What was your first computer?

[talest]

Generic box
either Intel 386 though may have been a 486DX2/66
8MB RAM
Forex motherboard (?)
Windows 3.1
MSDOS 5.0 maybe later upgraded to 6.22

Played Doom

I installed QEMM to get games to play

DEVICEHIGH=HIMEM.SYS I think that line did not work
DEVICEHIGH=EMM386.EXE *may have*

Quarterdeck QEMM made *some* games playable

Went crazy over super high resolution on a very expensive 15" Sony Trinitron monitor.

3.5" Floppy
2X CD-ROM from SunMoonStar

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16. CD plugged into slot on sound card.

I am remembering details if I really think about and remember it but, Wolfenstein was still on and Doom 1 had only the single shotgun, Doom 2 gave us the double barrel. This, and a CD of about 500 MS-DOS games.

Life was simpler back then. I was happy then. Now, things are just garbage. And computers are faster, too.

 

[AandPDan]

Epson Equity 1+
8088 10mhz and an 8087 math coprocessor
20mb, yes megabyte, SCSI hard drive
640kb ram
360kb 5 1/4" drive.
Monochrome monitor
MS-DOS 3.3

 

[talest]

Pentium had not yet come out yet I don't think when the 486 was around.

I once had a 486DX4/100. With a spiffy 16MB RAM.

Even had a Pentium II.

Even had a 1.06GHz Slot 1 Pentium III before the Socket 370 versions came out..

 

[Subdued]

Originally Posted by talest
Generic box
either Intel 386 though may have been a 486DX2/66
8MB RAM
Forex motherboard (?)
Windows 3.1
MSDOS 5.0 maybe later upgraded to 6.22

Played Doom

I installed QEMM to get games to play

DEVICEHIGH=HIMEM.SYS I think that line did not work
DEVICEHIGH=EMM386.EXE *may have*

Quarterdeck QEMM made *some* games playable

Went crazy over super high resolution on a very expensive 15" Sony Trinitron monitor.

3.5" Floppy
2X CD-ROM from SunMoonStar

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16. CD plugged into slot on sound card.

I am remembering details if I really think about and remember it but, Wolfenstein was still on and Doom 1 had only the single shotgun, Doom 2 gave us the double barrel. This, and a CD of about 500 MS-DOS games.

Life was simpler back then. I was happy then. Now, things are just garbage. And computers are faster, too.


You have to DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS before you can DEVICEHIGH things.

You can't DEVICEHIGH without access to >640k via HIGHMEM.SYS

 

[talest]

Originally Posted by Subdued
Originally Posted by talest
Generic box
either Intel 386 though may have been a 486DX2/66
8MB RAM
Forex motherboard (?)
Windows 3.1
MSDOS 5.0 maybe later upgraded to 6.22

Played Doom

I installed QEMM to get games to play

DEVICEHIGH=HIMEM.SYS I think that line did not work
DEVICEHIGH=EMM386.EXE *may have*

Quarterdeck QEMM made *some* games playable

Went crazy over super high resolution on a very expensive 15" Sony Trinitron monitor.

3.5" Floppy
2X CD-ROM from SunMoonStar

Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16. CD plugged into slot on sound card.

I am remembering details if I really think about and remember it but, Wolfenstein was still on and Doom 1 had only the single shotgun, Doom 2 gave us the double barrel. This, and a CD of about 500 MS-DOS games.

Life was simpler back then. I was happy then. Now, things are just garbage. And computers are faster, too.


You have to DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS before you can DEVICEHIGH things.

You can't DEVICEHIGH without access to >640k via HIGHMEM.SYS


Let me see how much I remember, without cheating and looking somewhere else lol..

LASTDRIVE=Z
STACKS=9,256
(another line I forget)
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE
DEVICE=MSDOS.DRV / DEVICE=BLASTER.EXE /IRQ:7 /DMA:3 *
DEVICE=WINDOWS.EXE

That was config.sys ? I totally forget the autoexec.bat

I will be embarrased if I look and see what it was supposed to be. *And I think that Blaster line was Autoexec,bat.

 

[Subdued]

it's been a really long time indeed!

the line you forgot is DOS=HIGH,UMB

Oh, the full path was also required in the config.sys because the path is set in the autoexec, so

DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS

Sound blaster config was a SET BLASTER = line in the autoexec

windows.exe was the last line in autoexec.bat, and it wasn't a DEVICE=

autoexec set the path, loaded any non-protected drivers (like the oak cd-rom drivers)


This is the pain 20-somethings will never feel.

 

[Skippy722]

Originally Posted by Subdued

This is the pain 20-somethings will never feel.


As a 20-something, I can confirm I have no idea what you're talking about

 

[talest]

Originally Posted by Subdued
it's been a really long time indeed!

the line you forgot is DOS=HIGH,UMB

Oh, the full path was also required in the config.sys because the path is set in the autoexec, so

DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS

Sound blaster config was a SET BLASTER = line in the autoexec

windows.exe was the last line in autoexec.bat, and it wasn't a DEVICE=

autoexec set the path, loaded any non-protected drivers (like the oak cd-rom drivers)


This is the pain 20-somethings will never feel.


Correct

I am not a 20-something nor a Millennial, but they will never know:

Fax machines
Cassette tapes
House phones
Answering machines
Beepers (1-800-BEEP-199)
Sega
etc.

I used to love playing with my device drivers. Setting the drive to different letters. I made it E: and F: plenty of times. I also did the same fooling around with my Sound Blaster settings. Getting it to work with DOOM (2 mostly, sometimes 1 or Ultimate Doom.. not sure modern gamers even know Doom except for maybe Doom 4, which is so far departed. Anyways)

Their Doom:

Our Doom:

Simpsons Doom was pretty funny but the sprites were too big.

As to DOOM: Doom 1...
I D S P I S P O P D
Doom 2: I D K F A. (?) From memory. Have not played Doom in awhile only because I have done everything could be done with it, liked it, loved it, moved on.

Back to the computers.

I used to do things like erase the Windows or Windows32 or Program Files folders and see if it would still boot. Most of the times, it would.. strange error message, then keep on booting. Sometimes I had Windows.000 and Windows.001 folder and ran Windows and the drivers out of that. I always ran my HIMEM.SYS out of WINDOWS and MSDOSDRV ? - I still have not cheated and looked at Google for the command line. I just remember one of the drivers was identified as SunMoonStar. Oak also rings a bell. Also Philips.. sometimes Sony. I think I had two CD ROM drives. Both 2x, but one would only work off the Sound Blaster board and the other one was just regular IDE.

ISA

 

[spasm3]

Texas instruments TI 99/4a . about 1982 i think.

Looked like this. Used a cassette recorder for storage.

 

[bunnspecial]

For a long time, I used a hand-me-down Tandy 1000a from my dad. He'd really tricked it out-it was at 640K of RAM, had dual floppy drives, a modem(he ran an income tax business from home from the mid-80s to the mid 2000s), and best of all, a 30mb "HardCard." He eventually let my grandfather borrow it, and somewhere along the way it went to the trash.

A few months back, I heard of a 1000TX available for sale that was fitted with a HardCard. The TX can hold a bit more RAM, has a 3 1/2 disk drive, and most importantly a 286(the 1000a was an 8088). The guy selling it didn't want to ship it, so it's currently with a friend who needs to get it shipped to me. There's also the issue that I don't have a Tandy monitor, although the TX supposedly will work with an ISA graphics card so I can drop one in and use a VGA monitor. I have an NOS 5 1/4" drive sitting here that will go in it as soon as it arrives, as I still have a bunch of games I grew up playing on bootable 5 1/4 disks. Of course, I'm hoping that it also has the original Tandy software installed.

As a side note-this hardly counts as my first computer, but I'm a computer collector. I mostly collect Macs(I have everything from an original 1984 "Macintosh" to several nice Intel pieces that are now considered classic, and a whole lot in between) but also have a broader interest in the once vibrant scene of RISC or at least x86 alternative systems that were available. I have some SGI equipment, which is fascinating not only for how capable it is for its age but also how over-the-top the designs are. Aside from PowerPC and MIPS, I hadn't expanded my RISC "collection" for a while. Some folks at work know about my "pecularities" for lack of a better term, and a Sun Ultra 5 appeared outside my office door this past week. Unfortunately, I'm stuck at the login screen and also can't "back door" it since I have neither the root password nor the install media. I should drop another hard drive in it(fortunately, it's ATA) and do a fresh install of Solaris-10 will run on the processor in this and is available free from Oracle-or otherwise bite the bullet and either do one of the Linux distros that supports it, or preferably something like FreeBSD.

 

[talest]

Originally Posted by bunnspecial
For a long time, I used a hand-me-down Tandy 1000a from my dad. He'd really tricked it out-it was at 640K of RAM, had dual floppy drives, a modem(he ran an income tax business from home from the mid-80s to the mid 2000s), and best of all, a 30mb "HardCard." He eventually let my grandfather borrow it, and somewhere along the way it went to the trash.

A few months back, I heard of a 1000TX available for sale that was fitted with a HardCard. The TX can hold a bit more RAM, has a 3 1/2 disk drive, and most importantly a 286(the 1000a was an 8088). The guy selling it didn't want to ship it, so it's currently with a friend who needs to get it shipped to me. There's also the issue that I don't have a Tandy monitor, although the TX supposedly will work with an ISA graphics card so I can drop one in and use a VGA monitor. I have an NOS 5 1/4" drive sitting here that will go in it as soon as it arrives, as I still have a bunch of games I grew up playing on bootable 5 1/4 disks. Of course, I'm hoping that it also has the original Tandy software installed.

As a side note-this hardly counts as my first computer, but I'm a computer collector. I mostly collect Macs(I have everything from an original 1984 "Macintosh" to several nice Intel pieces that are now considered classic, and a whole lot in between) but also have a broader interest in the once vibrant scene of RISC or at least x86 alternative systems that were available. I have some SGI equipment, which is fascinating not only for how capable it is for its age but also how over-the-top the designs are. Aside from PowerPC and MIPS, I hadn't expanded my RISC "collection" for a while. Some folks at work know about my "pecularities" for lack of a better term, and a Sun Ultra 5 appeared outside my office door this past week. Unfortunately, I'm stuck at the login screen and also can't "back door" it since I have neither the root password nor the install media. I should drop another hard drive in it(fortunately, it's ATA) and do a fresh install of Solaris-10 will run on the processor in this and is available free from Oracle-or otherwise bite the bullet and either do one of the Linux distros that supports it, or preferably something like FreeBSD.


Our school had these in Computer Lab. The Appie IIe. Some of them even had the double stack of 5.25" floppy.. copying practice. 1.2MB capacity, vs. 3.5" 1.44MB? Remember Doom 2 split across 5 floppy disks if you did not have it on CD ROM? LOL

They were the Apple II-E on the right.

I also used a VTech electronic keyboard that let you program BASIC code. Not quite this, but, similar.