What is the oldest computer...?

[RedBirdDad]

Small world.

That it is.

 

[RedBirdDad]

It is funny how the young people think of "computers" in terms of PCs. In the 80's and 90's I thought of them as toys that would at best have some use for secretaries. I programmed this baby (actually the predecessor Z11) in 1958 and later I worked on systems that filled rooms the size of football fields.

I've read about the Zuse machines, very advanced for that time. Didn't someone build a working replica of a Z3?

 

[thefabe]

commodore sx-64​

Bought it in April 1983 :shock:​

Still have it & it still works ​

" Doc " ​

Actually sold mine on ebay got 178.00+shipping for it. Also had an Amigo bought like new in the box from a school district sale tons of games. Sold it for a good price as well Now the oldest I have are 2 apples forget the model #'s and to lazy to get it them out of the closet, one has a single floppy drive the other has 2

 

[whs]

Didn't someone build a working replica of a Z3?

Zuse Z3 at the Deutsches Museum pagetable.com

 

[HJA]

My first PC was an Atari800XL which I still have and it still works. My next one was a powerhouse 8086, 30 megHD, and 2....thats right 2 5-1/4 floppy drives!

I can still hear those drives writing....BBBRRRRAAAAAP, BBBRRRRAAAAAP, BBBRRRRAAAAAP...... I wish I kept it!

 

[polycue]

Here you go.

As I recall mine did not have the cassette built in. Heavy metal case. 4 Kb ram. I think this was around 1978.

 

[msdos622wasfun]

Okay, who's gonna be the first wise guy to say that he/she used to do payroll on a Babbage Analytical Engine???

Seriously though, I think my first exposure to a computer was also to a Commodore PET in early grade school ... but I was pretty frightened of those things at the time. Actually using one seemed beyond me, and it said scary things like "BREAK IN 50." Huh? You mean I broke it?

Now I love my PC!

 

[Zepher]

this is my Amiga 3000T which is the second oldest PC in the house (the oldest one is the Amiga 2000HD in the garage). I hook up the A3KT to play some classic Amiga games every now and then.

 

[Zen00]

Is that Lemmings Tribes I see? I loved that game, back in the day.

 

[scubasteve]

Ahhh...another "I walked ten miles to school in the snow" thread.


The first computer that I used extensively was a TRS-80 model 1...with 4K of memory...back in 1981 in high school. I filled the memory with one of my programs (written in basic), so I had to go in and replace every "print" statement with a "?" character to recover 4 bytes in each instance so I had room to finish it. Yeah, it was that tight. Peek! Poke!

We eventually got a model with more memory...but were still stuck with cassette tapes.

I lusted after a VIC20 but we couldn't afford one at home. I joined the Army to save for college and the only major purchase that I made was a C64...with another cassette drive...that I eventually upgraded to the world's noisiest floppy. I was in heaven.

From there it was a first gen PC, an Apple Lisa, and VAX mainframes in school, but those are later days.

That beautiful TRS-80 Model 1 appears below.

 

[Zidane24]

Ahhh...another "I walked ten miles to school in the snow" thread.


The first computer that I used extensively was a TRS-80 model 1...with 4K of memory...back in 1981 in high school. I filled the memory with one of my programs (written in basic), so I had to go in and replace every "print" statement with a "?" character to recover 4 bytes in each instance so I had room to finish it. Yeah, it was that tight. Peek! Poke!

We eventually got a model with more memory...but were still stuck with cassette tapes.

I lusted after a VIC20 but we couldn't afford one at home. I joined the Army to save for college and the only major purchase that I made was a C64...with another cassette drive...that I eventually upgraded to the world's noisiest floppy. I was in heaven.

From there it was a first gen PC, an Apple Lisa, and VAX mainframes in school, but those are later days.

That beautiful TRS-80 Model 1 appears below.

Now that machine is sexy

 

[Tomel]

How about the Osborne 1, circa 1981. My first home computer that I also used at work. At the time, I was the only individual at work using a "personal" computer.

 

[Zepher]

Is that Lemmings Tribes I see? I loved that game, back in the day.

Yep. bought that game as soon as it came out.

 

[jradicle11]

I'm sorry but, what could you even do on computers that old? I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do on a thing without a screen.

 

[thefabe]

This is one of the macs I have as well as a single disk both work all accessories

 

[Fantail]

I remember my Tandy 1000 SX.
Lets see; it has a 720 floppy but I had to add a string in the autoexec or config so it would see 1.4's.
89 Keys, 30 meg card drive, 640k, cga. And Tandy "deskmate II" software.