I'll bite.
I won't list all the computers I bought strictly for resale like all the Power Mac 4400's I shipped overseas or the iMacs I got on eBay for 5-10 bucks apiece and sold on Craigslist for $50-$100 each. Just my primary and in some cases secondary machines.
First computer: Macintosh Plus with 1MB of RAM, purchased for $350 from a computer rental store in Indianapolis, fall 1990. My parents drove me down there to pick it up and couldn't believe I was buying a computer without a hard drive. I had 2 10-count packages of 800K floppy disks and that held every program and file I needed. System 6, no Multifinder. Picked up a StyleWriter printer for $99 used from the Indy Greensheet. Kept the printer when I traded the Plus in to Sun Remarketing in spring 1992 for $125 towards my...
Second computer: Macintosh SE with 2.5MB of RAM, 1 800K floppy drive, and 1 20MB hard drive. No more continuously switching floppy disks to load Word 5.1 and various documents. And Multifinder was the bees knees. If I remember right I paid $549 for it and free shipping and they had me send the Plus back in the same box at no charge to me. This was the machine I learned HyperCard on. Killed the print head on my Stylewriter printing cool gradient designs for my school binders. Picked up a StyleWriter II and then traded the SE in to Sun for $150 credit on my first color Mac in late 1993...
Third computer: Macintosh IIx with 5MB of RAM, 1 SuperDrive, a 40MB hard drive, and a 12" RGB display in a combo for $599. This was cool. I had color. I had System 7. Couldn't print in color, but I could save to a floppy, take it up to the high school, and print out color flyers and all sorts of goodies. Learned Excel and more Word functions and PhotoShop and MIDI music and all sorts of fun. Then sold it to a friend for $400 to help finance the purchase of a longer-term computer, brand new for once in late 1994...
Fourth computer, first NEW computer: Macintosh LC III with 4MB of RAM, 160MB hard drive, and a 14" Basic Color Display in a combo for $999. I kept this for five years, man. This was sweet. First computer I ever got on the internet with. GlobalVillage 14.4 modem and it flew on eBay and in Hotmail. Loved this machine and it was the first computer I actually upgraded myself in 1997, with an 8MB RAM stick giving me 12MB. I had the upgrade bug. Wanted more. But dealt with the LCIII and its 68030 at 25MHz. Thought IIci speed was all I needed for awhile. I sold this for about $80 (box only, kept the keyboard, mouse, display, and my trusty StyleWriter II) on eBay in 1999 but a year before I picked up...
Fifth computer: Macintosh Quadra 610, 68040 power with 36MB of RAM and a 250MB hard drive. Bought it used on eBay for about $90 sometime in 1998 and this became my primary and I left the LCIII at my parents house when I moved in with my girlfriend. Used it with a VGA adapter and an HP 15" CRT. I spent about $1000 and made about $3000 that year flipping older Macs on eBay by using this machine to bid, buy, list, and sell. I took this to Texas in 2000 along with my Duo (#6 below) and had it through late 2002:
Sixth computer, first laptop: Macintosh Duo 280c, a color laptop, if I remember right it was spec'd like my LCIII, 12MB RAM and 160MB HD, and I had no docking station, used it mobile only. This was a $120 used computer from eBay. I bought this in early 2000 right before I moved and kept it through 2005 when my new wife got out of bed in the middle of the night and stepped on it. It wasn't her fault, I forgot to slide it under the bed after I finished playing (erm...losing my initial paid credit of $20.00) on BingoRoom. I did sell $100 worth of parts from this on eBay after I trashed the destroyed LCD and case and keyboard.
Seventh computer: Power Macintosh 6500/225 for $60 on Craigslist in early 2004. This had 96MB of RAM and a 4GB hard drive. This replaced the Quadra 610 (I got maybe $30 for it on eBay with no HD) in late 2002 and was my primary computer for about 3 years. Of course the wife stepping on my laptop and the fact that this thing HATED plugging into a Linksys router combined to give me the idea to replace the machine with something more modern. This was the last computer I had on System 8, too, it was time to move to OS 9, everyone else was on OS X and I was usually a generation behind so being two generations back wasn't fun.
Eighth computer: iMac DV SE, bought in late 2005 for $225 and doubled my memory (192MB) and tripled my hard drive space (13GB). Also worked really well with a cheap little USB wireless dongle thingie. Hated the round mouse, loved the keyboard. System 9.0.4 was all I had but it was great. Slot loading CD worked OK for me. If it wasn't for the next awesome deal, I would have kept this for a couple years, but it lasted with me for six months and sold for $150 when I found...
Ninth computer: Power Mac G4/400 "Sawtooth", bought for $60 on Craigslist in summer 2006 and included a 17" Studio display in matching graphite, Pro keyboard and mouse (so much better than the round iMac mouse), and this had 768MB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive. This was already loaded with 10.2.8 Jaguar and 9.2.2 as Classic. Had PhotoShop and Premiere and all sorts of stuff the previous owner left behind and I had this for a little over year. I sold it for the same $60 and picked up for free:
Tenth computer, secondary system for my desk: Power Mac G3/400, with 256MB of RAM, 10.2.8/9.2.2, and a 10GB hard drive. This was my backup machine as I prepared to migrate to PC. This happened at the same time that...
Eleventh computer, second laptop, bought NEW: Gateway ML6230 laptop with a 1.5GHz Celeron, 512MB of RAM, Vista Home Basic, and an 80GB hard drive. My wife had one as well, these were $349 Best Buy specials in October 2007 and we decided to get them. I was able to burn CD's on the Power Mac and move all my files to the laptop. Then I sold the G3/400 for $40 in a garage sale and had only the laptop by June 2008 when we moved to Malone, TX.
Twelfth computer, primary: used eMachines eTower 600i, Celeron 600MHz and a real pile. I bought this in a package deal with a computer for my wife and used it because the kids destroyed both our laptops over time. I was sick of pressing membranes instead of keys. This computer had XP Pro on it but it was a dog with 256MB of RAM and a 10GB hard drive. It didn't last long before I got a PIF deal from a friend on Gen[M]ay...
Thirteetnth computer, primary at first, still own as a Linux toy: Dell GX260 with P4 1.8GHz, 2GB of RAM, and 20GB hard drive. Originally had Windows 2000 SP4 on it and I learned a lot making this run on our home network. Then I dropped Puppy Linux on it and finally Ubuntu 10.4 where it sits now. This was given to me for free with two more GX260's (with less RAM) that I gave to the kids to play with (and eventually destroy, but I still have the one nice one). All I paid was $60 shipping and the parts from the other two revived several other machines for people in town who also had old Dells. So the PIF continued on...and I needed a new computer...
Fourteenth computer, primary at first, now my 10-year old's computer: eMachines EL1200-06w, purchased six months old in summer 2009 for $235 on eBay from a girl who loaded it up with enough viruses and spyware to where it wouldn't boot past the Windows XP Home splash screen. Included a 19" LCD display, keyboard, mouse, and webcam, also was in the original box and had restore discs. So I knew what I had to do. Wiped it, restored it, put on stuff to keep it from happening again. The single core Athlon 2650e was a dog. I upgraded the memory from 1GB to 3GB right away and used it like that for a couple months. Then I got computer #15 and gave it to the kids and discovered it could take a dual core Athlon. So I picked up a 4450B for $25 on eBay and it flew. Still a viable machine, still in use daily as is, I'd buy it again in a heartbeat. Very reliable machine and I'm very happy with it. So are my kids.
Fifteenth computer: Acer Aspire something, I only had it for a week, but basically I got it in fall 2009 from a police auction for $200 and I never used it, just restored Vista Premium on it then traded it to my babysitter for an eMachines laptop (with Vista Home Basic) which I gave to my now 12 year old daughter. She doesn't use it and it collects dust, but I've rebuilt it twice (kids yanking keys off the keyboard, power plug coming loose), upgraded it from 1GB RAM to 3GB RAM, and loaded Ubuntu 10.10 on for faster running. It's actually a decent laptop and would much better with a dual core processor but since the kids tore off half the keys again I don't feel like putting money into the machine anymore.
Sixteenth computer: Acer Extenza 5230E, bought new from Best Buy for $249 on Black Friday 2009, the first and LAST time I will EVER attend something like that, and it was worth it. This laptop had a 2.2GHZ Celeron single-core CPU and 2GB of RAM at the start, and it really was a dog. However, upgraded with $50 for 4GB of RAM and $41 on eBay for a T4300 dual core CPU, it is peppy, clean, easy to use, still my primary laptop and will be for 3-4 more years if I can help it. I'm absolutely impressed with its performance, the fact that the WHOLE bottom cover comes off and you can access everything, the hard drive, the CPU, the heatsink, the GPU, memory, everything. A lot of laptops these days have small covers for only memory and hard drive, if that. I like being able to re-apply Silver 5 to the CPU when temps start going above 45C regularly. I like being able to clean the dust out without taking the whole thing apart. I like removing and cleaning the heatsink and fan. Makes it easy to "rebuild" per se. I could gain a bit of speed moving to a T4500 CPU and PC2-6400 memory (from PC2-5300) but it's really fine as-is. I used this as a DESKTOP machine for the first 13 months sitting in the keyboard tray of my desk, with a USB hub, mouse, keyboard, speaker system, 23.6" ASUS LCD, webcam, and mic plugged in to it. It ran as fast as a 2009-era desktop so I treated it like one. It still holds its own against modern laptops with P6x00 processors. i3's are a tad faster but I'm not complaining. The Intel HD Graphics are fine for watching movies or playing 2005-2008 era games. I play GTA San Andreas on this and it's plenty fast. It'll take a serious machine to make me give this 5230E up. Maybe one of those metal-cased Dell Latitude E6410's with an i7 CPU and an nVidia discrete graphics card like my wife has now. Or the newer ones with Sandy Bridge CPU's. But I don't need the extra speed when I'm mobile, just love plugging this into 32" TV's in hotel rooms and doing what I need to on the bed.
Seventeenth computer, primary now, bought fall 2010 from CedarPC: Dell Inspiron 570, Athlon II X4 630, 6GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, DVD burner, Windows 7, and cost me all of $280 plus $32 shipping. I made two quick upgrades to turn this into a nice powerhouse. The first thing I did, as soon as I took it out of the box, was pull the sad 300-watt stock power supply and replace it with a 700-watt one. Then, after I saved up the $100 needed to do so, I installed an HD5770 video card from HIS. This allows me to play GTA IV in high detail in 1920x1080 at 30-40fps, super playable, super fast, super fun. I run two displays on this, one 23.6" ASUS LCD and one 21.5" Samsung LCD, both 1920x1080, both through DVI, and it's a multitasking beast for work. I make a solid $1200-1500 a week working from home with this machine these days. About triple what I was earning with one monitor. I can do so much more with two monitors that it makes me want to pick up another Samsung 21.5" display and a DisplayPort adapter to run THREE monitors. It might have diminishing returns but have you ever used 3 monitors? I couldn't believe the difference between one and two, the difference between two and three has to be worth it! I feel I may want to upgrade this in 2012 sometime. I can't go much more on the CPU, this motherboard doesn't support the Phenom X6 chips. But I might go with a Phenom II X4 940 as it's supported. If that doesn't give enough boost, I may go ahead and buy another copy of Windows 7 and get a different motherboard, probably Sandy Bridge, P67, with the i7-2600K CPU. My wife would be upset that my computer is faster than her i7-950, but she spends THOUSANDS on her system and I spend HUNDREDS on mine so if I can make mine faster on short money than who's to blame, right?
So that's where I'm at.
