First Computers

C|Net's news.com.com service ran this article, wherein they selected a bunch of random computer geeks and asked them what the first computer they ever used was. It's nice to be nostalgic once in a blue moon, isn't it? Of course, I'd be remiss in my duties if I didn't report that the reason C|Net ran this article is because of the recent 60th anniversary of ENIAC, the world's first computer.

Check out Wikipedia's page on ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer.

So, what was your first computer? Leave a comment and let me know. I'd like to know both the first computer you ever used (if you can remember), and the first computer you've owned.

To answer my own question, the first computer that I ever used was a Commodore PET -- back in fourth grade, in elementary school. I don't remember if it was the CBM 3000 series (aka the Commodore PET) or the CBM 4000 series. But in any event, it was a Commodore PET, even if they tried to rename it a "CBM" computer, and everyone knew it by the PET name and called it thus. From the pictures in the Old Computers Online Museum, I'd have to say that it was probably a 4000 series.

The first computer that I ever owned was a Commodore 64. If memory serves, I owned a bunch of them, mostly because faulty power supplies (that I didn't know about at the time) caused the computer to short out, or I spilled something into the keyboard, which was the entire computer, and wound up shorting it out. Once, a spider shorted out my C-64, so I had to get another. Just goes to show you how delicate computer electronics really are. After going through a few C-64s, I upgraded to the Commodore 128-D. Then, after years of computer-envy, I bought a Commodore Amiga 1200 computer--one of the last Amiga models Commodore produced before going out of business. I really wanted an Amiga 4000 -- that was the computer of all computers, back in the day. But I couldn't afford it, so I went with what I could afford. I was actually practical and sensible with my money back then.....

Commodore Business Machines (aka Commodore International) went out of business in 1994 when it filed for bankruptcy.

What was your first computer? | CNET News.com