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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:12:56 AM EDT
[#1]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Commodore VIc20 and 64 for the win, I didnt own an Intel based machine until 1994. Upgraded to a Pentium yet? 
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:15:40 AM EDT
[#2]
386 16mhz with a math co-processor for Cadkey.
80mb harddrive I think? And Windows 3.0 that I only used for Word processing. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:18:22 AM EDT
[#3]
I think my first family computer was 1993. It was a Tandy Sensation 486SX 25 MHz CPU with a 100 MB hard disk, 4 megs of ram, a 1x CD-ROM, and a 3.5" High Density floppy drive with a 640x480 256-color monitor running Windows 3.1
My memory could be off though. Computers didn't become really useful until 1994...   
  
  
  
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:20:42 AM EDT
[#4]
1992.. I was 22 years old. I probably had some Intel 486 white box clone that i'd built. I would have been playing Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny, etc. and dialing up the BBSes l33ching more games.
I didn't start writing code until 94ish as a side effort at work. That job was also my introduction to NetWare and networks in general, which led to the career path I have today. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:26:20 AM EDT
[#5]
In '92....crap everything I had access to was still just DOS based, Q-Basic, or simple word processors.
No one, not even the universities had windows yet...it wasn't 'till about '95 people started latching onto windows (and that was still the 3.1 version) around here.... I didn't do shit with computers....just some jack off report for college on the word processors (there were 35 computers available for 8,000 students at Grand Valley University in 1991-1993). Internet didn't exist and didn't become widely available until later in the late 1990's. There wasn't the plethora of programs tailored for the different businesses like today. And he computers were big, expensive, and really didn't do much. It took more time and effort to do crap on computers than by hand back then. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:30:06 AM EDT
[#6]
Joined the Navy 29Dec92. had the commodore amiga back then. After that was the old shit laptops.
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:32:04 AM EDT
[#7]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Frogger on an Apple IIGS. Oregon trail. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:34:54 AM EDT
[#8]
Conan and Oregon Trail on an Apple II
I was 10 |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:40:35 AM EDT
[#9]
In 1992 I was 26, working at a neon shop.
I used a 286 pc to create flyers and newsletters promoting some of our products, and to make circuit boards to build some products. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:43:11 AM EDT
[#10]
I was 39 and carried a Zenith to my jobs all around the USA.
I used the old 5" diskettes to keep track of clients books and records. ETA: We had an in house spread sheet to use for accounting results. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:43:58 AM EDT
[#11]
I was 24.
At home I had the Mac Plus that I bought in my freshman year at Drexel, in January 1997. I'd taken a course in COBOL which was done using terminals connected to an IBM 3090 mainframe. During school I worked in the admissions office and did a lot of data entry on WANG terminals connected to a MicroVAX. In HS, I'd learned to program in BASIC using a network of TRS-80 Model IIIs, and had a Commodore VIC-20 at home. I eventually bought my first PC in 1992 or 93 -- a Dell 325SX. IIRC, it was a 25 MHz 386SX with a 50 MB hard disk, which I eventually upgraded with a Sandblaster sound card, 4 MB of RAM, and a 14.4k modem. The first OS on it was DOS 5.0 with Windows 3.1. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:45:50 AM EDT
[#12]
Playing this:
on one of these: 
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:47:21 AM EDT
[#13]
I was 1, so probably nothing much.
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:47:47 AM EDT
[#14]
I was 15. I had been using computers for years, as our school system pushed them early on. I started with basic programs on an Apple IIe at 11 or so, and we had an IBM 386 lab in 7th and 8th grade. It was "cutting edge," at the time.
That was around the time that our family got our first 486. Maybe that was a year, or two, later, though... |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:48:26 AM EDT
[#15]
Early 20's and dad had a number of PC's that he would try out and then splurge on the next best upgrade. AOL was on the increase and that had a number of gun talk boards also. I would also play CC and Age of Empires with buddies , but the connections sucked and most times the games locked up.
I remember being at work one day and one of the guys was telling me about this singles chat area so we conned the owner of the company into letting us on the one connected computer that the accounting guy had. Of course accounting guy was gone and we jumped into his system and started chatting and then the guy says " I have sweet pics too" so he thinks he can access them from the account , but lo and behold he accesses the accounting guys file porn. His huge collection of golden shower pics were crazy and not liking the guy we told the boss what we found. Accounting finds out we were on his system the next day and leaves for lunch and never comes back. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:50:19 AM EDT
[#16]
I was 8. We had a program called PAWS where you learned how to type
Oh yeah, and Oregon Trail |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:50:44 AM EDT
[#17]
I was 17/18 in '92. Graduated high school. Most of my experience was on Commodore computers. We had several (not that we were rich, but we were able to get them used, cheap). Vic-20's, C64's, 64c's, 128's... Even an Amiga 2000. I never really got into the Amiga as much as my dad did, mainly because it was his computer, and I generally don't get into something unless I own it.
In Sept of 92, I started my first "IT" job working for a small trucking broker. In the basement of a condo. I was setting up reports in a database, and then formatting them to fax out overnite to customers. DOS based everything. No network. Backups were kinda not done. Used MS Works and QuickLink Fax software. Sort of recent pics (not much has changed) of my commodore setups...   From a World of Commodore show in PA:  Hilarious warnings...  |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:52:04 AM EDT
[#18]
Downloading porn at 14 kilobits a second!
Nah, I'm just jokin'. I got the cable modem. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:58:18 AM EDT
[#19]
Dammit! You're makin' me feel old!
I was graduating college in '92. But in '86, I was running WWIV on a commodore 128, 1200 baud modem, and 4 floppy drives (2 x 5.25" and 2x 3.5"). The C128 (and the rest of the equipment) wasn't made to run 24/7 and was prone to overheating. I had to put the computer and drives up on blocks for more airflow and also added pennies to the ventilation slots as a ghetto heatsink and then pointed a clip-on desk fan at the whole setup. If anyone remembers the "demo scene" from the early '90s (stuff like Future Crew), at one time, I was running the only North American node of SBCNet which was the BBS network for Future Crew and some of the other big names in the demo scene. I had to call the Netherlands to download my packets. I wasn't in Future Crew, I was just the SysOp for their North American BBS node. 
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Posted: 9/2/2015 8:59:11 AM EDT
[#20]
I was 21 and in pharmacy school. I bought a 486DX33 with 4MB of RAM, and promptly broke it fucking around in the BIOS.
Got some Norton book about DOS and Windows, and started reading/experimenting, trying to learn how it worked. Got a lot better at fixing it after fucking it up a few more times.
Put a 2400 baud modem in it to dial into the pharmacy school's network and use Micromedex at home while studying. That made me king shit among my classmates.
Tried to learn coding, but it just never clicked with me for some reason. Even BASIC never really made sense. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:03:38 AM EDT
[#21]
We had a computer in our home in the late 70's. It was enormous. It was a home-built kit my father put together. 36" wide x 36" deep x 14"-16" tall with big gullwing doors on top.
He taught me how to program in BASIC on it. I used to make little number guessing games for me and my friends to play. I was 9 or 10. Eta: thinking about it, I remember doing some component placing & soldering on a memory board that was like 30" long and 12" high. Probably 64k. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:08:08 AM EDT
[#22]
In 92 I was running the product testing lab and writing a weekly column for the top B2B computer magazine.
Yeah, I'm old. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:11:12 AM EDT
[#23]
Oregon Trail
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:17:06 AM EDT
[#24]
I was in IT/Data Processing for 35 years ...........
I was there for the beginnings of the IBM mainframes ............ I was there for the introduction of the PC/MAC ............. I was there for the beginning of the Internet .......... 1992, I was trying to get all of them to talk to each other ............... via 16M Token-Ring ................... 
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:17:28 AM EDT
[#25]
Playing "Big Bird's Special Delivery" on our Leading Edge DOS machine. I could never remember the command to run the game and always had to have my dad do it.
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:30:01 AM EDT
[#26]
Would you believe me if I told you that, where I work, we have two 386 machines running DOS 5.0 that are used to control equipment? And speaking of DOS do you remember the QBasic game Gorillas?
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:32:27 AM EDT
[#27]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I was 21 and in pharmacy school. Had just bought my first computer, a 486DX33, and promptly broke it fucking around in the BIOS. Got some Norton book about DOS and Windows, and started reading/experimenting, trying to learn how it worked. Got a lot better at fixing it after fucking it up a few more times. Put a 2600 baud modem in it to dial into the pharmacy school's network and use Micromedex at home while studying. That made me king shit among my classmates. Tried to learn coding, but it just never clicked with me for some reason. Even BASIC never really made sense.  |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:34:25 AM EDT
[#28]
I was 21 and was smart enough to save every paper I ever did on electronic media and reuse them starting in 1989.
I also did side work for others who weren't smart enough to know how to type or format on a computer yet. Big $$ to be made in college by doing things for people not yet up to speed on technology.
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:36:42 AM EDT
[#29]
Built my own PC, 486 DX 50,80MB hard drive, 4MB RAM with VESA Local bus graphics card. I was in my last year of high school and had an after school job of building computers for a local computer company. Also had my own BBS running WWIV.
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:38:11 AM EDT
[#30]
In 1992 I was five/six, I played Ski Free and Castle Wolfenstein
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:39:44 AM EDT
[#31]
I was immersed in a project converting flat ASCII files into a format that could actually be used to look at the data. My boss was sort of amazed although she didn't really understand what all kinds of stuff we could do with the data once it was in a usable format. I worked like a dog on that job for a couple of years only to have them toss it in the trash because they didn't understand how to think about what the data was telling them. Later I did the same voodoo to convert a database to a standard mailing address and our accuracy rate was extremely high. Again, they didn't understand what we did or why our returned undelivered mail was no longer a problem. They were too busy trying to find fault with my methods and personal life. That was the most miserable working environment you could imagine.
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:40:02 AM EDT
[#32]
I was -2.
NOt a whole lot of computers for me back then.
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:44:31 AM EDT
[#33]
Nothing much.
We had something, I forget what it was. Played with the paintbrush program or whatever it was. Really went somewhere in 96 or 95 when we got a Compaq with Windows 95 |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:49:09 AM EDT
[#35]
I was 17.
I had a Packard Bell 386, was playing games like Eye of the Beholder, the SSI Gold Box AD&D games, and downloading nude pictures of Tiffany Towers from local BBSes at 1200 baud. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:51:02 AM EDT
[#36]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
I was 21 and in pharmacy school. Had just bought my first computer, a 486DX33, and promptly broke it fucking around in the BIOS.
Got some Norton book about DOS and Windows, and started reading/experimenting, trying to learn how it worked. Got a lot better at fixing it after fucking it up a few more times.
Put a 2600 2400 baud modem in it to dial into the pharmacy school's network and use Micromedex at home while studying. That made me king shit among my classmates.
Tried to learn coding, but it just never clicked with me for some reason. Even BASIC never really made sense.
Typo. I replaced the 2400 with a 9600 when I moved to Augusta, GA for Pharm.D. school to speed things up. Wasn't a local call any more, so I wanted to spend as little time as possible on a long distance bill. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:51:46 AM EDT
[#37]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Would you believe me if I told you that, where I work, we have two 386 machines running DOS 5.0 that are used to control equipment? And speaking of DOS do you remember the QBasic game Gorillas? http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rOGNPNqJ4SU/hqdefault.jpg |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:59:42 AM EDT
[#38]
I don't remember when we got our Gateway computer but it was probably around that time. It was our first "real" computer. Before that was an Apple IIgs that I played around with programming in BASIC. I mostly used it to play games (Kings Quest) and to do word processing. I broke it one day and my dad said to either fix it or pay someone to fix it. I couldn't fix it so I had to pay someone to come and fix it. It cost me $75 to get it fixed, which was a lot at the time. Since then I have learned all I could about computers so I didn't have to pay someone to fix them. I think the next year we upgraded the RAM and processor in that computer (I think we stepped up to a 486). I learned a lot on that computer and it probably made me into the person I am today career-wise (I'm in IT).
ETA: I think I was only 11 or 12 at the time. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 9:59:50 AM EDT
[#39]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Would you believe me if I told you that, where I work, we have two 386 machines running DOS 5.0 that are used to control equipment? And speaking of DOS do you remember the QBasic game Gorillas? http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rOGNPNqJ4SU/hqdefault.jpg Sure. Gorillas was basically just Artillery with apes and bananas instead of howitzers. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:10:15 AM EDT
[#40]
I was 38 years old.
I was a senior engineering design test technician designing microprocessor based automated test equipment for aircraft communication/navigation equipment.
As I remember, I was using an IBM i386 running MSDOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 mainly doing schematic capture and pcb layout as well as writing ATE test code. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:14:02 AM EDT
[#41]
Subnet Nostalgia Thread - so I'll keep it to just '92
I'm 20 - Sophmore/Junior Undergrad History major working for the campus computing dept. worked multiple labs (everything), but ran the main lab in the Library. Students could check out 5.25" boot disks that had either WP 4.2 (later 5.1), a crappy dumb as shit word processor called "write & spell" or Lotus 1-2-3. Lab had 25 Zenith 8088's with dual floppies, manual switch for shared dot-matrix printer (5 to a printer). Lab also contained 5 mac SE/20's on a localtalk network. I would buy my first owned computer, a 386/DX-40 with 4mb ram, 120mb hd and external US Robotics 14.4 (campus only supported 2400). 12" SVGA monitor Installed Linux for the first time before the SLS distribution came out, 0.97 pl4. Drive partitioned to 40mb Dos/Win 3.1 and 80 Linux. (didn't own a printer). Used machine for school, booted Linux to run Kermit to dial university at night to read usenet. My sweet captain's chair in my lab allowed me access to a 286 with a amber 12" connected via serial @4800 - kept that logged into the CompSci Sequent Dynix to read usenet. VT220 running screen to stay logged into same sequent for chats and into the Vax for work. Mac SE/20. Also had a Mac Laser and a HP laser. (Students could request laser copies of resume/etc, but not papers) I worked for software support, but also hung out with the hardware/network guys to get access to cool stuff. Downloaded my first distro (soft landing system) on their network connected pc's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System SLS used a 5.25 boot/root and then the rest on 3.5's (later converted to slack) The nerds (ha ha) that worked with me ran a MUD on campus that we all played constantly. I also watched 2 DEC technicians in white lab coats and hairnets and anti-static everything tear into one of the VAXen to do a hard drive addition/replacement. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:15:36 AM EDT
[#42]
I was running a Mac Plus with 4 Mb of ram and a 20 Mb external hard drive. (Actually still have it and use it to keep up the bank account, it gets turned on once a week and I update the accounts). I was 37 in 1992. First PC i worked on, on a regular basis, was a 12 MHz 286 running DOS 3.something or other. My fondest memory of those days is the butthole I worked with who insisted we all update to DOS 4.0 the instant it came out. It had a bug that ate hard drives. I was quite happy to wait until they fixed the bug with 4.01 and it cooked for a while.
I was mostly using it to connect to the Masscomp 5600 at work and do maintenance on MRI machines remotely. I played a lot of PT109. The Battleship was a bitch to sink. ETA: I made the jump from working on electronics to unix administration right around 1990. The difference between then and now is just staggering. My MacBook Pro has 1000x the capacity of the HP workstation we used to run image reconstruction and provide the user interface for the MRI machines I worked on in those days. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:17:14 AM EDT
[#43]
In 92 I was 25, and using an old Osborne Executive to run accounting for an importing firm.
Everything ran on a floppy 
I think it was 94 when we got some used 286's & a 486 for a server |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:28:48 AM EDT
[#44]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Would you believe me if I told you that, where I work, we have two 386 machines running DOS 5.0 that are used to control equipment? And speaking of DOS do you remember the QBasic game Gorillas? http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rOGNPNqJ4SU/hqdefault.jpg Played it quite a bit! There was also one where we had to maneuver a snake and not let it corner itself. Forgot the name now.
Simple games but the novelty made them seem a lot more fun. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:41:18 AM EDT
[#45]
I was using my mother's Compaq 386 to type papers in word perfect. I was taught the mantra to save early and often. After pulling a 10 hour typing session only to lose a paper while printing deeply engrained that into my brain.
I worked in the Purchasing Dept as a work study and we just got a new PC w/ a math co-processor and that thing was zooming. My boss showed me how to hide files and folders, and one day I found his porn collection. I used to play this Sub killer game similar to the PT boat game that was on a 5.25 floppy. It was soooo slow....... 
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:47:17 AM EDT
[#46]
I was 9, used our old 386 with a 40MB hard drive.
I was re-directing the dosshell menu items and shortcuts, and occasionally played a game or two. |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:47:59 AM EDT
[#47]
I was 1, so.... nothing. Maybe breaking shit.
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:50:23 AM EDT
[#48]
I had a hand-me-down 8088-1 machine (gift from my mom when she upgraded.)
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:55:41 AM EDT
[#49]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
Right here, my man: http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/072/542/tumblr_ksczlyQbeU1qzx4k0o1_500.jpg?1318992465 Quote HistoryQuoted:
Quoted:
Ran a WWIV BBS from around '91-92 to around '96-97. Right here, my man: http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/072/542/tumblr_ksczlyQbeU1qzx4k0o1_500.jpg?1318992465 Geek on, brother! |
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Posted: 9/2/2015 10:57:56 AM EDT
[#50]
Quote HistoryQuoted:
You know what I loved about WWIV? They were always the best boards. It's like they were made for adults, who were obsessed with computers. That's the vibe I always got, as a young kid. This was long before Open Source caught on and all that, but if you actually paid the $20 (or whatever it was - it wasn't much), you got the source code. You could then modify it to your heart's content, and by God, a lot of people did. It was pretty cool. It was nice being able to mod your own code, but I never caught the programming bug so the two things I liked the least was having to recompile the board every time we added a new game or tweaked the layout and having to dial cross-country every night to pick up the cross-board forums. |
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