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That's me!

D

DOS lives on!!

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2011
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2,303
Location
East Tennessee
After joining here on Pi day of last year, 365 days later, why don't I introduce myself on Pi day of this year.

Howdy everybody. I'm Ian and I've been into computers for as long as I can remember. I got my first computer when I was five, which was a Gateway 2000 (can't remember the model). It had 16mb of RAM, a Pentuim I processor, a 3.1gb hard drive,, Windows 95, and apparently it had some expansion bays which were covered up by a removeable door. I never knew the door came off.:) We eventually got rid of the computer, but the only thing I still have from it are the hard drive platters and the motor. My first "vintage" computer I got was a Macintosh SE. Still got it next to my //c. And I've just kept going from there. Space for all these vintage computers is getting slim, and E-Waste is coming up soon.:sigh: Got a 150 pound laser printer crowding up the place too.

Anyway, exactly one year from me joining here, I like this place and enjoy helping out people.
 
Well a formal welcome to ya! Was there anything in particular that roped you in to the vintage computing scene? How'd you end up with the Mac?
 
Nothing really caught me into the vintage computing world, I just thought I'd gather up a few since the old ones looked neater. Then I got a Compaq Portable III two Christmases ago, and attempted to replace the DS1287. I also had some trouble with the DS1287 on my SLT 386s as Tez may remember. So that's how I ended up here.

The SE pulled my interest strings because I had never seen an all-in-one Mac before at that age, so I thought I was hot stuff when I got it.:D
 
You sure know how to make me feel old. :) Your first Pentium computer was when you were five. I believe I was about 22 when I bought my first Pentium 75 computer. Before that I was on an A4000.

Well, it's great to have you here. I've already been enjoying this forum since arriving recently.

Heather
 
SkydivinGirl said:
You sure know how to make me feel old. :) Your first Pentium computer was when you were five. I believe I was about 22 when I bought my first Pentium 75 computer. Before that I was on an A4000.

Well, it's great to have you here. I've already been enjoying this forum since arriving recently.

Heather
Click to expand...
I went A4000 to Pentium 75 too, IBM Aptiva, although I would've been around 16. Had a 386 too but can't remember if that was with the A4000 or before it.

Welcome aboard DOS, albeit a year late :)
 
Happy anniversary! Nice to be on board with you. :)

One of the nice things about the VCF is the wide spread of ages, interests, and experiences.

SkydivinGirl said:
You sure know how to make me feel old.
Click to expand...

Hehe, I don't think the word "computer" entered my vocabulary until I was 12, or even 14. I first got my own computer in the 80's some time when somebody gave me a broken two-floppy XT.
 
A formal "Hi" to you Ian.

You've certainly contributed to the forums. Yes, I do remember that DS1287 episode!

Now I feel old. I didn't see my first pentium until I was around 40. When I was a teenager, it was electronic calculators and expensive digital watches that were the new "gee-wiz" technology...lol. I didn't see my first micro-computer until I was around 22. It was a TRS-80 Model 1.

When I was at college in the late 1970's I did do a computing course...we never actually SAW the computer of course. We just submitted our punch cards into the pigieonholes for the "high priests" to collect and feed to the mysterious machine within. (A Burroughs of some sort I think).

Tez
 
Welcome (again) Ian.

My first "computer" was a slide rule (and then one of them new-fangled round slide rules), but, no handheld scientific calculator in high school (they were a thousand bucks) and I didn't see my first computer until 1968. Fortunately, I was expected to fix it.

Although, in the early 80s, I brought home, over the course of years, every computer that Radio Shack made, I didn't OWN my own until I started my first computer repair company and it bought me a state-of-the-art 33MHz 386 with 16 MB of memory and a 340MB ESDI hard drive.

I've dabble a little, here and there, with the insides of computers since then.
 
... Just slightly, Dru ;)

Man, my first real experience with a computer was when I was 13 on an IBM PC 5150, dual-floppy system, 5151 mono monitors, and IBM Proprinters throughout the computer lab.

The punchline is that this was 1990/1991, I was in 7th grade, and they were nearly a decade old at that point (the rest of the schools in the county were using decked-out Apple IIgs's and 386 PS/1's - we weren't upgraded to 386 level until 1995, my senior year. That same year the rest of the schools in the counties had their computers upgraded to DX4-100's as they were the "hot item" since the Pentiums had just came out).

Gotta love rural school environments! Still - was quite a trip. I learned a LOT on those old machines.........

Though to come clean, prior to the 5150, I'd previously used Bank Street Writer on a PCjr to type book reports in 6th grade. PCjr's had been in our elementary school classrooms since I was in 3rd grade. They didn't get turned on until I was in 6th grade - the teachers were deathly afraid of them. All except for the special learning classes where the slow kids spent their days - they used them constantly. Go figure :)

So since the slow kids used them... they don't count ;)

(and I'm totally waiting for Brutman's response to this one - a story that's quite true, if slightly slanted for humor's sake!)
 
Maverick1978 said:
Man, my first real experience with a computer was when I was 13 on an IBM PC 5150, dual-floppy system, 5151 mono monitors, and IBM Proprinters throughout the computer lab.

That same year the rest of the schools in the counties had their computers upgraded to DX4-100's . . .
Click to expand...

And I'll bet you learned a lot more about computers than they did - specifically because the equipment you got was more suitable for learning.
 
Well Ian it seems your one of the youngest around, I was about 6 when my family finally bought a computer.(A 386 with a whooping 120MB harddrive SCSI IIRC)
Prior to that i even *GASP* went out of the house and played outside!

I made my hobby into my Job and ended up doing Electronics for a living which means nowadays it means your moving computers system without customers being aware they are computer systems.
Oh and I drabble in 68K ASM for fun, Guess i am one of the fools who can read machine/micro code out of a ROM and understand what is standing there.(not the X86 branch, 6502 and 68K i can get away with)
 
Thanks everyone--and nice stories. When I was beginning first grade, we had mostly LCII and IIIs, along with the all-in-one iMac G3 and Performa 5400 and 5260s. And I really do think I saw an Apple Lisa in one of the second grade classrooms. We were WAY behind the times. And in second grade, we got a haul of these low end Compaq desktops, which were really slow.

Our world has unfortunately changed from it's weird to be inside all day to it's weird to play outside all day. If it's a nice day, I'll drag a table outside and work on my computers outside. And with all of the small engine repair I do as a side hobby, I enjoy the outdoors.
 
Welcome Ian,

I'm more in line with tezza in that I didn't get my first Pentium computer until I was 36. Upgraded from a Zenith Z-248 to a Pionex Pentium 60. The Zenith and an IBM 5150 I found in a junk shop were the systems that got me started in fixing PCs. Although, in my military job at the time I was working on HP 1000 mini-computers.
 
I and the rest of our family used the family GW2K computer for as long as I can rmember, then when we got a Dell Inspiron 5150, I got the Gateway.
 
That's interesting time-line perspective for the A4000 to P75. I guess Amiga was showing it's age with software by then? Seems like if I had the choice I totally would have gone A4000, hell I'd still *LOVE* to get an A4000.
 
With a year of lateness, there goes my welcome to you, Ian! :D

My first computer was an Amstrad Colour Personal Computer 6128 ( CPC 6128 ), bought arount 1986, which sported a Zilog Z80, two switchable banks of 64 KB each, and a built-in 3" 'rigid' floppy drive. I soon discovered that playing games ("Game Over", "Out Run", "Abu Simbel", "Phantomas", etc.) on it was not my thing. I typed several BASIC programs on it, from magazines, and oh boy was it an exercise of patience. One year later, my interest in it had wanned almost completely, at that point only using CP/M instead of the ROM-integrated BASIC was interesting about it.

I got my first Pentium in 1997, it was a Pentium 166MHz, originally with 32 MB of RAM and a 3 GB hard disk, which came with original MS-DOS 6.22 floppies, where I promptly installed a "borrowed" copy of Windows 95. I got that machine with a modem, and I've been hooked since.

At University in 1994 we did email with diskless PCs booted with an ad-hoc MS-DOS floppy and connected to a OSF/1 Ultrix UNIX Server, we had PINE and vi and lynx there, also USENET and a FTP client. That marked my love for all things UNIX.

(I still have my Amstrad CPC 6128, and my Pentium 166.)
 
Pine... geeze, there's some memories. They were still actively using it when I left University of Central Florida in 2002; when I first arrived there, it was the only email method, though when I left, they had a Pegasus webmail interface as well as PINE.

Was a big step up from the old days having webmail access through Lynx portals ;)
 
I remember PINE and Lynx, and especially vi because I still use it on a daily basis - great little program.
I'm just glad MS Exchange is out of my life.
 
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