What computers did you grow up with?

[stween]

I'm mostly a child of the 16 bit era.

One of my friends had an Atari 5200, which I remember playing. But then he and one other got STFMs. From that, I wanted an STFM so badly that I hounded my parents ahead of christmas for this one thing and, in the end, I got an STE. I can't remember if I felt let down by that or not, but it worked out and I still have it. That was Christmas 1992 and I was 10 years old. I poured so much energy into that one machine through my teenage years.

My best friend had an Amiga 500+, so of course we bickered over which was better for years. Of course we also played games on both. Some other friends had a SNES or a Mega Drive by that point.

In school, there were BBC Micros all over and, latterly, Acorn Archimedes crept into the computer rooms. The library had some mac classics and some news Apple computers. Eventually a couple of 386/486 era PCs crept in.

[mrbombermillzy]

Well, as far as I can remember, a cocktail of early Jean Michelle Jarre/Krafwerk/Gary Numan, along with shows like Tomorrow's World and the BBC Computing series, with a little bit of watching early morning OU computing episodes, was what started it all for me.

Back then, there was a real sense of awe and wonder with the new computing advances (along with the above mentioned soundtracks for the new cyberspace frontier) I was very keen to explore the possibilities.

This feeling was enhanced by my uncle, who used to work for Unisys or ICL (can't remember offhand now) and he used to bring back 'Portable PCs', the size of a small suitcase, with green/amber screens; my first introduction to both tank (like a basic angle/windspeed 2 player game) and Leisure Suit Larry, which had a 'display chart' key for if the boss walked past, so he wouldn't see you trying to bed a prostitute! lol (I kid you not)

Anyhow, fast forwards a bit (after living in Spain and moving back to London) and my nan buys me a C64, after hounding her for one over the course of 6 month (bless her). It was Raid Over Moscow and, bizzarely, the Entrance to Hades screen of Jet Set Willy which made the Commodore the target (although I had a weird fascination with games featuring Hell at the time and an issue of C&VG had the Game 'Go to Hell' for the Spectrum, which I would have liked a conversion of).

In fact, I actually wrote a letter to Ultimate Play The Game to ask if they would convert Underworlde and Nightshade to the C64, to which I actually got a reply and a poster. Wonder how many software houses would do that these days?

So after a while of not being able to afford the full price games (I was about eleven), I turned to typing in magazine listings; @exxos I'm pretty sure I tried that balloon listing in the back of the C64 User Guide too! I also realised the error prone nature of magazine typos, so after a few weeks of solid typing and eventually just getting getting data/syntatic errors, I looked at making my own games.

Not one to take things lightly, and the fact that I had the C64 Programmers Ref Guide, I decided to code directly in assembler.
Unfortunately, I didn't have the money for an assembler, so I ended up learning the assembly code mnemonics and entering them direct to RAM from data statements in BASIC...not the most intuitive method, but I managed to get a space shooter up and running.

About that time I relocated from West London to the New Forest in Hampshire (which is where I still reside).

This is when I noticed the invasion in my magazines of the Amiga computer. As they were always compared with them, it would also introduce me to the similar Atari ST. So after a while, I decided to save my £1.50 a week pocket money to buy an Amiga (lol, I know!).

So, before the 5 years of saving for that were up, a friend of my brother, whose dad did some Graphics work for Atari, had one of the first Atari STs. Unfortunately, without the modulator or Drive, not much happened, but where I had acquired it, I had started buying ST/Amiga Format magazine, which had just come out.

This then led to the purchase of an STFM with a Marpet 2.5Mb and a Replay Pro, followed by a Replay 16 cart. After a while, the magazines (ST Format by then) were showing pictures of the F030 (you know, the ones with the bridge and the woman swirling round in the dress?) so I thought I would buy that, along with CAF.

Unfortunately, I had crackling in some channels and it being 1993, I didn't have any available info about the clock patch cure, so it got sold.

I then fiddled around with PCs for a while. Went to college to learn OOP with C++ and maths.

Started coding a game in 1999 and started buying retro stuff again about 7 years ago.

And here we are. Hope you are still awake! lol

[rubber_jonnie]

@mrbombermillzy Yep give me some of that Kraftwerk and Jean Michel Jarre any day of the week.

It's been awesome reading all your stories :)

[BennehBoy]

Maybe there's a common theme here, I'm also a fan of all things Karftwerk, Tangerine Dream, JMJ...

[stephen_usher]

Yep. Same here.

[rubber_jonnie]

Maybe there's a common theme here, I'm also a fan of all things Karftwerk, Tangerine Dream, JMJ...

Ahh, Tangerine Dream...

I like a bit of OMD as well, and some New Order.

[olivier.jan]

Ok, so let’s go down memory lane….
First time I programmed something was at Christmas 1980 when I received a Bigtrack and had to program its path around the flat with stops for beeeps and lights.
First time I saw a computer was at Heathrow airport in 1981, there was a Sinclair showing a ZX81 and typing text on the machine and seeing it on the TV seemed like sci-fi to me. I finally got one a few month later for my birthday and started programming in Basic, copying listings from magazine and swearing at my little sister for moving the 16k ram extension before I had time to save to tape.
In 84 I got a wonderful 600xl but only kept it for one year as nobody at school had one which left me with very limited option in terms of getting new software. Moreover the machine died after just one year due to a bad memory chip.
In 85 I finally got my dream computer : an Apple // (the //c exactly) which led me to more programming, hacking a bit to get new games,exchanging floppies with friends at school, etc..that was clearly my preferred computer until Christmas 87 when I got a 520 STFM.
I remember coming back from the shop with the 520, plugging it on the Tv only to discover that no floppy icon was displayed on the screen 😭
I had to wait a few more days to bring it back to the shop and get it exchanged for a new one. Lucky me, the first one had a single sided floppy, the second one had a double sided 😁
It was mainly used as a game machine, but I did some programming too with GFA basic and even some music (noise?) after getting a Replay 4. I never upgraded the memory, I purchased a RAM expansion but freaked out when I discovered I had to solder…. I still have the RAM expansion, brand new although the ST is long gone.
In 91 I entered university and we were requested to have x86 machines, so I gave the 520 to my sister’s boyfriend and spent most of the 90s on PCs.
Finally in 2000 after spending some money on video capture card and a camcorder, I got mad at all the driver conflicts and nearly threw my nice compaq workstation through the Windows. It was bonus time at work, so next day I bought a Mac G4 and started doing video capture in less than 15mins. Since then, I’ve stayed with Macs until 3 years ago when I found the 600xl and the Apple //c at my mum’s place. The //c and most of its 150 floppies were still working. For the 600xl I bought a soldering iron and started to troubleshoot, I finally diagnosed the RAM chip and my kids are now playing Moon Patrol, Qix or Pac-Man on it after it’s 35 years sleep.
Lastly I discovered Exxos forums and bought a few ST/STE to complete my collection. Next step is to find my ZX81, it’s somewhere in a box… and see if I can revive it too.

[Darklord]

Maybe there's a common theme here, I'm also a fan of all things Karftwerk, Tangerine Dream, JMJ...

Ahh, Tangerine Dream...

I like a bit of OMD as well, and some New Order.

Tangerine Dream... That soundtrack from the movie "Legend"... so unreal.

I could listen to it all day long... :)