10TB HDD coming soon... so what was your first PC? and how much storage did it have?

MMM on 18/05/2015 - 23:13
Last edited 22/05/2015 - 15:08

****Edit: Summary of this post - past Applefanboy's (Scotty) + others. A nostalgic look and some fond memories of the beginning of the PC era. Some knowledgeable authority here at OZB based on history of users and I think an honourable mention needs to go to peteru with the Assemble yourself Russian Import PC https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/194672#comment-2759953 ***********

So what was your first PC? and what do you have now?
MY first computer was purchased in 1983 for $5500AU it had 8inch floppy disks….

Computing

Comments

  • nocure on 18/05/2015 - 23:33
    +8

    Vic20 5kb

  • Randxyz123 on 18/05/2015 - 23:51
    +2

    First computer that was mine was the iBook G3 in 2003 with Mac OS X (version 1) I think it had 80GB of storage.

    • MMM on 19/05/2015 - 00:28
      +1

      Remember the iBook they were impressive at the time. First apple product I owned was the Newton, had a friend working for apple at the time he refused to call it a organizer always corrected me and would say its "not an organizer its a device" it was actually a piece of rubbish that cost a lot!!

      • scotty on 19/05/2015 - 08:01
        +1

        iBook G3 was the first and the only Apple I product I owned. Bought it in 2003 as well, spec up to almost $3,000 and that was still super slow due to lack of vector operations (comparing to a G4).

      • SupeNintendoChalmers on 20/05/2015 - 16:55

        Beat up Martin

    • knk on 21/05/2015 - 08:52

      I had a custom build with a 'cyrix' processor,32mb of ram and a 4gb hdd. By todays standards it wasn't fast, but that thing sure was reliable. Older harddrives were so resilient.

  • scotty on 18/05/2015 - 23:51
    +6

    Haha same! VIC-20 with a tape drive. Can't remember the key combination to load the games off tape…

    However for my first actual PC, an IBM XT compatible with

    • Intel 8088 @ 4.77MHz
    • 5.25" floppy 360kb
    • 640kb RAM
    • 10MB hard drive
    • Hercules monochrome graphics

    Yeah my first PC actually had a hard disk drive! 1/1000000 the capacity of the upcoming 10TB desktop drive.

    • Evil-Elmo on 19/05/2015 - 09:36
      +2

      This is actually very similar to mine. If I recall correctly we had a 20mb HDD (actually, I think we may have double spaced the 10mb to get 20mb…) and a CGA (4 colour) screen.

    • MementoMori on 20/05/2015 - 12:28

      You mean SHIFT + RUNSTOP?

      How could you forget! :)

    • ozkiwi75 on 20/05/2015 - 21:31

      Ha! You just reminded me of the emulators I had to run for the Hercules graphics card to fool the software into thinking I had a CGA card. Didn't work on all games though.

      • scotty on 20/05/2015 - 22:15
        +1

        I remember those — pretty much came standard with almost all the games emulating 4-colour 320x200 with monochrome 720×348.

  • MMM on 19/05/2015 - 00:08
    +2

    Oh yeah, prior to the PC I had the ZX Spectrum for hard-core gaming with impressive block pixel characters.
    The commodore 64 was more mainstream at the time!

    • ozkiwi75 on 20/05/2015 - 21:28
      +1

      Sounds similar to my story:
      Sinclair ZX Spectrum with a tape deck for a disk drive; followed by
      Commodore 64; then
      My first PC was a 8086 XT with a huge 20mb hard disk!!

  • mad__llama on 19/05/2015 - 00:28
    +1

    Now I have X79MB, CPU Intel4930K, 64GB RAM, 480SSD and a mixture of internal drives totalling 18TB HDD and looking to get more external HDD.

    And I'll bet it cost a lot less than US$5000!

    Olivetti M-something (M9 maybe?). Bleeper-speaker, monochrome with 10mb HDD. I was a god!
    Still have it boxed up somewhere…

    • MMM on 19/05/2015 - 00:39
      +1

      Remember the Olivetti they also became the business PC of choice were they like a huge laptop with a carry case? Wish I had kept the 1981 NEC APC, went to the tip in the mid90's.

      • mad__llama on 19/05/2015 - 22:26

        Yes I remember those "portables" but mine is a modular PC with system box, monitor and keyboard.

    • [Deactivated] on 21/05/2015 - 00:01

      :D The $49 Nokia 530 will outgun a US$5k PC> haha

  • p1 ama on 19/05/2015 - 00:28
    +4

    Not quite as old as you guys, but my first was an Intel DX2, which if I remember correctly, is a 'better version' of the Intel 486.

    It had a 40 MB WD Caviar drive, back then, you still had to enter the numbers on the drive (i.e. cylinders, sectors…etc.) into the BIOS for it to recognise the drive. I remember installing DOS on Floppy disks and that classic sound they make.

    • DARK KHAOS on 20/05/2015 - 07:34
      +1

      Thats right. 80486DX had the math coprocessor

      • MementoMori on 21/05/2015 - 11:41
        +1

        DX2 = plays Doom full screen

    • noz on 22/05/2015 - 07:40
      +1

      My first HDD was 60Mb in a 386SX-25 based PC.
      I was envious of you people with a DX processor as you could run Future Crew's Second Reality demo much more smoothly.

    • masadav on 23/05/2015 - 09:45

      This was also my first PC (technically my dads work PC) until they bought me a DX4-100.

      I remember installing windows 95 from 52 floppy disks.

      Played a lot of Doom and Warcraft II over serial link between the 2.

  • QuickToThePointless on 19/05/2015 - 00:50
    +1

    Super nintendo, got it for my second bday.

  • Axelstrife on 19/05/2015 - 01:11
    -1

    My first was a shitty second hand tower with 80gb storage.
    my pc now has a 250gb ssd primary and 1TB secondary and a 2TB external and 1TB portable hard drive and i just ordered a 3TB internal today lol

    • [Deactivated] on 19/05/2015 - 01:41
      +35

      Your new computer is still shit.

    • tikei on 22/05/2015 - 21:59

      Doesn't say much about the specs though. Just how much storage..

  • [Deactivated] on 19/05/2015 - 06:41
    +3

    Compaq Presario 4020

    Pentium 433Mhz
    4Gb HDD
    8Mb RAM
    Floppy
    CD reader

    Pretty sure the key fob for my car is better spec'd than that now.

    I eventually upped the RAM to 16MB, then 32MB and finally 64MB/
    It got a TNT2 video card and then something else.
    Also got an 80GB hard drive too and a CD burner.

  • OzGuy93 on 19/05/2015 - 06:48
    +1

    Parkard Bell, 500mb hardrive which was massive back then (90's) lol

  • mt19 on 19/05/2015 - 06:52
    +2

    Old and from the UK. For me it was the ZX81, so 1kb. When the 16kb Speccy came out it was crazy times.

    • sentinel on 20/05/2015 - 13:14

      I got the 16K expansion module when it came out as well and played Flight Simulator! I believe that was the only game that used up the 16K to the max :)

  • Davros on 19/05/2015 - 07:21
    +1

    The old man had a cassette tape drive trs80 that I played with
    My box now has 16GB ram and around 20TB of storage

  • Danthemanz on 19/05/2015 - 08:04
    +2

    Recently rebuilding a 486 for classic gaming and general nostalgia.

    486DX-33
    8MB RAM
    250MB Seagate HDD
    Onboard ATI Mach32 1MB Graphics.

    Currently upgrading to:
    486DX-100
    16-24MB RAM
    Hopefully an 8GB Compactflash card to replace the HDD.
    10Mb network

    Got it up and running with DOS6.22, Win3.11 with network drives connected to my Windows 8.1 server…hehe

    • Cobalt_ on 20/05/2015 - 17:49
      +2

      Have you tried using DosBox emulator? Might be a bit easier than exhuming old computer hardware from the crypt ;)

      • Danthemanz on 21/05/2015 - 09:11
        +2

        lol, this seems to be half of peoples response, the other half understand though.
        Where is the fun in that? I like computer hardware, i enjoy the challenge and reliving my childhood.
        Think of it like rebuilding a classic car.

      • imcold on 22/05/2015 - 01:20

        DosBox is so old you eventually need an emulator or Virtualbox

  • slow on 19/05/2015 - 08:26
    +3

    ZX Spectrum

    I had the model with the mind blowing 48KB of RAM, which made me the envy of my friends who only had 16KB RAM.

    Played Manic Miner and Jetset Willy

    • MMM on 19/05/2015 - 10:17
      +1

      first computer game I ever played was Manic Miner, vague recollection was the music theme a Monty Python tune?

      • scotty on 19/05/2015 - 11:51
        +3

        "In the Hall of the Mountain King"

  • DARK KHAOS on 19/05/2015 - 08:41

    386 with 16 megabytes of ram and quantum bigfoot drive running windows for workgroups

  • backpaqer on 19/05/2015 - 09:04
    +2

    Olivetti M24 with 4kb of HARDWIRED RAM and cassette drives (1970). It weighed 26 kgs and put my dad in hospital when he tried to carry it from the car to the house (slipped disc)

  • scrimshaw on 19/05/2015 - 09:06
    +1

    A Pentium based HP Pavillion, I believe it was a Celeron model (unsure of clock, pretty certain it was 300mhz or thereabouts) with 16MB RAM and a 800MB hard drive. This was my 'family' pc.

    Later on I inherted a ultraportable laptop from my brother, my first real laptop running a Pentium MMX 233mhz, 32MB of RAM, 3.8GB HDD and it also had detachable CDROM and Floppy disk drives attachable via serial cable.

    My current rig
    Core i5 2500k, cooled using Hyper TX3
    8GB DDR3 mem
    7870R MSI Hawk
    CM Storm Enforcer case

    Intel 530 180GB
    Samsung Spinpoint F3
    WD RED 2TB
    WD REd 3TB

  • c64 on 19/05/2015 - 09:12

    the era of catastrophic data loss is nigh

    pr0n & moviez collections wiped out in the click of a disk

    • backpaqer on 19/05/2015 - 09:15

      it's all in the cloud

      • [Deactivated] on 19/05/2015 - 12:58
        +6

        Not in Australia with our shitty internet. If I wanted to backup my 9TB of data on my current connection it would take me ~104 days (very rough estimates).

        • backpaqer on 21/05/2015 - 16:44
          +1

          9TB of PORN!?!?!?!

        • [Deactivated] on 22/05/2015 - 06:13
          +1

          @backpaqer: It's for science.

        • UFO on 22/05/2015 - 14:31

          @potplanty:

          yes…. mines for 'science' too ;)

    • iridiumstem on 22/05/2015 - 01:48

      I remember reading about how easy it is for us to lose everything we've saved by digital means; how scribbles on papers last far longer than a file on HDD or any other electronic means.

  • warwick108 on 19/05/2015 - 09:15
    +1

    I had an Acer 486 with a pentium 1 I think it was and 4mb of ram, cd drive and thats about as much as I can remember =)

    Currently I have a MSI GT70 with 4800mq, 870m, 250 ssd, 1 tb hdd and 16gb of ram

  • BuyoTheCat on 19/05/2015 - 09:17

    386 32 mhz(turbo!!!!!) 26 turbo off (I cannot remember the exact speed)
    32mb HDD
    5 1.2 in + 3 1/4 in drive
    and drum roll…. Single speed CD-Rom drive. You need to put the CD in a cartridge and slot it into the drive.

    • theStinge on 21/05/2015 - 01:11

      CD caddy I believe it was called.

  • RockyRaccoon on 19/05/2015 - 09:18

    4K ram TRS-80 with Tape drive (Yes K not MB)
    Upgraded to Chicklet keyboard Commodore PET (As seen on the Wrath of Khan)
    http://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=39
    Then Apple II+ with 5.25 Floppy and VisiCalc.
    Then played with the Osborne PC
    First hardrive I recall was 5mb and it cost about ¼ the price of a Sydney house

    • BuyoTheCat on 19/05/2015 - 09:49
      +2

      but back then sydney houses were more affordable than computers

  • CloudJumper on 19/05/2015 - 09:23

    I had a Tandy 1000HD, (HD for Hard drive.. def not High Definition!!) and i think capacity was about 20mb. I got it second hand and it came pre-loaded with many Sierra titles (Kings Quest / Police Quest / Space Quest / etc)… Street Rod was another stand out title.. a very raw prequel to modern day Need for Speed… Now on the Mac bandwagon…

    • wozz on 22/05/2015 - 18:16

      w00t w00t go Tandy. My first was a Tandy Color Computer 3!
      No HDD, I think it had 64kb RAM, upgradeable to 128kb (something like that). Had an add on for a floppy drive, and an add on for tape drive.
      When pwoered up it went straight into basic unless you had a cartridge plugged in. Miss that thing

      Next was a massive upgrade to a 386

  • mrmarkau67 on 19/05/2015 - 10:06
    +3

    Commodore 64. 38KB of usable RAM and 140KB floppy drive. Computer, screen, floppy drive, dot matrix printer cost a cool $1000. Bought it with my own cash, played a lot of games, but also learnt to program in SmallTalk (a variant of LISP) and never looked back.

    • japik on 20/05/2015 - 23:53

      I also had a commodore 64 as first computer but not by choice as i wanted the amiga 500 but deary ol mummy wanted to save money and bought me the commodore 64 used with all accessories and heaps of games in 1994. I remember the tape drive and rewinding the cassettes to reload the stages lol

      • McFly on 21/05/2015 - 00:10

        You had a tape drive in 1994?!

        • japik on 21/05/2015 - 06:28

          Yup I know its because my mum didnt have much money so she bought it really cheap. I did have a sega master system as well but that was a console.

        • Forfiet on 22/05/2015 - 10:22

          @japik: I had both the commodore 64 with tape deck and amiga 500 around the same time….. Played robocop on that tape deck if I remember correctly….
          Edit: ELITE II was the best!!!

  • johninmelb on 19/05/2015 - 10:18
    +2

    First computer was a Commodore 64 with a cassette tape drive to store stuff.

    Second computer was one of the early IBM clones. Cost me about $2000 or so I think and only had 2 5¼ floppy drives. I later bought a 20mb hard drive for about $500.

    Had several PC's since then, and now using a laptop, along with a windows netbook, and a windows tablet.

    Sadly, some years ago I broke my golden rule of never contaminating myself by touching an Apple product. I unfortunately got a job which required me to use a Mac. But it only lasted 9 months. 7 years on, the scarring has almost gone.

  • jnewau on 19/05/2015 - 10:21
    +2

    As per many other 80s teenagers, a long succession of Commodore computers. Vic 20, C64 then an Amiga 500, then 1200. My Amiga 1200 was the first computer I owned with a HDD, a 40MB one. Fun fact - its a Seagate drive and it STILL works fine today :)

    • MMM on 19/05/2015 - 10:24
      +2

      Seagate haters wont like hearing that:) I have some 18mthyo been told they will die any minute.

  • Squidmcsproggen on 19/05/2015 - 10:44
    +1

    Commodore 64
    Processor: 1.023MHz
    Memory: 64kb RAM
    Display output: 320x200, 16 colours

  • terrys on 19/05/2015 - 11:17
    +1

    First computer : Vic20

    First with any sort of storage: ICL 6, DOS1/Concurrent CP/M86 8088 cpu with 512Kb RAM and two 800Kb 5-1/4 floppies. Churning out 3000 word essays using Ed [ line editor - command prompt codes needed to shuffle words from line to buffer to to line if editing] still beat painting the page with white-out before I started, though the 9 pin dot matrix was ASCII only. Lining up graphs was the stuff of nightmares.

  • peteru on 19/05/2015 - 12:20
    +8

    My first "computer" was a Russian import that you had to assemble yourself. It had four storage registers, a work register and the programs were as long as the piece of paper you could feed through it without getting into a mess. Using it was purely an academic exercise. It came with a piece of paper that had the program for a very dull version of what's essentially "Lunar Lander", although it was probably called something a lot more Soviet.

    • QuickToThePointless on 20/05/2015 - 00:01
      +3

      I think we have a winner here - tsar nicholas the first used this model to game on as a teen

    • [Deactivated] on 21/05/2015 - 20:47
      +2

      You're probably on an ASIO list somewhere.

      • peteru on 31/05/2015 - 21:28

        That I am. I had ASIO do a background check on me when I was doing some work as a contractor for the ATO back in the 90's. (That's 1990's) ;-)

  • stebie on 19/05/2015 - 12:56
    +1

    We had a MicroBee. Don't remember too much about it, but games came on cassette tapes, and partially liken its loading noises to that of dial-up modem's handshake.

    I remember playing Emu Joust.

  • YankeeGirl on 19/05/2015 - 18:12
    +1

    I had a Radio Shack Monitor and 'keyboard' new in 1990. My first computer. I thought I was pretty smick because mine had two 3.5 floppy disk drives!!! I seem to remember that with the Dot Matrix printer and all it was about $1700 New. It did actually help me with a lot of computer knowledge because one just had teach themselves how to do everything!!! I remember playing Pong (was that the name?)

  • FirstNameLastName on 19/05/2015 - 19:55

    1983 Sharp MZ-700, no storage, 48kb ram, had to load the OS every boot via cassette-tape.
    It was pretty amazing.. programming BASIC on it as a child. Loved it.

    Now I have something that doesn't really mean anything.
    Performance of parts has well-exceeded my requirements.
    SSD was the last big kick I felt.
    SSD all the way now.

  • FirstNameLastName on 19/05/2015 - 20:01
    +2

    Very interesting that according to wiki a GFLOP in 1961 cost about 8.3 TRILLION USD (inflation adjusted).
    The same calculation nowadays can be had for 8 cents.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOPS

    • MMM on 19/05/2015 - 20:12
      +1

      So My NEC APC was cheap @$5500 in 1983 If I wanted a GFLOP I'd be paying $43mill:))

  • kiitos on 19/05/2015 - 20:12

    1986, Amstrad CPC6128. Colour monitor, 3" 180KB FDD, 128 KB RAM. Teamed with a 300 baud modem. I did uni assignments over that. Catting program listings at 300 baud tested your patience.

    First PC was probably around 1990. 386DX - none of that SX rubbish. With turbo button, of course. 100MB HDD. Tseng Labs video card. 17" Viewsonic monitor - a monster! Around $3000 for the PC, and around $2000 for the monitor!

  • Charity on 20/05/2015 - 00:18

    Folks paid nearly $10 thou for a legit IBM in the mid-80's.

    It never died, just got old. I think they still got it in a box somewhere.

  • [Deactivated] on 20/05/2015 - 08:20

    I had the commodore 64, great learning tool and awesome gaming device back then.
    Friend of me mine had the commodore 128 which was better but lacked in the gaming department.

    My first Pentium was a p100 100mhz 4mb ram which I upgraded to 8 and a 20gb HDD.
    Then upgraded by myself to a 233mmx with 8mb ram and 40gb HDD running win xp.

    Now I have a various assortment of desktops running Linux but the only windows I have is a dell venue pro 8 tablet with a BT keyboard and mouse, which is doing pretty darn well for itself.

  • sachz on 20/05/2015 - 08:46
    +1

    Plebs.

    Apple ][+
    48KB RAM
    no HDD
    no colour monitor (had to use a green screen)
    no windows (100% command line)
    128kb floppy disk for storage
    military grade ruggedness (can throw from 2nd floor and will likely still work!!).

    all this in 1980.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_Plus

    Best time of my life!!! :)

    • RockyRaccoon on 20/05/2015 - 09:32
      +2

      Correction on the 128K Floppy.

      Normal storage capacity per disk side was 113.75kiB with Apple DOS 3.2.1 and earlier (256 bytes per sector, 13 sectors per track, 35 tracks per side), or 140kiB with DOS 3.3 and all later Apple II operating systems, and the accompanying ROM update for the controller card (16 sectors per track).

      You could buy the base at 16K and upgrade the ram yourself to the 48K. Pre-Ozbargainer.

      Unless of course you where happy to pay Electronic Concepts/Computerlands prices.. :)

    • rolypoly on 20/05/2015 - 09:35
      +1

      Thats amazing, I'm not sure what that computer is capable of doing per instruction cycle but it seems to lose out to lower powered modern day microcontrollers. I would love to have the time to write programs for those machines.

      I'm looking at a video of it, the keyboard sounds really nice too.

  • rolypoly on 20/05/2015 - 09:20
    +4

    All I remember is Pentium 200 MMX, seems to be recent compared to others here. Had 52x CD drive, 3.5" floppy drive, Windows 95, ball mouse, curved screen CRT monitor and turbo button. I don't remember the storage but I do remember a 10GB hdd coming out later and thinking "if I had that I will never need to buy a hdd again". Ahhh stupid young me, if only you could see the technologically riddled mess you live in now.

    Had games such as POD, gex, hexen, doom 2, duke nukem, death rally, pitfall the mayan adventure, sonic 3 and knuckles, A10 cuba, monster truck rally, command and conquer… thats all that comes to mind atm.

    Next PC was a Pentium 4 1.7Ghz. Then i7 920. Then 2.4GHz core 2 duo (money problems). And currently an i7 3770 with a HD4870 gpu. 90% of the time I use an ultra-low-power i3 laptop though to reduce electricity costs and only use the PC for video editing, CAD, games or CPU intensive programming.

    • goms on 20/05/2015 - 15:10
      +2

      Same here, the one I remembered was Pentium MMX 200Mhz also. The next one was 600MHz, then the next one after that was 1.8GHz. I remembered buying a 256MB RAM stick for over $200 and was very happy with the upgrade!

      Also when we had the MMX 200Mhz, my dad bought an Iomega Zip 100 drive which could store 100MB! Wow that was exciting compared to 1.44MB floppy disk.

      • rolypoly on 20/05/2015 - 17:02

        Ohh! Zip drives. I totally forgot about them. They were the bomb. I remember everyone wanted one but neither I or any of my friends ended up having one. They weren't cheap.

  • scotty on 20/05/2015 - 09:37
    +2

    It's interesting to note that how much people are willing to spend on the computers over the years. I don't remember how much it costed my family for our VIC-20 and first IBM XT-compatible (my parents paid for them). However we spent ~$2,500 back in 1990 for a 386DX desktop, ~$2,500 in 1995 for a 486DX4 laptop with 10" screen & 4MB RAM and ~$2,500 in 2003 for a base model iBook G3 (plus another $500 for upgrades).

    These days, at least on OzBargain, people jump up and down if you spend more than $1,000 on a laptop or more than $400 for a high-end phone.

    • MMM on 20/05/2015 - 09:54
      +1

      Toshiba were the laptop of choice and I remember paying over $5k for a fully spec'd laptop, extra RAM cost more than most laptops today. first mobile phone I paid $2500 didn't like the brick so waited for the first Motorola Microtac

    • scrimshaw on 20/05/2015 - 11:33

      I think that's because of the role the computer played in those days. A computer back then was kind of a luxury item rather than of a neccessity, these days a computer is pretty much required if you wanted to do your tax return, pay your energy bills, do your homework etc.

    • shao on 21/05/2015 - 03:15

      omg! i had the 486.. i was bit young tho. til now i still have no idea what that computer could do…..it may have run windows 3.1?

  • PVA on 20/05/2015 - 09:53

    64kB Commodore 64 (didnt want the small 16kB Vic 20).
    No hard drive of course, had a tape drive and then I saved for a floppy drive (5.25inch)

  • Bonsaichop on 20/05/2015 - 09:55

    Wang PC-2-S2 - Previously owned by Dairy Farmers!

    8088 CPU, 384K ram and a 10MB 'Winchester' HDD, monochrome display.

    Great business machine, took word processing/database/spreadsheets in its stride via WangOS. Had some DOS support, but was only good for the original Tetris.

    Now I run a business that specialises in vintage computers, had many great machines to play with from Commodore PETs, SX-64, DEC PDP mini computers, Apple II/e/c/c+/GS etc, Apple Lisas, TRS-80's, you name it i've played around with it. Great fun! Even get to play with some prototypes on good days or when a specialty order comes in.

    • MMM on 20/05/2015 - 10:01

      whatever happened to WANG computers? …in Australia they were up there with IBM for big government computer contracts.

      • Bonsaichop on 20/05/2015 - 10:03
        +2

        In short they fizzled out. But it was that they had something great but never really improved on it, everyone kept moving forward and progressing Wang just kept doing the same old thing and eventually was squeezed out. They had an office near me until the mid 1990s where I believe they were bought out, never heard much from them since.

        I used to do a bit of Wang VS support on the side in the early 2000's but it was very sporadic.

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