6 ms·

Ask HN: At what age did you use a computer for the first time?

9 points by tush726 10y ago

What were the specifications? (if you remember them)

mhausenblas 10y ago
Mid 80ies (around 10yo), a Schneider CPC464 IIRC
dba7dba 10y ago
About 19 years old, during college freshman year. $2000, early 1990s. Windows 3.1. No name beige computer. Had a 3½-inch floppy disk drive. Agonized over getting 5¼-inch floppy drive also but didn't. I was aware of Apple computers and might have looked into getting Macintosh Classic II but was swayed away due to perceived high cost. But my first clone PC computer cost me just about the same.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
outsidetheparty 10y ago
Seven or eight years old (1977 or 78). It was a Commodore PET, on which I spent many happy hours typing out ASCII animations in BASIC of stick figures sword fighting each other. There were other computers in the house as far back as I can recall -- first one I remember was roughly the size of a mini-fridge and had removable disc drives the size of a pizza box; no idea what it was beyond that. Dad was what you might call an Early Adopter.
hga 10y ago
Age 17 in 1977, a IBM 1130, which I'm sure was pretty much the standard configuration including a hard disk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1130 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1130 We students had hands on access since by then the model had been out for a dozen year and real users were using faster machines (it was leased by the local college for exactly this purpose, they had a 370/115 for the main computer), we loaded our punched cards (FORTRAN), broke it out of a loop if needed, etc.
partisan 10y ago
I had a Tandy Color Computer 2. It hooked up to my TV and used cartridges for games and programs. I was about 7 years old (1986). I tried to understand programming BASIC, but it was beyond me at the time and I didn't have anyone to explain it to me so I used it for the games for a few years. My favorite game was Dungeons of Daggorath which I still crave to play sometimes.
maremmano 10y ago
I was around 10 yo and it was a Sinclair ZX-80 (circa 1981). Later I had a Commodore VIC 20 as Xmas gift. I still remember spending two days of barely eating something and trying to figure out how it worked. too excited!
- stevekemp 10y ago
  I guess I'd be similar, my first access to a computer was a 48k Spectrum in 1982, putting me about 7 years old. It had a dead tape-deck though, so I mostly read the manual(s) and typed "10 PRINT "HELLO"; 20 GOTO 10", etc.
auxym 10y ago
Around 6 or so I think? 386 running MS-DOS, dad taught me the commands needed to start up Prince of Persia. I had no idea what they did, just learned by heart. C: cd \ cd games cd prince prince
NumberCruncher 10y ago
I was around 10 when we bought a Commodore 64 in Vienna after the fall of the iron curtain.
psyc 10y ago
Age 12. Tandy 1000 HX. 7.16Mhz 8088, 256K RAM, 720K floppy, 16 color Tandy graphics, Tandy sound (3 FM channels + 1 noise channel)
joezydeco 10y ago
Age 9. Apple ][ (1 MHz MOSTEK 6502, 4KiB DRAM) No Plus, no Applesoft BASIC, no disk drive. Loaded software off cassette tape.
LarryMade2 10y ago
Heh - around 11 - my brother and I went off over to the local colleges computer center and messed around on the terminals - pretty sure it was some PDP flavor - circa '76. (A friend's mom worked for the college so they had kids drop by now and again.). Didn't know anything but was was neat.
drakonka 10y ago
My dad used to bring home a work laptop in Ukraine on rare occasions (I remember it having a trackpoint so I think some sort of thinkpad) and I'd sit there and mess around in Paint for a few minutes until he'd take it back. I can't remember the age, maybe..7? At one point around that age we got a computer lab in school. I remember we had to type in programs during the classes. We only had a few classes though from memory. If we typed the program in quickly enough we could actually spend time playing the resulting game :D I'm now a fast typist. The first time I started really using a computer was when we got one at home after moving to the U.S. - I was about 12 or 13 at the time.
tluyben2 10y ago
8 bit 3.58 Mhz MSX 1 in the early 80s, I was 7 or 8. I had been learning Basic and Pascal from books and magazines for about a year already before I touched my first computer.
thevibesman 10y ago
Age 2, Mac Plus. One of my earliest memories---possibly the earliest[1]---is the night my parents first set it up and had a box of disks they were using to install software on a 30MB external SCSI HD. I remember really wanting to use it, but I had to wait until the morning because they had to learn how to use it first. I think we started with System Software 2.0(4.0), but it might have been an earlier version. Soon updated to System Software 5.0 and MultiFinder (and 4MB of RAM for multifinder). I remember the upgrade to System Software 6.0, because my copy of Dark Castle stopped working---eventually I figured out that there was a copy of System and Finder on Disk 1 and that I could boot from that instead of the external SCSI HD. My parents bought the computer for office use in their jewelry design/manufacturing studio; so I could use it there when they were doing bring-kid-to-work-daycare, but they also often brought it home in the Mac Plus carrying case. I have fond memories of using the How to Use Your Mac tutorial: the mouse tutorial and the start was fun and something I could easily learn by watching; I remember the Finder tutorial that followed challenging as it had text instructions so at first I couldn't do it on my own and would need help---I think trying to do the Finder tutorial played a big part in learning how to read. I remember using Mac Paint a lot, but also watching my mother work on the computer and wanting to learn what she was doing: Mac Draw (for jewelry design), Excel[2], and CAT IV (CRM). My pediatritian was also a Mac user and would go to Mac World and would give me disks with SWAG games he got. Later when my parents got a Macintosh Performa 575[3] to replace the Mac Plus, they made the fatal mistake of setting it up at home---I wasn't going to let that multimedia machine go! Luckily they made a good parenting decision and decided it would be better for my sister and I to have access to the Performa since they could get by a little longer on the Mac Plus at their office. Eventually they brought the Performa to work and replaced that with a PowerMac 7200/75. [1]: Side note: Around this time also saw 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time; my father got it for me as a 1st birthday present. [2]: I liked using simple expressions for calculations, but mostly making graphs; lots of pet graphs (i.e. 1 cat, and various numbers of fish). [3]: Might be mistaken on the specific model.

9 points by tush726 10y ago

What were the specifications? (if you remember them)

mhausenblas 10y ago

Mid 80ies (around 10yo), a Schneider CPC464 IIRC

dba7dba 10y ago

About 19 years old, during college freshman year. $2000, early 1990s. Windows 3.1. No name beige computer. Had a 3½-inch floppy disk drive. Agonized over getting 5¼-inch floppy drive also but didn't. I was aware of Apple computers and might have looked into getting Macintosh Classic II but was swayed away due to perceived high cost. But my first clone PC computer cost me just about the same.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

outsidetheparty 10y ago

Seven or eight years old (1977 or 78). It was a Commodore PET, on which I spent many happy hours typing out ASCII animations in BASIC of stick figures sword fighting each other. There were other computers in the house as far back as I can recall -- first one I remember was roughly the size of a mini-fridge and had removable disc drives the size of a pizza box; no idea what it was beyond that. Dad was what you might call an Early Adopter.

hga 10y ago

Age 17 in 1977, a IBM 1130, which I'm sure was pretty much the standard configuration including a hard disk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1130 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1130 We students had hands on access since by then the model had been out for a dozen year and real users were using faster machines (it was leased by the local college for exactly this purpose, they had a 370/115 for the main computer), we loaded our punched cards (FORTRAN), broke it out of a loop if needed, etc.

partisan 10y ago

I had a Tandy Color Computer 2. It hooked up to my TV and used cartridges for games and programs. I was about 7 years old (1986). I tried to understand programming BASIC, but it was beyond me at the time and I didn't have anyone to explain it to me so I used it for the games for a few years. My favorite game was Dungeons of Daggorath which I still crave to play sometimes.

maremmano 10y ago

I was around 10 yo and it was a Sinclair ZX-80 (circa 1981). Later I had a Commodore VIC 20 as Xmas gift. I still remember spending two days of barely eating something and trying to figure out how it worked. too excited!

stevekemp 10y ago
I guess I'd be similar, my first access to a computer was a 48k Spectrum in 1982, putting me about 7 years old. It had a dead tape-deck though, so I mostly read the manual(s) and typed "10 PRINT "HELLO"; 20 GOTO 10", etc.

auxym 10y ago

Around 6 or so I think? 386 running MS-DOS, dad taught me the commands needed to start up Prince of Persia. I had no idea what they did, just learned by heart. C: cd \ cd games cd prince prince

NumberCruncher 10y ago

I was around 10 when we bought a Commodore 64 in Vienna after the fall of the iron curtain.

psyc 10y ago

Age 12. Tandy 1000 HX. 7.16Mhz 8088, 256K RAM, 720K floppy, 16 color Tandy graphics, Tandy sound (3 FM channels + 1 noise channel)

joezydeco 10y ago

Age 9. Apple ][ (1 MHz MOSTEK 6502, 4KiB DRAM) No Plus, no Applesoft BASIC, no disk drive. Loaded software off cassette tape.

LarryMade2 10y ago

Heh - around 11 - my brother and I went off over to the local colleges computer center and messed around on the terminals - pretty sure it was some PDP flavor - circa '76. (A friend's mom worked for the college so they had kids drop by now and again.). Didn't know anything but was was neat.

drakonka 10y ago

My dad used to bring home a work laptop in Ukraine on rare occasions (I remember it having a trackpoint so I think some sort of thinkpad) and I'd sit there and mess around in Paint for a few minutes until he'd take it back. I can't remember the age, maybe..7? At one point around that age we got a computer lab in school. I remember we had to type in programs during the classes. We only had a few classes though from memory. If we typed the program in quickly enough we could actually spend time playing the resulting game :D I'm now a fast typist. The first time I started really using a computer was when we got one at home after moving to the U.S. - I was about 12 or 13 at the time.

tluyben2 10y ago

8 bit 3.58 Mhz MSX 1 in the early 80s, I was 7 or 8. I had been learning Basic and Pascal from books and magazines for about a year already before I touched my first computer.

thevibesman 10y ago

Age 2, Mac Plus. One of my earliest memories---possibly the earliest[1]---is the night my parents first set it up and had a box of disks they were using to install software on a 30MB external SCSI HD. I remember really wanting to use it, but I had to wait until the morning because they had to learn how to use it first. I think we started with System Software 2.0(4.0), but it might have been an earlier version. Soon updated to System Software 5.0 and MultiFinder (and 4MB of RAM for multifinder). I remember the upgrade to System Software 6.0, because my copy of Dark Castle stopped working---eventually I figured out that there was a copy of System and Finder on Disk 1 and that I could boot from that instead of the external SCSI HD. My parents bought the computer for office use in their jewelry design/manufacturing studio; so I could use it there when they were doing bring-kid-to-work-daycare, but they also often brought it home in the Mac Plus carrying case. I have fond memories of using the How to Use Your Mac tutorial: the mouse tutorial and the start was fun and something I could easily learn by watching; I remember the Finder tutorial that followed challenging as it had text instructions so at first I couldn't do it on my own and would need help---I think trying to do the Finder tutorial played a big part in learning how to read. I remember using Mac Paint a lot, but also watching my mother work on the computer and wanting to learn what she was doing: Mac Draw (for jewelry design), Excel[2], and CAT IV (CRM). My pediatritian was also a Mac user and would go to Mac World and would give me disks with SWAG games he got. Later when my parents got a Macintosh Performa 575[3] to replace the Mac Plus, they made the fatal mistake of setting it up at home---I wasn't going to let that multimedia machine go! Luckily they made a good parenting decision and decided it would be better for my sister and I to have access to the Performa since they could get by a little longer on the Mac Plus at their office. Eventually they brought the Performa to work and replaced that with a PowerMac 7200/75. [1]: Side note: Around this time also saw 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time; my father got it for me as a 1st birthday present. [2]: I liked using simple expressions for calculations, but mostly making graphs; lots of pet graphs (i.e. 1 cat, and various numbers of fish). [3]: Might be mistaken on the specific model.