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by ColinWright·6mo ago·view on hn ↗
Still reading the article, but early on it says:

"Also, is it weird that I still remember the specs of my first computer, 22 years later?"

My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 1, 1.78 Mz Z80 with 16 KB RAM.

That was 48 years ago. Is it weird that I remember that?

15 comments
They stick with you. I remember our first family computer well (an Acer 486 with 40MB drive and 32MB RAM.)

Same for my first computer I built myself out of a TigerDirect order. Made a few mistakes there (K6 generation.)

Having these computers was such a change in our lives that they should be somewhat indelible memories.

>an Acer 486 with 40MB drive and 32MB RAM.

32MB ram <-- no way. 4 and 8MB were the standard (8MB being grand), you could find 16MB on some Pentiums. So 40MB drive and 32MB RAM is an exceptionally unlikely combo.

32MB become norm around Pentium MMX and K6(-2).

Haha, I wondered if someone would complain about 32MB. We had the board maxed out. My grandfather’s computer before ours.

A few months after taking possession, I upgraded the disk to a luxurious 400MB.

The classic NAND-me-down. My first personal computer was a "broken" 486 system I got for $25 at a yard sale. All it needed was a hard drive.
We had a 386 DX with 32MB of RAM. I don’t think it was that uncommon. DOOM still didn’t run super smoothly, though.
Nah, as the other poster said 4 or 8 MB was what was common on 486 machines. Even less on 386. Most 386 motherboards didn't even support more than 16MB.
It could have been bought old and upgraded. Not everyone had the luxury of a brand new first computer.
Possibly, but even mother boards supporting 32MB would be rare. Perhaps on "DX3"?

As for a new computer and price - it was like $1000 to get AMD 486DX2-80 with 4MB RAM in '95...

So this depends if it was a 72 pin DIMM board. I don't think you could get there (easily?) on a 30 pin board, but 72 may have had native support for 64 out of the box.
I upgraded a ~1992 Dell 486 DX2 to 36MB (original 4MB + 32MB...or was it a pair of 16MB sticks? hard to remember) around 1997 or so.
Yeah, IIRC my first computer, or at least the first one I really maintained, was a Pentium 2 with 32MB of ram and a 2gb hard drive. Good ole gateway pcs.

The first first computer I had was an old IBM PC.

TigerDirect? Wow. How did I forget the first place I used and instantly maxxed a credit card? I would look through that catalog right now if I had it.
My Dad had one of them. The first machine I actually purchased myself was a Dragon 32 (6809 processor, 32k RAM) sometime around 1981 - i can remember everything about it, including all the terrible cassette games I bought for it and the money I spent on ROM cartridges (word processor, assembler/debugger). These days I can't even remember what's in my Steam library.
I still have my Mac 128k with external disk drive and printer. Bought new in Jan 1985 or late Dec 1984. I paid the exorbitant price to upgrade it to 512k during the first year I owned it. I think the RAM needed to be desoldered and new chips soldered in place so it needed to be returned to the store where I bought it.

Shout out to the author of the blog for writing an engaging post that accurately the MS experience. For me, switching is still a work in progress since I am the family troubleshooter and there are lots of things to mess with. It will happen because so far, the ones I have switched have no complaints.

22 years back is still this century, nothing weird about. As for remembering stuff 6502/48KB RAM (along with call -151) seems boring, I guess.
Interestingly I can't remember any specs since about 22 years ago.

First modern PC (dos/win3.1) I had a 12mhz 286, 1 meg of ram, AT keyboard, 40MB hard drive. This progressed via a 486/sx33/4m/170mb and at one point a pentium2 600 with (eventually) 96mb of ram, 2g hard drive, then a p3 of some sort, but after that it's just "whatever".

First PC: 8088 with 640K, then a 286 with 2MB! The memory!

First own "PC": Atari ST 1040e, 1MB, with supercharger to run DOS and a 30MB hard disk the size of a regular PC. Donation from a family member.

First family PC was a used IBM PC XT, 8088 w/ 640kb ram and a cga card with an amber monochrome monitor attached. I remember getting a 14.4 modem on it, and it would freeze, had to force it to 9600bps. Then managed to wranle a 486sx w/ 4mb ram and an EGA card and display.

First decent computer I built was an AMD 5x86 133mhz with the larger cache module and a whopping 64mb ram that I'd traded for some ANSi work. The irony is for some things it ran circles around the Pentiums that friends had, for others it just slogged. Ran OS/2 warp like a beast though. Ever since then, I've mostly maxed out the ram in my systems... I wend from 128gb down to 96GB for my AM5 build though since the most I've ever used is around 75gb, and I wanted to stick to a single pair at a higher speed.

36 years ago: A Wyse branded AT clone 12.5MHz 286 with 1MB of ram, a 10MB hard drive and a Hercules graphics card (it was a decommissioned CAD machine from my dad's work).
Radio Shack PC-1 w/ the printer and cassette tape player --- really should have waited until the Model 100 was available....
I documented all of my early computers throughout early college, and I'm glad I did. I remember the first computers well, but without those notes, I wouldn't remember the first ten in so much detail. My first computer that was not a family computer was: UMAX 233mhz Pentium 2, 64Mb Ram, 8Gb HDD (was crushed when sat on by sibling)
IBM PC XT 5150 4.77MHz, 640KB, no, not weird at all :)
The 5150 was just an "IBM PC" not an XT, but still... I think we're talking about the same thing.

I still have mine! 4.77 MHz 8088, 8087 math coprocessor, CGA graphics card, 5.25" floppy (360K, double-sided, double-density), 20 MB Seagate hard drive (I believe the motherboard has newer ROM chips to support that), AST SixPakPlus expansion card to bring it up to 640 KB RAM and a Parallel Port, a Serial Port, a Game Port, and a Real Time Clock (so you don't have to type in the date and time every bootup.) At one point I had a Sound Blaster as well, which was nice. The floppy drive and the hard drive each have their own controller cards so there's almost no more room for expansion! The motherboard also has the keyboard and cassette (!!!) port. I get an error code about the cassette port so I doubt it would work but I never had the equipment to try it out anyway.

Nah, I think it's awesome. Great computer by the way. With all that raw power I bet you were doing tons of computering.
Amstrad 2286 PC, 4Mb RAM, 40Mb hard drive, 3.5" floppy.

40 Megabytes. I have photos that size these days.

I was late to the party with an Apple IIe. I've never managed to catch up since.
Mine was an Intel 386 DX 40MHZ with 2MB RAM and 80MB HD, bought in late 1993.
ZX-81 with 1Kb RAM
There is no reason you would have forgotten.