What was your first computer and what did you do in the early computer years.

I believe it is 11" , lol. Things were huge money back than. Check out this ad for a whopping 10Mb one.
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What the tech boom did the city was often ugly, but somehow the bust just consolidated power at the highest levels and that is what really cemented the gentrification and the death of bay area culture.

I grew up poor in a wealthy area, so it was challenging.

Oh man I know how that is, I grew up poor and my neighborhood was gentrified around me.

In middle school, some one gave (donated) me an old 486 because I showed academic potential and was super poor.

Yup. The first computer I ever had was given / donated to me as well. it was an obsolete Dell business laptop from a tech company that folded.

In the 90s and 00s people would also leave complete functioning obsolete computer systems out on the sidewalk because there was no infrastructure for tech recycling, and no legal way to throw them in the trash. I ended up getting a lot of stuff this way as well.

mostly I just gutted them for hard drives and other components that I could use in the “family computer,” a frankenstein’s monster Windows 95 HP Pavilion tower with sczi and other goodies that made it compatible with obsolete technology and accessories from the 80s. Like data tapes, and floppies that were actually floppy haha. I also found a sound card with midi in-out which was a lot of fun.

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me too. The worst part was the constant supply of false hope they offered to low income kids like us, while constantly working to remove us from the communities we grew up in, and putting up more and more obstacles to keep locals from entering the industry.

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The tech boom wasn’t all bad news though. I think I went to every Macworld conference from 2002 until 2011 and saw a lot of interesting historical events, and got a lot of fun free swag.

I remember the iphone did not work at all when Jobs demoed it for the first time. It looked like it was actually just playing a video and he was miming along, pretending it was responding to touch input. But it kept doing stuff before he clicked on it haha.

I was pretty young when I first started attending. Every year I showed up with an official badge with forged credentials that said I was the CEO of a cryogenics company. Hahaha.

If anyone ever asked about my services, I had a lot of gag lines. My favorite one was “I’d be happy to forward all of the relevant information to your next of kin.” I also told a lot of people that we had Walt Disney’s head on ice.

I still sometimes get random swag from the companies that are still around.

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The first “CNC” machines I ran used punched tapes.

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played duke Nuken on a pc 386 then 486

First computer I “owned” was a Compaq

First computer I touched and learned (from school)

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E-machines win 98se late 90s. I was poor. Built my own since then.
If you gyo, build your own.

Zx81 , the predecessor to the brilliant speccy. Had a4k expansion pack that wobbled so after typing out your program from a Magazine for ages just before you finish it would corrupt

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That Compaq Presario is the first PC I bought myself. Played a lot of Starcraft on that machine!

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oh yes, brood war and diablo 2 LOD

Alpha test of the referb d2 game.

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Apple IIc with the green screen.
Played that maze game endlessly - “Be seeing ewe!”

Went on to design & build studios, editing rooms (Avid / FCP / Adobe etc.) & mobile broadcast trucks.

These days I just look at weed porn… :laughing:

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This one - but the green monochrome monitor.
First laptop was a Mac 195b with a trackball & a B&W screen (almost an hour of battery life!)

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:cowboy_hat_face:my first was atari 400 and 800 and i still have them :mask:

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:cowboy_hat_face:I remember when Dos was the word never heard of Micro soft until mid 80 first computer i worked on was a reel to reel. didn’t even hear of hard drive that came after Roswell ?? :mask:

My buddy had one of those old Compaq’s where the keyboard detached from the base and revealed a small screen and floppys. I used to go over there and play Wizardry for hours

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