| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7] > | Poll: When did you learn to use a computer? Name the OS and Software. Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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| Remember when... | Sep 2, 2008 |
...we didn't say "PC," we said "IBM compatible"?
...we saved important work to at least 3 different floppies because they failed so often?
...a daisy-wheel printer, though less versatile, was classier than a dot-matrix one because the dw produced "typewriter-like" quality?
...owning a computer gave you status in the neighborhood?
...(going waaayyy back) data-entry specialists were key punch operators?
[Edited at 2008-09-02 17:34]
| | | | avsie (X) 
Local time: 04:08
English to French
+ ...
The first computer my father bought was a Commodore Vic 20! Complete with tape recorder and paddles. Oh the joys of playing Centipede... I can't remember which year that was, probably 1983 or 1984. Then he bought a Commodore 64 just a few months later, with a disk drive unit. I had tons of fun learning to program in Basic thanks to the sample programs in the user manual! I can still remember the giggles the first time I tried this classic program:
10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
When I think of it, I'm still amazed that my mother managed to do the most part of a degree related to computers applied to education only with this C64!! This would be unthinkable nowadays...
[Edited at 2008-09-02 17:27]
| | | | Elin Davies
United Kingdom
Member (2008)
English to Welsh
+ ...
| A few faltering steps before the great leap... | Sep 2, 2008 |
My first thought on this was towards the end of University and at my first 'proper' job after that, then I remembered a few other touches with technology, though I don't know anything about the OS or other technical bits. First off was a BBC Micro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro) which I used exclusively to play PacMan, but my brothers might have been a bit more adventurous (there were ple... See more My first thought on this was towards the end of University and at my first 'proper' job after that, then I remembered a few other touches with technology, though I don't know anything about the OS or other technical bits. First off was a BBC Micro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro) which I used exclusively to play PacMan, but my brothers might have been a bit more adventurous (there were plenty of those big floppies around so they must have).
There was a bit of a gap after that until I studied business studies at school, which turned out to be a posh name for word processing - the girls did business studies and the boys did IT. I learned about how to lay out a letter and do a spreadsheet for two years then forgot all about it until I was given a PC two months before graduating and after about a year of using it as a coffee table, I finally got around to being a (Windows something or other) technology junkie... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Jenni Jelse
Sweden
Local time: 04:08
English to Swedish
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| 80s - King's Quest anyone? | Sep 2, 2008 |
The first computer I ever saw up-close was my best friend's dad's IBM. We were about 8 or 9, and got the chance to play our very first computer game - King's Quest. So hilarious thinking back to those days - we tried so hard but couldn't get the controls to work at all. Remember struggling with the same issues on Commodore, Atari, Amiga or whatever they were all called. Then I got a Nintendo and never looked back
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| Macintosh 512k | Sep 2, 2008 |
I started at school and I fell in love with Mac...
| | | | | Fond memories | Sep 2, 2008 |
Tomás Cano Binder wrote: ...my first computer: the wonderful, amazing, smashing Amstrad CPC 464 and a cassete recorder/player as its sole storage device.  ...
My first steps with computing were through my brother's machine. I found out about the basics of programming with some kind of Basic language on it. I can't remember the OS name. Windows was unheard of at that time.
I remember how unreliable cassette storage could be... After a few cassette reads/writes, you had to have a backup somewhere just in case.
Philippe
[Edited at 2008-09-02 17:51]
| | | | Jerzy Czopik
Germany
Local time: 04:08
Member (2003)
Polish to German
+ ...
| It was end of 1989 | Sep 2, 2008 |
And the OS was DOS 3.1 with Word 4, soon followed by Word 5.
Althoug my frist contacts with PC were Sinclair ZX81 and Spectrum 48 then. This was 1983-85.
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Richard Jenkins wrote: The Sinclair ZX81, later followed by the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k and the Commodore 64. I still have yearnings for the sound of the ZX Spectrum tape loader 'screech'. Those were the days, but thankfully well and truly gone by now
Like Richard, my first experience of a computer was the ZX spectrum. I used to love the games we had for that - there was a simplicity about them that I prefer, in some ways, to today's more realistic graphics.
I voted 1990s. I was probably using the Spectrum by the end of the late 80s, but my parents used to set it up for me. It was probably in the early 90s that I learnt how to use it myself. My first exposure to Windows was in the mid-90s at school.
It was in 1997 that I got my first e-mail address and started using the internet on a regular basis.
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Roberto Rey
Colombia
Local time: 21:08
Member (2007)
Spanish to English
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| Henk Peelen
Netherlands
Local time: 04:08
Member (2002)
German to Dutch
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Intermediate technical school
Nixdorf computer or so. No screen, only paper.
OS?
Software Basic. I pitty having discarded my books and other stuff.
[Bijgewerkt op 2008-09-03 11:02]
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I am curious: How many of you had a CompuServe account before an Internet account?
| | | | | DOS + Wordstar PR 4 | Sep 2, 2008 |
1993. All those DOS commands that one had to memorize!
And in 1994 I was working on Windows and MS Word 6.0 and Wordperfect.
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| Once upon a time... | Sep 2, 2008 |
In the late 60s, my uncle took me to work with him one day and showed me the computer he was working on, called the Univac. I was so amazed that I didn't leave his office all day long. He showed me his appreciation by sitting down and teaching me how base 2 mathematics worked (he was a dreamer, and I remember he told me he was working on a model of the Dean drive). I never forgot that computer, and I couldn't wait for the day when I could play with one again.
It must have been about... See more In the late 60s, my uncle took me to work with him one day and showed me the computer he was working on, called the Univac. I was so amazed that I didn't leave his office all day long. He showed me his appreciation by sitting down and teaching me how base 2 mathematics worked (he was a dreamer, and I remember he told me he was working on a model of the Dean drive). I never forgot that computer, and I couldn't wait for the day when I could play with one again.
It must have been about 1975 when I first got my hands on the IBM mainframe locked away in a little room in the basement of my high school (my boyfriend, the school geek, was given a key and the responsibility of checking the room's temperature three times a day during school hours). I don't remember exactly what I did with it, but I do remember that he went in and changed all of our friends' report cards...and then changed them back again, just to see if he could (this was well before the concept of "cybercrime"). A year later I had a different, and older, geek boyfriend who was studying computers at the local university. We used to play "Setats Detinu" on the university's mainframe, and the one time I was close to winning, the whole system crashed...
In 1977 I went to work for the local government and volunteered to be trained on the computer that tracked all of the county clerk's legal files, and after that I trained on Wang and Lanier word processors...on to Wordstar, Wordperfect and finally just plain Word (I really did love Wordperfect and was heartbroken when I was forced to make the switch to Word). When I began using the internet in the early 90s, web browsers and the web per se did not yet exist: file transfers were done via ftp, searches were done with Gopher, and people used Usenet to communicate. My first contact with the web itself was in 1993 with the Mosaic (now defunct) browser.
Well, my computer-geek taste hasn't changed; I've been married to a programmer/systems engineer for years and years and years, and we have more computers in the house than we do beds.
What I like the most is having been able to witness the incredible changes that computers have brought to our lives. Last summer, we visited the Science Museum in Granada and my kids just loved the exhibit on old computers...they were amazed to see tapes and huge floppies and all of the rest of the paraphenalia that went along with those electronic dinosaurs.
I just can't image life without computers! ▲ Collapse
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ZX 81!
I remember spending hours copying lines of programming with my dad to play very simple games and it would always crash!
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I love you! I miss you! What shall I say?
How can I forget snitching music cassettes (Madonna et al.) of my older sisters and getting video games recorded on them. I remember those colorful lines flashing before my eyes during the loading process and me waiting in thrill! I didn't use to have that disk reader, the Devil's thing! When the boy living nextdoor had told me for the first time that I could play a huge numbe... See more I love you! I miss you! What shall I say?
How can I forget snitching music cassettes (Madonna et al.) of my older sisters and getting video games recorded on them. I remember those colorful lines flashing before my eyes during the loading process and me waiting in thrill! I didn't use to have that disk reader, the Devil's thing! When the boy living nextdoor had told me for the first time that I could play a huge number of games using disks instead of cassettes, I remember feeling myself like a noob.
One of my worst experiences with Commodore:
I found a computer magazine which promised that I would be able to write a simple game entering the codes given on the page. That was about two pages long. I typed, typed, and typed. The adapter got extremely hot, I had the fear it would explode! When I finished entering the codes and commands, one final "RUN" and nothing! Then curses and curses! ▲ Collapse
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