a C64 but all I/my parents could stretch to was either a Vic 20 or an Oric 1...and the Oric 1 won the day. Awful awful thing, 20 attempts to load each game from the cassette player, grrrr.

I remember my old man borrowed tons of C64 games off his mate and used our Amstrad midi system to copy them all 😂

Trolley wally was a superb game 😂

 

[Nik]

I started out aged 4 when a grandparent bought us a ZX Spectrum+ christmas 1984



You haven't lived if you never played Horace goes Skiing or Daley Thomsons decathlon!

 

[Chrisgti6]

The Dizzy games on the C64 were awesome. I'd like to play them again actually.

 

[Rubicon_]

I always remember always going to my neighbours to play duke nukem because they had a "computer".

Later when I finally got a Packard Bell I remember begging my mum every week to try the AOL internet trial disk. Genuine months before she gave in and I discovered p**n and viruses...

 

[Nik]

You haven't lived if you never played Horace goes Skiing or Daley Thomsons decathlon!

Oh dear, that's my afternoon lost to retro gaming.....

 

[charltjr]

Most of the very early ones were for hobbyists only, people who were excited by the idea of a digital computer that could actually process instructions which they could have in their home. You had one because you could afford it, were fascinated by the technology and wanted to learn how to use it. The actual home computer explosion happened a fair bit later than the Apple 1 and it's ilk.

God I feel old

 

[Adamm.]

Mental to think that just 30-40 years on from that we now have much more technology in the palm of our hands. Progression over this time has been insanely quick.

We had a commodore 64 as a kid, no computer until my dad started the business around late 90's which I think was windows at that point. The commodore was recently binned afaik. Bit sad really could of been worth something maybe.

 

[bloke]

we had a commodore pet at home in about 1978? think they had only just come out.

 

[sn00p]

Nah I'm talking about the stuff like Steve Jobs first produced in the 70's. The Apple 1 iirc.

Toys for geeks essentially.

Up until then, if you wanted one you had to be an electronics geek and build one (it's not that difficult, even back then).

 

[sn00p]

Does anyone remember 5 1/4 floppy? Don't think it really took off!

Up until recently we still had a piece of equipment in our office that had a 5 1/4 inch floppy.

They did take off, they were the format of choice for the day, but got replaced with the 3 1/5 inch disk which was higher capacity, more robust etc.

There was originally an 8 inch floppy as well before the 5 1/4.

 

[sn00p]

I started out aged 4 when a grandparent bought us a ZX Spectrum+ christmas 1984

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You haven't lived if you never played Horace goes Skiing or Daley Thomsons decathlon!

I sadly predate even that.

I worked with a guy (he was a professor and former physics teacher at eton) who built a computer out of discrete components, not microchips, transistors.

He was about 70!

 

[sn00p]

I think my first hard drive was 10mb.

 

[MarkCup]

I remember the outrage when Microsoft demo'd Windows 95, look how fluid it is, look how fast, all on a machine with 96mb ram. This was at a time when if you had 4mb ram in your PC you were a full on baller!