So, what was your first build? The one that started it all?

[AnitaPeterson]

My first computer at home is the one pictured in my avatar... Before that, as a child, I used to go to my father's workplace and play with the huge mainframes which used perforated cards and ticker tape.

My first OWN (as in "bought with my own money") computer was an AST Adventure 200, acquired for US$699 (including the monitor) back in 1997. Here are the specs:

Storage Capacity: 1.0 GB
Processor Family: AMD K5
Processor Speed: 100 MHz
Bus Speeds: 66 MHz
System Memory: 8 MB
Optical Drive: 8x CD-ROM

After a couple of months, I began to open it up and upgrade it, which is what pushed me into building computers. The very first add-on was a Philips 3610 CD-RW drive!

 

[pukemon]

My first "build with my own money" computer was a Celeron 300A on an Abit BH6 that overclocked to 450MHz. Come to think of it, I think I started reading AT because of this whole new overclocking with jumperless motherboards thing at the time...

 

[Piano Man]

I've had a bunch of computers that were pre-built and then upgraded heavily during the 90s. I then actually built computers for friends in college before I built my first, which I believe was a P4 Northwood. I don't even remember specs, but I did get a pretty pimp Lian Li case for it. Oh yea, I remember I spilled beer in the case during the build (no mobo in it yet, thank god).

The builds that got me started though were definitely the AMD builds I did with the T-birds in which you could use the a #2 pencil to "unlock" the chips. I thought that was so cool.

 

[queequeg99]

My first "build with my own money" computer was a Celeron 300A on an Abit BH6 that overclocked to 450MHz. Come to think of it, I think I started reading AT because of this whole new overclocking with jumperless motherboards thing at the time...

That was an awesome combo back in the day. A 50% overclock guaranteed.

 

[Linflas]

My first x86 PC was a 486-33 I bought from a local dealer with a Diamond SpeedStar video card and a Maxtor 120 MB drive. If I had to identify when I first got hooked on computing I would have to say it was my senior year in high school when I took a 1 semester computer class. Part of that class was an intro to programming using BASIC. We had to enter the programs into the Fairfax County mainframe using a teletype and you "saved" the program onto paper punch tape was mounted onto the side of the teletype.

 

[brad310]

2002 - i built my first system off newegg around a AMD2200 cpu. Ive built 2 more since then.

 

[greenhawk]

first family one, Apple IIe.

Second family one, tandy 286

First paid for it myself, $3000 486 DX2-66, 8MB RAM, 420MB HDD, 2x CD ROM (via sound card). about 2 years later upgraded to 12MB RAM and I think a 1GB(or was that 2GB) drive (needed drive maping software ).

First build, Pentium 166MMX. OC'd to 225Mhz and live at that from then on.

 

[mfenn]

i remember games like that. Indy motor speedway was liek that, but so was Sim City... the absolute barebones original. I boosted both of those games off of friends and used the copy machines at school to photocopy the manuals. Aw good times.

I kind of miss the pre-Internets days (ironic considering that I'm posting on an Internet forum). That sort of copy protection would never work these days because somebody would just post a PDF of the manual.

Speaking of manuals, I wish that modern games still had real manuals. This probably marks me as a total dork, but I had as much fun reading the manuals for those games as I did playing the game (the Command HQ manual included a 150 page history book!). Hmm, I think I still have the Homeworld manual around here somewhere, I would definitely enjoy reading the backstory in it again.

 

[KGB]

Altair

 

[Belegost]

So I spent a lot of years helping my grandfather update his machine, starting with the IBM XT with dual floppies and that awesome green monitor. I remember holding the screwdriver and flashlight while figured out how to install a cga graphics card, with a color monitor. 4 count them 4 colors on the screen AT THE SAME TIME!

The first one that was mine I saved up lawn mowing and weed pulling money and around 89 bought a used 286 12Mhz with 2MB of RAM and a 20MB hard drive, for only 250 dollars! Put a 14.4k modem, 70MB western digital HD, sound blaster 16, and a totally awesome Paradise SVGA card in it. I could play all the Sierra games with the nice graphics and awesome sound.

It was around early 95 I got some extra money from a car settlement, and got myself a hot off the line pentium at 90Mhz, with 24 mind blowing MB of RAM an incredible 1.2GB of HDD space and an graphics card with 2MB of vram. Later I dropped a Voodoo Banshee in it and oc'd to 120Mhz, played the first unreal on that, was gorgeous.

Darn, a lot of time since then, and I'm typing this on a tablet with an order of magnitude more processing power, but I do miss the fun the hardware allowed back then.

 

[Puppies04]

My first computer was an atari ST 520 sometime back in the early 90's. It was a christmas present for me and my twin bro and I can't even imagine how much time I spent messing around with that thing. Come to think of it I never did complete carrier command but I was about 10 at the time and no matter how hard I tried to concentrate I always wound up blowing my own islands up for fun

Hardware specs were...

• CPU: Motorola 68000 16-/32-Bit CPU[22] @ 8 MHz. 16 bit data/32 bit internal/24-bit address.
• RAM: 512 KB or 1 Megabyte
• Display modes (60 Hz NTSC, 50 Hz PAL, 71.2 Hz monochrome):
  • Low resolution - 320×200 (16 color), palette of 512 colors
  • Medium resolution - 640×200 (4 color), palette of 512 colors
  • High resolution - 640×400 (mono), monochrome

I wonder how many of those you would have to string together to get the performance of my 2500k today

 

[JulesMaximus]

90MHz Pentium back in the mid 90s.

 

[Vic Vega]

My first PC was a Tandy 1000 SX with an Intel 8088. I didn't build it of course. The first PC I built was around 1991.