First year you used a computer (either at home or at work)

[undeterred]

Poll question: First year you used a computer (either at home or at work)

[sir_captain]

1. First time was in 1983 at Sears

My grandmother was an early computer programmer and took me to Sears to play with the Apples they had on display there. So I got in on it pretty early. My first computer had a tape drive.

[YankeyMCC]

2. Commodore 64 at home

Cassette Tape drive

Oh man seems like an age ago! Well I guess technically it was. ;)

[MedleyMisty]

3. 1985-1990

It was at elementary school. The computer lab had these Tandy computers that used DOS and could only do green text or lines on a black screen. And I faintly remember using 5 inch floppies.

I got my first home computer for my 16th birthday. It was a Packard Bell with Windows 95.

[Omphaloskepsis]

4. My parents bought the original Macintosh...

I used to play with MacPaint, and MacPoker a lot.. I was seven.

[cloudbase]

5. Museum piece here.

Back in '73 in high school we had one of the TTY terminals hooked up via modem (the kind where you had to put the handset into a cradle in the modem) to the University of Pittsburgh's computer. Pretty much the same my first year of college, though that one was hooked into the computer at Dartmouth (a long haul from Long Island). Got my first PC in 1990, an old Tandy 8088.

I still have my slide rule, though. Some of the worst advice I was ever given was to get the best slide rule I could afford, because I'd be using it all my professional life.

Christ, I feel old now.

[undeterred]

7. My dad gave me a slide rule when I went away to college

in 1975. Didn't want to break his heart by telling him I didn't get the engineering gene.

[pokerfan]

43. Same here

In HS in 1974 we could TTY to the local university mainframe.

University freshman year 1977 I was writing programs on punchcards.

Sophmore year I was using eight inch floppy discs.

Junior year I was granted storage space on the university's Amdahl 470 mainframe as well as getting time on the EE department's HP minicomputer.

I had a slide rule as well. I still keep a pocket Pickett in the car for figuring gas mileage. It never needs batteries and I get some looks standing next to the pump with a slipstick.

I still think a slide rule is a terrific way to teach students about the properties of logarithms.

[FredStembottom]

55. Dang! I forgot about those!

I did some kinda basic hook-up and word game with the phone cradle teletype style computer terminal in high school about that same year.

Had no idea what I was doing.

Does that count?

[qnr]

6. Both an Atari 400 and an 800 in 1979. n/t

[mainegreen]

10. Yah, yah, yah. And I'm sure you've posted on DU using them too!

:rofl:

What's up with the retro computer lounge threads?

[qnr]

70. Nah, my 8-bit ones are in storage. Though my 400 is still running strong,

a friend is using it in a photo lab in Italy. :hi:

[Xipe Totec]

8. 1962 - IBM Toy computer from Mattel

Punch cards, flashing lights, and everything.

Didn't take me long to discover (at age 6) that the answers were punched in to the cards.

It was a fraud. I have NEVER had respect for computers my whole life.

What's the point of a machine you have to teach how to be useful?

My first exposure to real computers was in 1973, and I've programmed all my life.

BTW, I get my Master's in Computer Science this May.




I STILL hate computers.

[undeterred]

9. I felt the same way about barbie in 1962...

:hi:

[Xipe Totec]

11. I see the metaphor. Bravo!

:hi:

[evlbstrd]

33. Mine was a Playskool Busy Box!

Even dumber than yours, I'd guess.

1985. Mac Plus.

[KamaAina]

12. "I still don't use one.'?!

And just how, might I ask, would someone cast a vote for that option? Wouldn't it require, you know, using one?

Reminds me of when Les Nessman grabbed the mike and yelled, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are off the air!"

[undeterred]

13. Its the computer equivalent of "Robb is a dingbat"!

:silly:

[Robb]

16. Looks that way.

:P

[Redstone]

14. 1969. Anyone else remember the Model 33 Teletype as a terminal, and the yellow paper tape?

Built some STRONG typin' fingers with that teletype machine.

Redstone

[Catchawave]

42. Flexowriter ?

My first government job...did data entry into this monster machine that made punch cards AND a green paper tape?

[Redstone]

44. No punchcards. Just MILES of that yellow paper tape.

Redstone

[Z_I_Peevey]

61. I remember the yellow paper tape!

There were some who could read the AP teletype tapes just like they were printed stories.

[qnr]

72. Sure do. Though my TTY use was mostly in communications. I did use paper tape

with my KIM-1 however.

[Sanity Claws]

15. 1990

We used to have secretaries do all our typing. Then we got PCs and started doing our own first drafts.

[MrSlayer]

17. Mattel Aquarius - 1983

[MorningGlow]

18. 1986, under duress, in my college writing center

Ach, wait, I tell a lie--I tried to learn BASIC in high school and failed miserably. I still can't code.

But my college writing center got a PC and I had to learn to use it--black screen, green letters, dot matrix printing--ah, those were the days...not. The 'puter and I didn't get along very well--I used to blow it up on a regular basis and have no idea what I did. But I did manage to type my entire senior thesis on it.

On edit: Aside--I got a good laugh watching last week's My Name Is Earl, when Randy rediscovered his Merlin game at his parents' house. I had forgotten about that monster ancestor of the Gameboy! "Computerized" Tic Tac Toe--woo hoo!

[InvisibleTouch]

27. Oooh, we had one of those!

Not only tic-tac-toe, but it would play music, and you could even "compose" your own. Neat blinking lights, too! :)

[michreject]

19. 1980 in college

Had Cobol, Fortran, Basic and RPG lll.

[yurbud]

20. 1976ish

It was a terminal hooked up to a mainframe by putting the handset of a phone on a modem.

Instead of having a CRT display, it printed out on butcher paper.

[Catfight]

21. I played Leisure Suit Larry by using commands and booting up in DOS.

That's how I got hooked on computers, playing a game that the object was getting laid. LOL Good times, yeah.

[smtpgirl]

22. a "dumb" Wang Terminal in high school in 1977

I took a data processing class where we had timeshare with University of MD's Bulletin Board.

I learned how to program an IBM keypunch machine, a reproducer, a tabulator.

The tabulator & reproducer had a panel that you had to manually wire in order to get results that were added, subtracted, multiplyed or divided. It also alphabetized ascending/descinging orders.

The wiring panel consisted of a board with a bunch of holes (plugboard). You chose a predetermined length of cable with terminations at both ends and wired the panel accordingly to what kind of data that you wanted to I/O.

A Plugboard, start/finish:





IBM Accounting Machine (tabulator), the one I worked on wasn't this big, but similar



The Wang "dumb" terminal looked similar to the green terminal, but it was gray:

[deadparrot]

23. Elementary school, in the early 90s.

My dad had a few games on his old computer, too.

[Jimbo S]

24. A tty terminal in 1978

Seventh grade. Our school had a "computer club" that met after school a couple of times a week for us geeks.

First home computer was an ATARI 400 in 1983, cassette tape drive. Thanks, dad!!

[mike_c]

25. PDP-11 babeeeeeeee....

Although I must admit, I didn't start coding until a few years later, in the early 1980s. My first programs were written in BASIC on a TRS-80 with super-deluxe cassette tape storage.

[nuxvomica]

46. I worked on PDP-11s for years

My shoulders still hurt sometimes from handling those RP06 disk packs that had to be held by one hand in the center. Weekend backup duty on 6 systems was physically exhausting.



edit: added photo.

[Skittles]

26. I ran Mainframes long before PCs came out

Honeywell, IBM - big, massive f***ing things

[InvisibleTouch]

28. 1985. Atari something-or-other.

We had the Atari game system too, with the game cartridges. Among numerous others we had the E.T. game, Indiana Jones, and the one I loved best, "Cosmic Ark." At some point it was all sold at a garage sale. Pity.

On edit: Ooh, and I forgot about "Asteroids" - the only game I was ever really good at. Once I went through the whole range of score numbers 3 times, and might still be playing to this day if my mother hadn't called me to dinner. ;)

[Blue-Jay]

30. Might have been an Atari 400.

One of my HS friends had that one, and we all thought he was the coolest, smartest guy EVER!

[Blue-Jay]

29. My first computer was a Commodore PET, circa 1983-4

[CatholicEdHead]

31. 1988 I think

Old Tandy 8086 with 512K RAM, 5 1/4 drive and no hard drive.

[LeftyMom]

32. 1982 or '83, I was a toddler, C64 at my grandmother's house. She gave it to me when she upgraded.

I still have it and it still works.

[MoseyWalker]

34. I bought the very first Commodore - before the 64

and can't remember having had as much fun with a new "toy" since or ever.

It was amazing, though in retrospect, it didn't do a damn thing!

[Mojambo]

35. The Vic 20?

A friend of mine had one of those.

I got the C=64 when I was around 11 years old. Changed my life forever.

[martymar64]

90. I had a Vic 20.

I loved it. My first computer graphic was an ascii zigzag man.

My first exposure was to a TRS-80 in 1978. Played Lunar Lander. I also learned to code FORTRAN onto punch cards in my computer Science class in HS. We would do fieldtrips down to he Univ. of Idaho to use their mainframes. It was also my first exposure to punk rock on that same field trip. That was about 1979-80.

[Rabrrrrrr]

36. 1979 - my junior high math teacher had a TRS-80 Model I,

16K of RAM on that sumbitch!

[REP]

53. 1979, TRaSh-80 Here, Too

Only it was high school for me.

[Javaman]

76. Oh man me too!! LOL

I was so jazzed when I learned out to move a green pixel across the screen LOL

[KitchenWitch]

37. Does teletype math in elementary school count?

[Shine]

38. 1982, freshmen year of college.

:hi:

[mentalsolstice]

39. Commodore

At my aunt's house in the early 80s. I played games on it! Who knew, that in 2000-2004 I would have made huge amounts money working for a financial institution in IT (and with no formal education in computer sciences). On the other hand, it was a SICK arrangement with the devil.

[Cobalt-60]

40. IBM 360 in Fortran class, 1977

I also got to diddle my dorm neighbor's Altair.
The first computer I ever owned was the ZX-81.
That was followed by the Commodore 64, which amused me until '92.
Sice then it's been generic IBM clones.

[Crabby Appleton]

41. 1968 - a NCR 500 in the US Army

and first PC I owned ran CP/M OS

[nuxvomica]

45. TRS-80 but I don't recall the exact year

I learned BASIC programming by modifying Hammurabi so that I could have obscenely huge grain yields. I even wrote my own version of a Breakout game that was extremely slow and a horse race game of my own invention. I had to use a tape recorder for storage and because I used a cheap one that didn't synchronize with the computer, I had to hit record and play before writing files and play before reading them.
I later paid a horrendous amount of money for a TI-99/4A and followed that with a Commodore 64.

[guitar man]

47. 1999

I was a late bloomer, finally broke down and bought my first PC in '99, it was a windows 98 machine. Hell, I was out on the road playing music for a living most of the time, what did I need a computer for :shrug:

Now, 8 years later, I sit in an office and make my living in front of one. Whod've thunk it? :P

[pokerfan]

59. Windows 98 was a pretty solid OS

IMO. Be thankful that you never had to futz with CP/M, DOS or Win 3.1.

[guitar man]

66. It really was

my Dad had jumped in a few years before me and had a machine running DOS. I fooled with it a bit and gave up :banghead:

[deepthought42]

75. Ha, ha ha! I remember Win 3.1!

Back in the days of "File Manager"....when we finally got Win 95 it was a big adjustment for me. When I was little, my dad would teach me the commands I needed to know to run my games on DOS...lmao. He'd write them on the backup floppy diskettes that we made for every game I got...lmao... :rofl: Those were the days!

[undeterred]

77. I remember when I thought drag and drop or plug and play

was so cool

[deepthought42]

81. Lol...How about a point-and-click interface?

Woo, spiffy stuff. Of course, I am grateful for drag-and-drop and plug-and-play. Makes things easier for me. I grew up on those things...

[TOhioLiberal]

48. In the early 80's...

...it was a TRS-80 Model 1.
DH, on the other hand was building them in the late 70's.

[u4ic]

49. 1982 - grade 10

I took a computer programming course. I got a pity mark of 52%. I never fully completed an assignment. It was by far the worst grade I'd ever had.

I was very happy to return to art classes. I don't have the mind for programming.

[TheBaldyMan]

50. I had an internet presence in 1985 (pre-web, pre-WAIS, pre-Kermit)

In fact it was pretty much pre-everything, you had mail,FTP,usenet and erm ... that's it.

There were 50 sites world wide 10 in UK, the rest in the USA at the time, 12 months later that had doubled to 100, with 20 UK sites and 80+ in the USA.

By the time the web hit (1993) there were an estimated 100,000+ internet sites.

[fortyfeetunder]

51. FORTRAN Fanny

Programming my butt off...punching punchcards...

[njdemocrat106]

52. Either 1984 or 1985

Grandma somehow got an Apple IIc, and regifted it to my family. I was one of the scant few in elementary school who knew how to use a computer (well, an Apple Computer anyway.) I still have the computer and everything that came with it (lots of software, too; I hope those old disks still work), but haven't booted it up in ages. One of these days...

[FredStembottom]

54. My brother dove right in with a Commodore VIC-20

First year they were out - whatever that was...........
He let me dabble on it a little.

[Spider Jerusalem]

56. An Apple II, circa 1983 or '84.

I was in first or second grade at the time.

[undeterred]

57. Apple Two Plus 1982

[Kutjara]

58. My dad showed me the huge new supercomputer at his office.

The thing was awesome. It filled two rooms, took gigawatts of energy to power, could heat a small town, and, on a good day, could beat me at tic-tac-toe.

This was back in 1969.

[RebelOne]

60. Operated Compugraphic typesetting computers

in late '70s and into the '80s. In early '80s, got my first home computer, an Apple IIe.

[Z_I_Peevey]

63. I had to google to get the precise name,

but I started on a Compugraphic Jr. typesetter. Later, around 1980 there were individual terminals, which we called VDTs.

Wow, that was a long time ago.

[REP]

82. Me Too!!1!

CompSet, Linotype-Hell (aptly names, by the way), EPICS... I got to the point where not only could I fix them, I could hack them.

[bikebloke]

62. Friends had a PET

I think it was the late 70's or eighty-ish. They used to sit up all night typing programs into it.

[Kali]

64. well I tried in college, but didn't fare too well - those were the days

when the computer was in another room from the class full of keyboards and I think we were even using punch cards? (I think I have blocked the experience) then we got a little used pc in 2000 for the kids to do reports for schooler etc. Never went on line or did much with it. In 2002 we got our first new computer and soon after I became addicted - so I would most truthfully say not until 2002. I have learned a lot on my own and with the help of the DU computer forum. I even use it for work sometimes! hee hee

[LSK]

65. Commodore 64 in the early 80s

[Kali]

67. oooh while there are computer people looking...

I am having problems with my monitor: :argh: :nopity:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=242&topic_id=12949&mesg_id=12949

[ThatsMyBarack]

68. While my friends had Atari 2600 consoles to play Pac-Man on....

....my family had a dinosaur IBM with a green and black monochrome on which I played "ASCII Man" for hours on end. Good times. Good times.

[SteppingRazor]

69. Sometime in the early 1980s, I'm sure...

I was tiny then. I don't really remember much of the pre-PC world.

[Jokerman]

71. So now I'm "ancient". I Guess that's better than "prehistoric".

LOL

[deepthought42]

73. Born in '82...I don't remember my first computer...

I've just grown up with them. I remember being really surprised when I was little (late 80s) to learn that alot of people didn't have computers at home. My dad is a civil engineer, so that's probably why I grew up with one.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

74. 1983

A Burroughs B6900 mainframe, plus a 8085-based Brazilian-made CP/M machine at college, plus a TRS-80 Model I clone at home.

All three of those came almost at the same time -- I can't say which is first. Unless my friend's HP41CV I fiddled with the previous year counts.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

78. In 1979, Yale came up with a revolutionary new possibility for grad students:

we could word-process our dissertations...on terminals of the university's mainframe computer.

We were given an account with "computer money" on it, a looseleaf notebook containing directions for a word processing program called WScript, and a few minutes of instruction on how to run the terminal.

WScript was decidedly NOT WYSIWYG. You typed your text normally, but all formatting had to be done with dot commands. For example, if you wanted to create a footnote, you had to go like this:

"As Professor Curmudgeon claims in his groundbreaking work on the subject,

.footnote

Curmudgeon, Grumpy,

.ital

The Last Word on Everything

.italoff

(New York) Publish or Perish Press, 1975.

.footend

'There is no reason to believe any of this nonsense.' However, it is easy to find exceptions to Curmudgeon's sweeping dismissal..."

When you were done, you sent the file to the printer, the only printer for a room full of two dozen terminals. It came out on computer paper. That was when you got to see whether you had made any mistakes in formatting.

Once I forgot to put ".footend" at the end of a footnote, with the result that half my chapter was printed under a line two inches from the bottom of the page. It was an unforgettable way to learn the lesson, "Computers are stupid."

In 1982, I took a programming course at the University of Minnesota. For some unknown reason, one of the requirements was to learn how to keypunch, even though the professor and everyone else knew that punch cards were on the way out. The result is that I acquired a completely useless skill.

[Left Is Write]

84. "I acquired a completely useless skill."

LOL!

I feel the same way about my Gregg shorthand course and learning how to play 45s on the radio.

[Orsino]

79. Punching cards for an IBM 3270, ca. 1977

Took a college FORTRAN course in high school.

[underpants]

80. 1996 my first "Computers 101" prof was a Chinese guy with bad penmanship

I have had to learn most of it on my own.

[Left Is Write]

83. I used a computer in 1977 at school, but that was not my first exposure to one.

My dad worked for a company that designed and manufactured computer systems.

[Little Wing]

85. Dam. I voted for early when it should have been ancient

[graywarrior]

86. 1973. Mass General Hospital

Or as we called it Mass Genital.

[ironflange]

87. Summer job, govt. geological research, 1980

The whole place ran on an HP minicomputer of some sort; I spent lots of lunch hours playing Super Star Trek. I even figured out a good cheat for it.

One of the scientists had an Apple II in his office, it was set up to record coal reflectance readings straight from the microscope, then print up a graph along with an analysis of all the data for that sample. An in-house guy wrote the code, a real geek, but it was a very impressive piece of programming for a micro from that era.

[Auntie Bush]

88. An Osborn--1982

What a horror it was! I gave up! But I lasted lots longer than my husband. Turned out it was defective! We didn't get another one till the mid 1990's

[LibertyLover]

89. It was 1982

and I was working in the office of the VP for Finance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was Senior Administrative Assistant to the Controller. We got 1 IBM for the entire office and the controller asked me to input the annual report figures from the previous year so that when it came time to produce it again, it would be easier. One of the assistant controllers got ticked that I wasn't at my desk for hours on end to answer her phone and she had to do it herself. I explained that I was typing the annual report. To which she replied "Typing? What do you mean typing? Don't you just hold it up to that little screen (i.e. the monitor)?"

However my husband's experience goes back to 1969, when he was 14. His older (by 12 years) brother worked at the time for National Cash Register. One Saturday they went into the office to get some parts to fix a customer's computer. The brother's boss saw how good my husband was with the things and offered him a job on the spot. Which he couldn't take because he was under-age.