My first modem was a 300 baud for the Commodore 128. It didn’t take me long to out grow that haha… next was the 1200, then the 2400. I remember at the time they were saying they’d never go higher than 2400 because the phone lines couldn’t handle data any faster than that.
3 Likes
more of a 90s kid so here’s my experience:
Pentium 233mhz computer from COMPAQ
16mb ram
7gb HDD
56K modem
Loaded with AOL 2.5 and that’s where all the fun started. Through AOL I found a chatroom and from there I learned about “WAREZ” rooms where you could get free games and software, “waaaaaaat”!? as a 14 yr old this was amazing. Looking back now it was quite amazing how much piracy was happening on the AOL servers. Here’s how files were shared:
Join a chat room, overserve the messages from sellers, trigger them with chat commands like “/gobin list”. These sellers were running programs called MMS or Mass Mailers that would read the chat messages and automate the serving of files. You’d get a private message and enter commands as messages back to the person. All files were broken up by a program called WinRAR (still in use today) because the mail had an attachment size limit of 8 megabits (i think?) and so you’d make like 16 Emails with attachments and label them “Photoshop 1/16” and when you wanted to share it you’d forward that email to someone which is what the MMS programs automated.
Around this time I learned about mp3s and started my own pirate group focusing on the CDs and media I had in my collection which consisted mainly of punk and hardcore and mostly alternative kinds of music since a lot of groups were sharing top 100 songs and shit, literal shit, like that.
From there I discovered IRC and you know how that goes. Later I learned the whole MMS, or “serving” originated from IRC.
Somewhere along the way, I learned to program make a few AIM punters, MMS, and years later I managed to change my career and get into developing software professionally thanks to my experience as a teen and continued familiarity with computers and technology.
8 Likes
My first computer was an abacus and a series of beads and shells. Zeros were shells, ones were beads.
9 Likes
1993 I was a kid so I’m not sure but it was probably a HP definitely not a apple Macintosh lol and I played Doom all day and Carmen San Diego and talked shit to people on AOL with a couple of friends lol
11 Likes
When I brought the T1 in to town to start my isp that was 1.5 mbs connection and was a very big deal back then. I just checked my speed on my home computer and I’m getting 250 mbs lol…
8 Likes
started learning on Windows
one of my best friends was a programmer when they used those cards
used to play Quake alot - was in a clan - had get togethers at my house
put together computers for years but don’t anymore
still using Windows XP ha ha ha - things are starting to get complicated to use it
5 Likes
Started on government mainframes in the late 70s. Cobol programmer. Via small clusters of green screen terminals.
Sperry 90/80
Supported every frickin PC and Server OS after dos 3.3. Netware, Vines, Active Directory. Last supported enterprise OS Winders Server 2012.
Retired now.
13 Likes
does that make me old 
I did do networking with 3.1 and 3…11
AS 400
5 Likes
Got my first PC when I went back to school in my early 30s to get a diploma in chemistry. Sure wish I’d taken computer science instead. 
It was a Commodore PC10 - II, 8 - 12Mhz with 640k, two 5.25" floppies and no HD. Got an amber screen instead of the green one and booted up with IBM DOS 1.0. Had very early version of MS Flight Simulator on a disk the salesman at Future Shop gave me. Had to run a graphics simulator program. Went and bought a 300baud modem a week after getting into school and finding out about BBSs. Still have my old flip-up phone book with all my usernames/passwords and tons of floppies in every size they came up with. Anyone else drill holes in the corners of their 3.5" 720K floppies then reformat to 1.44? lol
I’m sure had I took computer science instead of chemical sciences my life would be a lot different now in my ‘golden’ years but then I’m even more sure it would have been way different if I’d put a glove on my love and not become a family man. A job I was not well suited to especially after the mother left us and I became a single dad. Sitting at home coding would have been a lot easier than having to drive an hour each way to a crappy job as a chem tech in a hazardous waste disposal plant.
Oh well. Shit happens. 
14 Likes
Ti 99 when they went from $1150.00 down to $49, got the sound card free for buying some cartridges but those were dirt cheap as they were being dumped, 2 of my friends had Trash 80’s they had paid like 1500 dollars for pong in black and white…I had tunnels of doom in color and sound parsec and others
5 Likes
This was my first also, I too am a die maker 
4 Likes
I worked in tool & die from around 1973 until 1990. Then started a couple of my own businesses. I kinda miss working with the dies and molds. Interesting work…
4 Likes
My dad got a TI 99/4A from a woman at the office and gave it to me. Being that I had a really good paper route I soon bought an expansion box and all kinds of good stuff (disk drive so no more tapes, modem so I could log on to Compuserve and BBS’s, and more memory… I had 3 32K cards - had to mess around with them as you could only really have 1 in a system, etc). I even had one of the first Myarc Geneve 9640 systems that allowed me to add a PC keyboard and a REAL monitor and run DOS programs.
God, I wish I still had all that stuff now.
4 Likes
Atari computers People
Made techno music with them lol
4 Likes
My first was a Tiny computer system, 98 2nd edition, I bought online, from the defunct Tiny Computer stores, that was very short lived, here in the USA, after I bought it.
I went from a welder fabricator to all these boxes of stuff!!
I upgraded to an LED screen, back then, for get this, $940.00 it would be $40.00 today.
My 3.8 % Neanderthal really had no clue, but I finally got Netscapes loaded and found Libertarians and weed growers, after multiple crashes and ever popular blue screen of death.
5 Likes
First computers I used were in grade school, Apple IIe. I remember playing Oregon Trail, LOGO, and Ultima on them. I did some basic programming, mainly just plotting graphics and repeating “I hate school” in an infinite loop.
The first computer at home? Hmmm, hard to remember, but it was an old 286 IBM clone my dad brought home from work. It had Word Perfect and Lotus 123 on it. I remember deleting the CD-ROM drivers because I didn’t think I needed the files, boy did I get in trouble for that!
It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized I loved programming and pursued it as a career.
8 Likes
Yep first I used were the Apple IIe’s as well. Green screen gloriousness with a 5 1/4 floppy drive.
First home PC I got to use was one of those beige packard bells running windows 3.11, compuserve and 14.4 modem was about all we had for internet. I remember waiting an hour to look at one picture, 3-5 hours to download a single song. This started my life in IT and I’ve been stuck here ever since 
I did go back and pick up some tandy’s, still got an atari and a commodore64 with all the accessories, that stuff is classic and most of the time, it still works! They sure don’t make stuff like that used to…
4 Likes
My mom worked for the state and was their as400 was having issues. I was like 13 I think, it was a bring your kid to school day. Just remember that they couldn’t get it personal there anytime soon. So I went in and fixed it. They thought that was mind blowing.
2 Likes
before there was a internet 2 of my friends and i ran a bulletin board
3 Likes
We had the Acorn electron and the BBC Archimedes and the B version of that. The schools had them and started teaching basic code dos . Next term they had all been removed , prob realised hang on we teaching eight year olds code lol. Also had access to Atari stuff for a while then I got locked up instead of education…
2 Likes