This thing taught me the BASIC computer language! I loved it …
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Tandy Color Computer 2, and learned BASIC to make it go.
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I started out with the Sinclair ZX81 which was exactly the same computer. I had a 16K RAM pack for it too!
Not too long after, my Dad upgraded us to a Spectrum 48K.
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TRS-80 given to me by my uncle who worked at the Skunk Works. It had a cassette tape. And I was at the age where I hoped Eliza could shed some light on the mysteries of the world. She was very non-committal.
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Radio Shack Tandy 1000. Gosh, think I paid $1500$ for that in 1985. Friend had an Amiga shortly after. I thought I was ripped off - his had a whopping 16 colors!
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Apple 2e. Castle Wolfenstein, THE original was my first game. Choplifter was my second. 1982 or 1983, I think.
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We had Trash 80s like @BeachAV8R mentioned above, but the Model 3 at the University of Miami. This was for learning BASIC.
FORTRAN and COBOL were compiled on an IBM 360, but the first computer that I bought for home was a 128k Mac like this one.
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My mum and dad bought me a brand spanking new IBM 286 for my 6th birthday. It was ostensibly my birthday present but it was for the whole family. My dad couldn’t work it and mum used it for work a lot.
I had a game called “captain comic” and later we got Flight simulator 4. But we didn’t have enough Ram to run it properly and the 747 wouldn’t load. I was also introduced to Duke Nukem 1 on this. I played that constantly.
Commodore 64…on a B&W portable TV.
The memories, shift-runstop to load programs. The joys of cassette head alignment.
Digital Integration’s Fighter Pilot, Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy.
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This!
Same here, C64 but I had a portable color TV and a 5¼ " floppy drive. First flight sim was subLogic’s Flight Simulator for the C64.
We were a TV-less household when I was little. Then dad bought a C-64. We borrowed the neigbours’ B&W TV to check it out. Not long thereafter we got a capitalist-propaganda-box. I remember moon patrol on the C-64.
After that came a PC (8088) (gato, sopwith), then an Atari ST (Falcon!), a newer PC (386)(Falcon 3.0, Aces, X-wing) and I think a couple years later I built my very first own PC, a K6. It was a PoS. But it was mine.
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The best sort of ownership. I have a list of cars and lorries and everything like that. The honest things are the best things. The ones that you don’t buy collect and use. But buy rebuild and and swear at and then use. They are the best.
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TI-99/4A with a few cartriges and a cassette player. And most importantly: A couple of Books with Basic source code.
I started typing the examples in the books into the computer, later created my own little programs like mine sweeper.
I was around 14 and the machine was the same age. Got rid of it in 2017 due to space constraints.
It looked like this (not my picture):
That’s how my career in IT started.
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My father let me play Falcon on the Atari ST.
But my (and my brother’s) first own PC was a (used) 286 in 1989 (IIRC).
Qbasic “Nibbles” and “Gorilla” were great games. Also Frogger, shooting gallery, Commander Keen and Wing Commander.
I didn’t have a flight sim on that PC I think.
But on the next PC (IIRC) I had Falcon 3.0 and it was glorious.
Jesus, somehow I knew it! 
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Same as a lot of you… TRS-80 with a tape player… had to work all summer to save up for it. Remember getting it, then buying a magazine which had pages and pages of code to type in… save to tape, load from tape from the beginning. Eventually after correcting all the syntax errors… I ran my first game… a racer. I big block with 4 small blocks for wheels… going left and right as the block road ahead moved back and forth. Memories. lol
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This thread makes me feel very young xD
First computer was some Windows 95 machine I inherited from my uncle in '98 when he bought a new computer. No idea about specs or anything because I wasn’t that interested at the time. I was more into cycling and model trains than computers.
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