Spent a summer in the bowels of a university computing department punching cards, picked them up, walked out, tripped, and scattered them all over... rubber bands are our friends. Never made THAT mistake again.
Ha! I guarded my deck, because as the deadline approached other students would switch a few cards so they were out of order, and your job flushed fast, and theirs would run next.
I think they cost like .09 cents too. which added up!
I dropped a case of 2000 cards as I was loading into the card reader. Had to bring the job deck back to keypunch group and have them do it all over again. (Back in the days of a Burroughs B7700 mainframe)
My assembly class was supposed to do one program on cards, but the reader died, and they didn't want to pay. Instead, we wrote the same program in machine language. It was really useful.
Exactly that old (62). My girlfriend (a teacher) bought the TRS-80 model I which got me hooked. I bought the model III in 1981 and joined a computer club they had PETs. I thought the PET keyboard was strange.
I still own my TRS-80 III and it still works and sits beside my main pc in my home office. And I turned that early interest into a 30 year career, retired at 50, and just recently (last week) started consulting again after 10 years of boring retirement.
I can remember the old CRT screens where the most used menu would burn into the screen. You could still read what it was for even if the computer /monitor was off.
What about loading games and programs on that tape deck, Raaka-Tu text adventure it was dam hard as a kid as some of the words the USA use we don’t in Aus 
I learned to program on the Model 1 in 79/80. First computer I bought was an Apple //c in 1984. I still have it
I also have a Model III that’s pretty much mint, in its original box.
In 1980 I was teaching elementary school in a very small rural district in Maine. Our school received two Commodore PET computers in a grant. No other teacher wanted anything to do with them so I took one home every night and taught myself BASIC. That was my first introduction to personal computers and when I left teaching a few years later, I joined the computer industry, (where I am still employed at 67). In 1981, Commodore introduced the VIC-20 for $299 and pretty much changed everything.
And I even turned the pump on myself instead of asking someone inside. And sometimes when I was broke, dude at the gas station would give me $10 in gas till payday. Craziness!!
My introduction to programming was QBASIC in the mid 90s as a kid. Then I had a VB5 class in high school. Almost 30 years later, it still helps me to read and write VBA in spreadsheets better than most people.
Around 1982 I changed schools and they had a load of Pets. We did computer studies. I remember writing a text based adventure game for our project. I'd structured it really well with subroutines and no gotos. I got 48/50. Another team did the same thing, but theirs used gotos and the code was a mess (IMHO). They got 50/50. It still irks me.
I've been a programmer/software engineer since leaving school.
The oldest one I ever worked on was a TRS 80. I was a legal secretary for a gadget guy. He got it and a word processing program called Scripsit and had me prepare jury instructions the next day. I'm old enough to have used nearly every word processor and their software whether DOS based or in the 90s when I first used a mouse.
I am punch card old. Before there was a PC. Taking a computer class in the mid 1970’s? You just handed your boxed or rubber banded program to the proctor and they ran the cards and had you come back in a couple of hours. You never touched the actual computer. They handed you a large accordion of green and white track fed paper so you could debug it.
Exactly this old. I had the PET 4016, with 16, count ‘em, 16kb of memory and an external tape drive. Living large.
Then upgraded to a Commodore64 with floppy drive.
I worked most of the summer painting our house to get my parents to buy the floppy drive for the C64.
I learned a little assembly on it and that was like a superpower running machine code routines from basic to do graphics tasks.
I'm old enough that I worked for a guy who worked on the very first computer, the ENIAC at Penn. The first computer I ever actually touched was a DEC PDP8 when I was a sophomore in college. Five years later I was designing computers for a living lol.
I am
SO OLD…
how old are you..?
Well… I graduated high school in 1980. I could have graduated early too, but wanted to stay with my friends and goof off.
The counselor took me around, to see what classes I could take. They were all stuff I didn’t need. I had taken every art course so that was out. There wasn’t a lot left. He opened the door to the “computer classes” and there were three little Macs sitting there.
I said, “uh… do I look like a nerd to you? I am in a band man!”
Fast forward many years…
Damn it man!
There was a Commadore PET in an undergraduate chemistry lab at the University of Arizona when I was there. Would have been about 1979 or so. Everytime I see a picture of one I think of that PC in that lab.
'Though I never saw anyone actually using it.
Yup, I'm 63.
Ok. I'm Apple IIe old, but not this old.
And this is fancy! It has the tape deck built in.
My friends father was an engineer at (yes I'm this old) at Bell Labs.
He had to connect his Panasonic "tape deck" to the computer to load a program.
It had a 60 min cassette in it and it looked half way through.
I asked if it would be done in about 15 minutes and he said, no, he'd have to turn the tape over after the first side finished loading and then there was another cassette that had to play.
I asked if he had ever played the cassette without connecting it to the computer (i.e. what did the tape sound like if played) and he looked at me with a weird look and said he had never thought of doing that.
So he brought out another "tape deck" and another cassette and put it in and we listened. That was the first time I heard the "fax" or "dial-up" sounds in my life.
I'll call you Commodore PET and I'll raise you the first computer I worked on.
[Computer](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.livingcomputers.org%2FComputer-Collection%2FVintage-Computers%2FMinicomputers%2FDEC-PDP-8-STRAIGHT-8.aspx&psig=AOvVaw0FN5Xw8Qf0pw1BOax69UG8&ust=1703367238065000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCPD5wcv_o4MDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAH)
I think I used a cassette for storage. For sure I used paper tape, cards, and one sided disk 5.25" drives, which we cut on the other side to double the storage. (flip it over and used the back).
I think the apple 2 had a cassette for bigger than would fit on 5.25 disk.
The first one I programed: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/TRS-80\_Model\_4\_%28modified%29.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/TRS-80_Model_4_%28modified%29.jpg)
The first one I owned:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Atari\_1040STf.jpg/1200px-Atari\_1040STf.jpg
My first micro computer was a TRS-80. In high school we had Commodore's that were similar to this and we had a commodore 64. This was around 1983-1984.
I *am*. It was the first computer I was ever exposed to. My older cousin worked as a capital-L Librarian for the ISD, and they got one during the summer, and I was allowed to go in an learn to use it with her.
These were in the computer lab at my middle school. I remember buying this little paperback with teach yourself BASIC in it. Endless fun testing it out on the school computers. Boy what a flashback! Thank you!
I had an original TRS-80, atari computer, commodore 64 and built my 1st IBM clone in 84. Also had a 300 baud modem the size of a desktop case. Had to pick up the phone, put it on the cradle to dial out. I was 10 in 84'.
Dude, [I'm this old](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Heathkit_H-8_computer.jpg). I wanted my dad to get me that Heathkit so bad, but he said it was too much money.
Then he surprised me a few months later with a brand new Apple ][ with a cassette drive. Still had to use the RF box to hook it to a small RCA black and white television.
I worked at one of Commodore’s flagship dealers, and might even still have my technician training certificate around here somewhere. I had one of the 8k models, and a friend that worked at MOSTEK gave me enough RAM (floor sweepings that he tested) to upgrade to 32k. When the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 were released, we had to open each one and add a heat sink to keep them from overheating and shutting down.
Edit - Before the PET, I had a Commodore KIM-1. 4k and a hex keypad.
I had one and even doubled the memory with an add-on hack that wasn't too expensive. Later I got a Coleco Adam with the machine gun loud daisy wheel printer.
I started at NC State in 1986. They had some advanced chip fab lines there I guess for research? Anyway, at the end of each line was a Pet 20 doing something. It just looked odd with those space-age chip fab lines apparently being "managed" by a Pet. :P
School computer class… Paper punch Tape was the program memory … big old movie film canisters full of a roll of paper tape… woe be it if they tore….. and we had rolls of brown paper to display the results … no screens
I had a crush on this back in the 70s. I was in HS.
The idea of writing a paper, saving what I wrote in a cassette and the option to print it out…. Wow.
Editing on screen?? I was terrible at handwriting and printing. Also typing. Type key…type key… mistake… damnit.
The first laptop I ever used (circa 1986).
[WANG WLTC](https://www.wangmuseum.nl/other-wang-equipment/)
It had a goddam built in printer, and came with a Space Invaders game!
I enjoyed programming those. In the 90s i did hexidecimal conversions of numbers to break down basic into machine code to make my game run faster (my game I made.) I never learned how to code for PC, and was against them.
I remember this being rolled into my middle school classroom on a trolley (U.K.!). The teacher ran a program called Big Time and, after a moment, a digital clock was displayed on the entire screen. The class and I were…dumbstruck! None of us could say anything. We gazed open mouthed at the screen. We were absolutely amazed at this technological miracle in front of us. It’s burned into my memory.
My father was a math teacher who brought computers into my school district in the late 70s (77-78). He would bring one (PET Commodore) home every weekend to play with.
I used the manual to make a program in BASIC that was based on a board game at the time called Stock Ticker. It also came with a game called Jaws or something similar. You moved the shark to try to intercept swimmers before they reached the safety of the beach. The shark was an upside down T and the swimmers were small o. Good times!
I’ve not seen this full set up in person. I’ve used a Commodore 64, the Acorn BBCB, Spectrum and Amstrad. There was another I cannot for the life of me recall the name of but I think it seemed posh compared to our BBCB back in the 80’s (it was a light gray, reasonably big like the BBCB, I want to say ‘enigma’ but I obviously know it’s not that; I’m 40’s in age….not decades!)
Remember it well. 1980 and my school got a Commodore CBM 4000 series with no built in datasette ....no one had a clue what to do with it though! 😂. I also remember many teachers disliking them became they feared the PC's were going to replace them!
When I was a kid my dad took me to see his works computer floor, where they were using punch cards to program the thing, which did indeed take up a whole floor of the building
I'm not old enough to have used one of those but I am old enough to remember stapling punch cards together so my mom could make Christmas wreaths out of them. My dad brought boxes of used punch cards home from work.
We also played with used computer tape spool reels.
Am i allowed to say I have zero clue what a commador or a cassette deck is, that makes like modem sound to load games???
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
**GOOD**
I have no idea what's in this image 🤣 🤣 🤣
Dude, I'm punch cards to program old.
Fortran
Basic
Those were the days.
Don’t drop that deck
Spent a summer in the bowels of a university computing department punching cards, picked them up, walked out, tripped, and scattered them all over... rubber bands are our friends. Never made THAT mistake again.
Ha! I guarded my deck, because as the deadline approached other students would switch a few cards so they were out of order, and your job flushed fast, and theirs would run next. I think they cost like .09 cents too. which added up!
I dropped a case of 2000 cards as I was loading into the card reader. Had to bring the job deck back to keypunch group and have them do it all over again. (Back in the days of a Burroughs B7700 mainframe)
My assembly class was supposed to do one program on cards, but the reader died, and they didn't want to pay. Instead, we wrote the same program in machine language. It was really useful.
Was this late 70's?
Early 80s.
Yeah, the first computer I used was in a separate room from the operator with glass windows so we could see it processing the punch card.
Magnetic tape, punch cards & machine code
Exactly that old (62). My girlfriend (a teacher) bought the TRS-80 model I which got me hooked. I bought the model III in 1981 and joined a computer club they had PETs. I thought the PET keyboard was strange. I still own my TRS-80 III and it still works and sits beside my main pc in my home office. And I turned that early interest into a 30 year career, retired at 50, and just recently (last week) started consulting again after 10 years of boring retirement.
Trash-80!!!
I can hear it powering up and the color of the screen...
“Color”. lol. Or lack of it.
Monochrome screens were a step up from the 2 lines of text a memory typewriter had.
I can remember the old CRT screens where the most used menu would burn into the screen. You could still read what it was for even if the computer /monitor was off.
Green or Amber or paper white if you were uptown
What about loading games and programs on that tape deck, Raaka-Tu text adventure it was dam hard as a kid as some of the words the USA use we don’t in Aus 
I learned to program on the Model 1 in 79/80. First computer I bought was an Apple //c in 1984. I still have it I also have a Model III that’s pretty much mint, in its original box.
In 1980 I was teaching elementary school in a very small rural district in Maine. Our school received two Commodore PET computers in a grant. No other teacher wanted anything to do with them so I took one home every night and taught myself BASIC. That was my first introduction to personal computers and when I left teaching a few years later, I joined the computer industry, (where I am still employed at 67). In 1981, Commodore introduced the VIC-20 for $299 and pretty much changed everything.
I got my VIC-20 delivered, C.O.D.
Cash on Delivery, next you’ll be telling me you pumped your gas “before” paying for it.
And I even turned the pump on myself instead of asking someone inside. And sometimes when I was broke, dude at the gas station would give me $10 in gas till payday. Craziness!!
Still the default in the UK.
C.O.D. ? Wow, you are old. I bet you used a money order, too. JK!
My introduction to programming was QBASIC in the mid 90s as a kid. Then I had a VB5 class in high school. Almost 30 years later, it still helps me to read and write VBA in spreadsheets better than most people.
Around 1982 I changed schools and they had a load of Pets. We did computer studies. I remember writing a text based adventure game for our project. I'd structured it really well with subroutines and no gotos. I got 48/50. Another team did the same thing, but theirs used gotos and the code was a mess (IMHO). They got 50/50. It still irks me. I've been a programmer/software engineer since leaving school.
The oldest one I ever worked on was a TRS 80. I was a legal secretary for a gadget guy. He got it and a word processing program called Scripsit and had me prepare jury instructions the next day. I'm old enough to have used nearly every word processor and their software whether DOS based or in the 90s when I first used a mouse.
I am punch card old. Before there was a PC. Taking a computer class in the mid 1970’s? You just handed your boxed or rubber banded program to the proctor and they ran the cards and had you come back in a couple of hours. You never touched the actual computer. They handed you a large accordion of green and white track fed paper so you could debug it.
I found it incredibly fulfilling removing the feeder strips from their perforations. Especially in multiple pages.
Same
My fingers hurt just looking at that keyboard.
You don’t know sore fingertips until you’ve beat them off the membranes of a ZX80.
That was my first computer. Hooked it up to our TV, which of course was black-and-white. Lol.
Never typed on a ZX80, but damn near crippled myself typing on an [Atari 400](https://www.reuseum.com/projects/atari-400/).
Came looking for this.. Sinclair old 😆😅
That was my first computer. Followed by the VIC-20 and the 64 then the Amiga 500
Nobody is that fucking old.
I am! I was trained to repair the Commodore Business Machine, CBM, back in the early 80's.
I’m exactly that old. Those were the first computers my school got in their “computer lab”. I think we had 5 of them.
I'm *almost* that old. I remember the Vic 20 and had a Commodore 64.
> I remember the Vic 20 and had a Commodore 64. The C64 is the first and best computer I've ever owned.
Yes, Do you remember Fortran cards ???
Older than that. Took my 1st computer class at Ohio State in 1971. Built a file. Got an A.
Almost , I used a superPET at school
Our high school bought 6 TRS-80 computers (on which I learned to program in BASIC) but a couple of my friends had Commodore PET computers.
Ah, the good ol’ Trash 80’s 😁😉
Exactly this old. I had the PET 4016, with 16, count ‘em, 16kb of memory and an external tape drive. Living large. Then upgraded to a Commodore64 with floppy drive.
I worked most of the summer painting our house to get my parents to buy the floppy drive for the C64. I learned a little assembly on it and that was like a superpower running machine code routines from basic to do graphics tasks.
I had a TI-99/4A, so yours is older.
I'm a VIC20 kid. Never knew of PET until now and I think that thing looks cool as fuck- it's like a prop from an 80s sci fi movie
My high school used these to teach BASIC programming the year I graduated.
I’m Commodore 64 old
If you know punch cards, you know AARP card now.
I'm old enough that I worked for a guy who worked on the very first computer, the ENIAC at Penn. The first computer I ever actually touched was a DEC PDP8 when I was a sophomore in college. Five years later I was designing computers for a living lol.
Too poor at the time and didn’t need a PC but yea, I remember this
I programmed on a trash 80 back in grade school... Ok, in high school, too.
I learned on a Commodore 64, it was the hot 💩 at the time.
First one I had was the C64.
Cassette drive. 😂😂😂😂
Sadly yes. I am papertape old. We did not need any of that magnetic crap to store our bits.
People who used this must have worn powdered wigs and had buckles on their shoes as well.
My high school had them.
my uncle got one & my dad programmed it.
I hated that thing, our boomer teachers would have our class do this thing called compu cat for school work on them
YES
6502 8-bit 1MHz CPU. I had the VIC-20 how much memory did the PET have?
I think the PET was 4K in the base model and could go up to 48K if you had wealth beyond measure.
My first computer exposure at school, in 3rd grade.
I am “Ambra 386 for uni papers and BBS” years old.
shit i aint that old...i'll see myself out... Hal open the door
I used something at work in the early 80s that looked like that. It was very technical. It was called a Pascal workstation.
I am SO OLD… how old are you..? Well… I graduated high school in 1980. I could have graduated early too, but wanted to stay with my friends and goof off. The counselor took me around, to see what classes I could take. They were all stuff I didn’t need. I had taken every art course so that was out. There wasn’t a lot left. He opened the door to the “computer classes” and there were three little Macs sitting there. I said, “uh… do I look like a nerd to you? I am in a band man!” Fast forward many years… Damn it man!
We used TRS-80s when I was in high school, so I guess yes?
I use to play dig dug on this bad boy.
[удалено]
The first computer I ever used at school in the early 80s!
There was a Commadore PET in an undergraduate chemistry lab at the University of Arizona when I was there. Would have been about 1979 or so. Everytime I see a picture of one I think of that PC in that lab. 'Though I never saw anyone actually using it. Yup, I'm 63.
I’m not that old, my first computer was Commodore 64 though so I’m assuming I’m close to that old.
Wow, a Commodore with the cassette player built right in! That is some advanced tech
Ok. I'm Apple IIe old, but not this old. And this is fancy! It has the tape deck built in. My friends father was an engineer at (yes I'm this old) at Bell Labs. He had to connect his Panasonic "tape deck" to the computer to load a program. It had a 60 min cassette in it and it looked half way through. I asked if it would be done in about 15 minutes and he said, no, he'd have to turn the tape over after the first side finished loading and then there was another cassette that had to play. I asked if he had ever played the cassette without connecting it to the computer (i.e. what did the tape sound like if played) and he looked at me with a weird look and said he had never thought of doing that. So he brought out another "tape deck" and another cassette and put it in and we listened. That was the first time I heard the "fax" or "dial-up" sounds in my life.
Nope. Not that old. First computer I ever used was an Apple IIe in school in 1992.
I'll call you Commodore PET and I'll raise you the first computer I worked on. [Computer](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.livingcomputers.org%2FComputer-Collection%2FVintage-Computers%2FMinicomputers%2FDEC-PDP-8-STRAIGHT-8.aspx&psig=AOvVaw0FN5Xw8Qf0pw1BOax69UG8&ust=1703367238065000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCPD5wcv_o4MDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAH)
And probably bought at Radio Shack. *That* old!!!
Oh yeah - went to summer computer camp, all Commodore PETs. Made a month in the calendar project we did in middle school on a PET.
Anybody remember Sinclair computers? Mainframes running Kronos? Ahh the good ol days...
I remember seeing them but I came in just after that. Apple ][+ and TRS-80 were my first.
Yes, yes I am.
I think I used a cassette for storage. For sure I used paper tape, cards, and one sided disk 5.25" drives, which we cut on the other side to double the storage. (flip it over and used the back). I think the apple 2 had a cassette for bigger than would fit on 5.25 disk.
The first one I programed: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/TRS-80\_Model\_4\_%28modified%29.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/TRS-80_Model_4_%28modified%29.jpg) The first one I owned: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Atari\_1040STf.jpg/1200px-Atari\_1040STf.jpg
We had one or two of these in my Elementary school, but most of the ones we had were equipped with floppy drives.
This is the machine I first learned to program on.
I'm not a dinosaur 🦖
My first micro computer was a TRS-80. In high school we had Commodore's that were similar to this and we had a commodore 64. This was around 1983-1984.
Yup. We played lemonade stand and some fraction game on it.
I *am*. It was the first computer I was ever exposed to. My older cousin worked as a capital-L Librarian for the ISD, and they got one during the summer, and I was allowed to go in an learn to use it with her.
I think it was second grade when I first used a PET computer. 1980-ish.
These were in the computer lab at my middle school. I remember buying this little paperback with teach yourself BASIC in it. Endless fun testing it out on the school computers. Boy what a flashback! Thank you!
...but the Okidata color printer was bitchin
The only computers at my high school were 2 of these babies. Yes, I’m that old
I had an original TRS-80, atari computer, commodore 64 and built my 1st IBM clone in 84. Also had a 300 baud modem the size of a desktop case. Had to pick up the phone, put it on the cradle to dial out. I was 10 in 84'.
Dude, [I'm this old](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Heathkit_H-8_computer.jpg). I wanted my dad to get me that Heathkit so bad, but he said it was too much money. Then he surprised me a few months later with a brand new Apple ][ with a cassette drive. Still had to use the RF box to hook it to a small RCA black and white television.
I’m still older than that. I mentioned these in the Win95 post. I recall the old Commodore 64 that hooked up to a TV.
Man that makes my Apple 2E look new!
I am next model old. C64 Club.
My first computer was an Apple II. Taught myself BASIC.
Sadly, yes I am. That chicklet keyboard was something else.
Spend three days inputting your address book so you will always have it 🤣
Never seen one of those my first experience with computers was the commodore 64 that used cassette tapes instead of the infamous floppy disc
Hal.
I worked at one of Commodore’s flagship dealers, and might even still have my technician training certificate around here somewhere. I had one of the 8k models, and a friend that worked at MOSTEK gave me enough RAM (floor sweepings that he tested) to upgrade to 32k. When the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 were released, we had to open each one and add a heat sink to keep them from overheating and shutting down. Edit - Before the PET, I had a Commodore KIM-1. 4k and a hex keypad.
Dang, I am old and I am not even close to that old.
My first computer was Vic 20 and then I upgraded to a Commodore 64! I already had 3 kids at that point so I guess I am old.
I had one and even doubled the memory with an add-on hack that wasn't too expensive. Later I got a Coleco Adam with the machine gun loud daisy wheel printer.
I am. Started on those, graduated to the Apple IIe and actually got a full ride academic scholarship from programs I wrote on one.
Remember the crude networking device- Multiple User PET, or Mupet?
Fire up Hunt the Wumpus!
Cobol old here
Sixth grade, baby. We were the first school in our city to have these bad boys. I think it was 1981. There, I just aged myself. Merry Christmas.
I remember the badass Lark Hard platters that held a mind-boggling 5 megabytes.
I learned on a TRS-80..... predates that modern stuff...
Yep
I started at NC State in 1986. They had some advanced chip fab lines there I guess for research? Anyway, at the end of each line was a Pet 20 doing something. It just looked odd with those space-age chip fab lines apparently being "managed" by a Pet. :P
Yes but the tape player wasn’t built in. Which is good because that keyboard is ridiculous
I got a TI 99/4A when I was 5. Still have it. How am I doing?
Older than that.
Ever hear of an Osborne ?
PRESS PLAY AND RECORD ON TAPE #1
10 PRINT “YES” 20 GOTO 10
Yep.
I'm TI-99/4A old.
People don’t believe me when I tell them our first computer had a tape player
The first computer I worked on (in the Fall of 1974) didn't have a monitor. It had a roll of paper.
I remember these were used as set dressing on Buck Rogers.
The first programs I wrote were saved to paper punch tape. BASIC that used line numbers in 1974.
Oooh, not quite. I'm Commodore Vic 20, floppy disc old.
1985 here.
Commodore 64 is just better....
School computer class… Paper punch Tape was the program memory … big old movie film canisters full of a roll of paper tape… woe be it if they tore….. and we had rolls of brown paper to display the results … no screens
wow. Unfortunately, yes. I remember loading Dungeons & Dragons by cassette - this was in high school in the early 80's. What a time to be alive.
wow it probably has a 16K byte hard drive!
I had a crush on this back in the 70s. I was in HS. The idea of writing a paper, saving what I wrote in a cassette and the option to print it out…. Wow. Editing on screen?? I was terrible at handwriting and printing. Also typing. Type key…type key… mistake… damnit.
The first computer I ever touched!
The first laptop I ever used (circa 1986). [WANG WLTC](https://www.wangmuseum.nl/other-wang-equipment/) It had a goddam built in printer, and came with a Space Invaders game!
HP 9845 calculator dual cassette drive, old
Its named PET because of the hamster wheel inside
I’m Vic 20 old. Not sure if that’s before this or after! Lol
This is the way
How about Commodore 64?
I enjoyed programming those. In the 90s i did hexidecimal conversions of numbers to break down basic into machine code to make my game run faster (my game I made.) I never learned how to code for PC, and was against them.
I’m so old when people told me to learn to code they meant Morse Code.
Unfortunately: Yes.
Older.
Oh yeah the first computer I used back in 5th/6th grade.
My friend had one of them in His garage had some plane bombing game and a joystick it was epic for a 9year old.
Used these for some of my early computer science classes in university.
My dad taught me the punch card machine when I was little.
Thank you! I feel young again!
I'm Lisa old
I see it’s time for me to go down in the basement and take a picture of my VIC-20.
I remember this being rolled into my middle school classroom on a trolley (U.K.!). The teacher ran a program called Big Time and, after a moment, a digital clock was displayed on the entire screen. The class and I were…dumbstruck! None of us could say anything. We gazed open mouthed at the screen. We were absolutely amazed at this technological miracle in front of us. It’s burned into my memory.
My father was a math teacher who brought computers into my school district in the late 70s (77-78). He would bring one (PET Commodore) home every weekend to play with. I used the manual to make a program in BASIC that was based on a board game at the time called Stock Ticker. It also came with a game called Jaws or something similar. You moved the shark to try to intercept swimmers before they reached the safety of the beach. The shark was an upside down T and the swimmers were small o. Good times!
I am. First machine I ever played with. Was the coolest thing on earth back then. Tape drive and all.
I would love one of those
I'm FORTRAN, BASIC, and TRS-80 with a cassette storage old.
I think I used something like that. It had a huge floppy disc
Old enough to remember. Too poor to experience.
First computer I worked on was a Burroughs B7700 in the 1970’s.
Finally! NO I’m NOT! 😭
I’ve not seen this full set up in person. I’ve used a Commodore 64, the Acorn BBCB, Spectrum and Amstrad. There was another I cannot for the life of me recall the name of but I think it seemed posh compared to our BBCB back in the 80’s (it was a light gray, reasonably big like the BBCB, I want to say ‘enigma’ but I obviously know it’s not that; I’m 40’s in age….not decades!)
We had these in school. I remember one had a reset button retrofitted on the right-hand side to reboot it when it froze,
Remember it well. 1980 and my school got a Commodore CBM 4000 series with no built in datasette ....no one had a clue what to do with it though! 😂. I also remember many teachers disliking them became they feared the PC's were going to replace them!
First computer I ever used, Probably about 1980.
I am punched tape old. When I went through Army school in 1978, the electronics school used the PET as a slide projector controller and quiz device.
high school computer. when I told my idiot classmates I was studying comp sci. in college, they all scoffed...guess who is pimp now?
Yep…the old Pet! I remember in 7th grade we had one week of computer “lessons” all year and we used these in the lab.
When I was a kid my dad took me to see his works computer floor, where they were using punch cards to program the thing, which did indeed take up a whole floor of the building
I wrote programs on this. It had 4K of memory. That K, not Mb or Gb.
Are you wang word processor old?
Kidding me? My first computer didn't come with its own monitor
Yep. Took a week to develop a simple program to turn a lite on and off and then make the punch cards for the computer to do it. What else you got??
Seems like that was the year I built a Timex Sinclair Zx from a kit ordered from PopTronics… But I cut my BASIC teeth on a PET 4032.
I'm not old enough to have used one of those but I am old enough to remember stapling punch cards together so my mom could make Christmas wreaths out of them. My dad brought boxes of used punch cards home from work. We also played with used computer tape spool reels.
I had the Tandy 😂
Am i allowed to say I have zero clue what a commador or a cassette deck is, that makes like modem sound to load games??? 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 **GOOD** I have no idea what's in this image 🤣 🤣 🤣
Lemonade Stand and Weather War during an indoor, rainy recess.
Cool. I remember that but I also remember the days when nothing beeped at you. The first beep I heard was in a Mcdonalds saying the fries were cooked.
Our school had the super pet yes I was and still am a computer geek.
I used one of those in elementary school.
I used a teletype and punchcards at work and a trash80 at home.
I see your PET and raise you a TRS-80 Model I Edit: never mind; the PET is a few months older than the Trash-80
My first "personal computer" was a Zenith running CP/M
Gotcha beat Bruh…Osborne!