this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2025
247 points (98.4% liked)

Ask Lemmy

32162 readers
1308 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Mine was the Apple II Europlus. Bought it in 1979. Loved that thing.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

Commodore 64. My father traveled for business and eventually brought home an SX-64 that I still have! Castles of Dr. Creep! ๐Ÿ˜

Grandparents had a Visual Commuter with no LCD.

Grade school had a few TI-99/4As and one Apple //e, until the computer lab was installed with IIgses served by a Mac.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 16 hours ago

VIC-20 still going strong in 2025 with a MegaCart from Denial. I think my parents bought it for me in 1983. 42 years.. crazy.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My first computer that I bought myself was a Dell Inspiron laptop that I bought in 2000. It was about $1,500 if I remember correctly, and had 256 MB of RAM. Sounded like a plane about to take off every time you turned it on, the fans were stupid loud.

The first computer my parents bought was in the late '80s/early 90s that ran MS-DOS. I don't remember the brand name, but my brother and I used to play "Castle Adventure" on it. We drew maps of the screens on paper notepads to make our own cheat sheets.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

Castle Adventure

I played this on a Visual Commuter (with no LCD?). Amber monitor with nice long phosphor persistence. My grandmother loved to point out the typos... "You are in a Cooridor."

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

ZX spectrum.Fucking loved it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I had 386 pc with ms-dos and windows 3.0 but soon I switched it to Amiga 1200 and I must say, it was stunning computer compared to pc.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Macintosh 128k, followed by an Apple ]|[

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Mine was a ZX Spectrum, my father bought it for me when I was 12 years old, good times haha :D

spectrum

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Laser 50 Personal Computer

We were poor, but my mom got me one of these. Ran into the mem limit multiple times, but those were good days banging on that. This thing and C64 magazine.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Mine is a bit embarrassing. The first computer that was actually mine was an ACER desktop computer that had Windows Vista on it. The memes about Vista aren't exaggerating. It was quite possible the most unstable OS I've ever used. The concentration of blue screens is unmatched to this day and it was a horrible RAM hog

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Gateway 2000 with Windows 95. I do not know which specific configuration (I was too young). I do remember the games I had though: Tyrian 2000, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, C&C, HoM3, I-war, Flight Simulator 95, LBA 2 and Jersey Devil. Half of them were copies I got from a neighbour that owned a cd-r.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Apple IIs were in my school but my first computer at home was a 486 sx 33mhz from Midwest Micro

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I still have my first PC. It's not the first one our family had, that was an old Macintosh and a DOS after that. But this is the first one I bought and built. It still runs, on windows XP. It's a nice time capsule. It still has Medal of Honor Allied Assault on it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Technically a commodore vic-20 but I remember the c64 better

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Same! I recently received a big box of Vic-20 tapes, very exciting.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I honestly don't know what kind of computer it was. It was something my dad brought home from work when they were going to throw it out, so it was old even when I had it in the early 90s. It ran DOS, had a 5 1/4 inch floppy drive, and a lovely orange monochrome monitor. I used it to write my little stories and play crappy console games. Good times.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

S100 bus kit computer, a Polymorphic Polly 88.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Woah. That's seriously old school. We had a C64 and then a DOS clone.

What do you program?

As late as 2018, I know of punch tape CNC still running production using rs-232 to optical out in the tape head.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

For that machine, I wrote a "John Conway's game of LIFE" that used the screen memory to hold the life array. Nowadays I rock an i5 running Linux.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Commodore VIC20

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Had a random desktop from a mall computer shop that ran Windows ME!

Before that we had some 486 machines with 40MB HDD and Windows 3.5 and IBM DOS...

My first computer that was mine though was a Dell D610 I believe. Lasted 8 years.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I first had an old (forgot which year) Dell Latitude:

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Commodore 64

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Commodore 64. I fell in love with Wizard of Wor before we got the family computer, and I felt pretty lucky for having a floppy drive. I also used to play a good bunch of Atari 2600 clone at a family member, if that counts.

[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago (6 children)
load more comments (6 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Texas Instruments TI/99a

[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago

First one I used was a Commodore 64.

First home computer was an original Macintosh.

First one I bought for myself was a Performa 6290.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Timex TC2068. It's a Portuguese revision of the Timex TS2068 which is itself a bad ZX Spectrum clone.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So many crusty grey beards in this thread. I love it.

Another Commodore 64 here.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

C64 gang rise up!

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

First at home was dad's IBM AT in 1983 or so. Then in 1985 it was one of early Macintoshes, later upgraded to 512kB RAM. Then a Mac SE.

My own first was a Siemens 80386 around 1988 running Windows 3.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Sinclair ZX81. Eventually upgraded to... hold onto your hats... 16K.

load more comments (2 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

TRaSh 80 squad in the house. My uncle was a nerd and gave it to me thereby fostering my inner nerd. 2 floppy drives of goodness.

load more comments (1 replies)
[โ€“] thelsim 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

My dad had something even older, but the first computer I got to use was our Wang 286

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I don't remember the brand or specs. I only remember that it ran MS-DOS and had an orange monochrome monitor.

load more comments (1 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

The first computer I had for myself was an MSI gaming laptop with a GTX 950m GPU. It was pretty shitty. Overheated immediately, so when rendering only the first two frames went quickly, but then it slowed to a crawl. Same with games. Everything ran badly on it because it would just jump to 99ยฐC and immediately get throttled. Damn thing idled at nearly 60ยฐC.

The first computer I remember my family having was one of those very colourful Mac desktop computers.

load more comments
view more: next โ€บ