[hortons15]

Our family's first was a PC from Sterling Siva Computers (Chennai) in 1988/89. I was only born around that time but still remember playing Prince 1, Dangerous Dave, Paratroopers and the like. 4 year old me knew to type
C:
CD Games
CD prince
Prince.exe lol

The config:
386DX with 8Mb of RAM
80 MB Hard disk
5 1/2" Floppy
L&T dot matrix printer

The best thing was a "turbo" button on the cabinet that boosted the processor MHz briefly. And a physical "key" lock that was connected internally to the power button (just like a car ignition) to prevent unauthorized use. Good times!

I still have it in storage. Shall try to click pics when I can get to it.

[Hades]

Early 2000s's.

Assembled PC:

CPU - Intel Pentium 4
Mobo - Intel Socket 478
GPU - nVidia FX 5200 AGP
RAM - 256 MB
Disk - 5 GB [not sure]

Had a lot of fun with this lovely machine and finally watched it go up in flames

[srini1785]

The first comp that i saw was when a cousin brought one (late 80's). I don't remember the config but clearly remember that it had a Win 3.1 setup with a flat bed console. The way it was back then was that we would switch on the thing and go out for a game of cricket ( or football as the mood suits ) and come back to find that either it had booted up or displayed an error. AC was "Mandatory" for comp cooling and "Flappy" ( as my dad called it) was like a God send to store anything of importance.

Few years later , saw for the first time a dial up modem with that typical Fax sound and BSNL (was it VSNL that time?) was the king of the market. Yeah you got it, great 90's.

The total hype that was created around comps those days and the fact that i could never understand comp terms (RAM/ROM , Processor , HD etc) was so much that i developed an inherent aversion to anything comp. I was (and still am) so much out of sync with comps that the only real comp that i owned was bought as recently as 2 years back. I don't remember the specs still, will ask my son.

[TheVegabond]

Year: 2001.
Make: Assembled by a known Hardware specialist cum friend.
Processor: Celeron 533 MHz.
Monitor: 14" color monitor.
Keyboard and Mouse: Logitech keyboard and roller-based mouse.
Memory: 128 MB RAM and 40 GB HDD.
Drives: CD ROM and Floppy disc drive.
Speakers: Yamaha.
UPS: Unitek or something with 15 minutes of backup.
OS: Windows 98 (pirated).

[charanreddy]

My first PC Config :

Year : 2003.

Processor : AMD Athlon 1.6 Ghz

RAM : 256 MB.

Hard Disk : 40 GB.

ASUS Motherboard.

15 inch Samsung CRT Monitor.

3.5 Inch Floppy drive.

DVD / CD ROM.

Creative 2.1 SBS Speakers.

OS : Windows XP / Linux (Dual boot)

I used this config till about 2011. Took it with me to my master's (2005- 2007). Used it to play countless games and watch countless movies

The CPU was never 'closed' it was always open to move the harddisk and copy stuff

Upgraded the RAM to 756 MB around 2008 or so.

[anubhav7286]

My first PC was an assembled one in 1994

Processor Speed : 33Mhz with a turbo button that made it 66Mhz (not sure if that worked)
Monitor : Monochrome
Ram : 2MB
Harddisk : 601MB
Floppy Disk - 5.25 Inch and 3.5inch

It had windows 3.1 which was just a GUI and not an OS.

Used it extensively to play Dave and Prince. There was a game called Car as well which was a very cool driving game.

[Rocketscience]

So my first PC back in 2006 was from HP
I don't remember the model number but i clearly remember the configuration
Processor - Intel Pentium 4 2.93 Ghz 64bit with HT technology
Ram - 256mb (Later upgraded to 1.5gb)
Hard Disk - 80 gb (Later Upgraded to 500gb)
Graphics Card - AMD 64mb (Was good for playing GTA Vice City, San Andreas, NFS Underground, Underground 2, Carbon)
HP LCD monitor - 15 inches with 1024x768 Resolution (Still in use in our office, works flawless and has decent image quality)
Was hell bent on getting the LCD monitor, CRT monitors were still a thing back then, i think i got atleast 2-3x my money's worth from that thing as it still under use after 14 years, and still looks relatively modern.
DVD RW Drive (Changed twice first to Samsung, then to NEC, used to burn a lot of CDs and DVDs back in the day)
Speakers - Creative SBS 2.1

It served me great and without issues from 2006-2014, it originally came with XP i suppose and i later upgraded to Vista (i never faced any issues at all, infact i loved the modern interface as compared to XP) and then Windows 7. It used to look great as well, i could never find an assembled PC with that great quality cabinet back then, it was not even that expensive as compared to building a PC myself back in the day, i was just 13 when i first got it.

[ketan007]

I remember my dad bought me this pc after the 10th, assuming that I would go for Computer studies later (which I did). It lasted till 2009.

I don't remember much specs as I used it mostly for gaming(Roadrash, Super Mario, Fifa, and many other games).

Year: 2001
Make: Assembled PC
Processor: Intel P4
HDD: 40 GB
RAM: 128MB
Drives: CD ROM & Floppy drive (1.4 MB floppy disks )
OS: Windows 98
Monitor: Samsung 14" Color CRT
Keyboard & Mouse: PS2, roller ball type mouse
Speakers: Probably Zenith, not sure though
UPS: Microtek, 30 minutes backup

[simplysaj]

Around 2003
Intel Celeron - Don't remember the clock speed
RAM 256mb (Later upgraded)
40GB HDD
No graphics card
Intel Motherboard
Creative Speakers
15'' Samsung CRT
Floppy drive
Creative CD Drive later upgraded to LG CD Writer
Logitech KB and mouse
UPS with 15 minutes backup
Windows XP

I still have this. CPU was upgraded to pentium later

[grosserimperial]

Year: 1996-1997
Processor- Pentium II
RAM-32 MB
HDD- 10 GB
Floppy Drive
CD-ROM
Motherboard : Intel
OS : Windows 95
Monitor : Samsung 13"
Keyboard & Mouse : Microsoft Mechanical
Speaker : Creative
Printer : HP
Bundles- Shree-Lipi and Adobe Pagemaker
Total cost was about 1,40,000 Rs. including all the above mentioned items

I was a 7 year old kid at that time and was enthralled at the machine. My father had take a loan for buying the computer which was to be deployed in our printing press. Our was the first printing press to use an offset printing machine and computer in nearby towns.

[Maverick Avi]

Seems like lot of folks started their PC journey in year 2000 and later years. Its safe to say that PC penetration to middle class families started about that time. I too bought my first PC in 2000 and went to a Zenith authorized retailer as per a newspaper ad. Surprisingly that retailer was not too keen on selling Zenith and advised us to go for assembled one instead. We went by his advice and ended up with below config.

PIII
64 MB RAM
10 GB HDD
Tomato motherboard(this caused quite a headache for years to come)
Creative 24x CD rom drive
Logitech Keyboard and mouse
14 inch Samsung CRT
Samsung 4w RMS speakers
Monitor Cover
Win 98, Win XP, Win 2000, Linux and what not.

This PC served me for 10 years till 2010. The upgrades I did to it were RAM and RW CD drive for burning CDs. Motherboard used to be problematic but I understood that changing BIOS battery used to fix the issue. This used to be quite frequent though(atleast once a year). No other issues what so ever. I handed over this working PC to my cousin in 2010 and got another one assembled with below config(this was quite an upgrade).

Intel Core i3
4 GB RAM
500 GB HDD
Intel desktop motherboard
Logitech mouse and keyboard
20 inch Samsung LCD monitor
Logitech Z 2300 200 W RMS 2.1 speaker system (these are wicked with a massive subwoofer)
Win 7 OS

This configuration is still holding well and working flawlessly even after 10 years. The only upgrade done to this setup is Benq 24 inch monitor just a month back as my 10 year old Samsung finally conked off. But still am very happy with both my purchases and would vouch for assembled configs as you get 3 to 5 year warranty on some components which can be quite handy!!

[AyushB]

An Intel i386 with MS-DOS, purchased sometime in Mid 90’s. It was a great computer that bought about a love affair with hardware for me that continues today with cars.

[PankajKara]

Pentium III - 800mhz custom PC back in 2000. It was sufficient for normal tasks. My memories for it are limited as I have bad memory and I was too young then. Things were fine until I played CS and Max Payne in gaming cafes and tried doing the same at home - no luck. Graphics card was too bad. Got it upgraded and got scammed by the pc builder. Cuz Max Payne would still not run! Would freeze on playing.

After getting scammed, we built another pc from elsewhere who gave me a decent graphics card (128MB ATI 7500? Can’t recall) . Shortly after, I took things into my own hands. Became a PC Junkie trying to optimise every bit. Picked up ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB from Sapphire and after obsessing quite a bit. Immediate boost in games and ability to run NFS Underground at MAX settings. I distinctly remember without the 9800pro NFS underground would have a normal race start with a counter. After upgrading the graphics it had the women pointing their fingers down . Got a unique looking PC case with a front door, upgraded cooling of graphics card with a Thermaltake Giant III, added graphics ram sinks, blue cold cathodes inside. Was fun upgrading and modifying it as much as I could.

Needless to say, it was a gem at its time. Too much influence from PCMag, casemodgod and guru3d.

[Hrishi_111]

Year: 1998
Make: Custom assembled
CPU: Pentium II
RAM: 32 GB
HDD: 4.2 GB
OS: Windows 95
Speakers: Artis
MS-Office: 97

I was pursuing an electronics diploma those days and only one computer in our college had a hard-disk. Rest all were DOS based floppy (1.2" I believe) bootable systems.

So when I acquired my first PC, the thing to rejoice was it has a hard-disk!

Later the configuration was slightly upgraded and many things were experimented on it including upgrades to Win 98 SE, Win Millennium Edition, dual boot configurations etc.

[ottocycle]

Year 2001
Brand HCL
128 MB RAM. Don't remember the harddisk capacity.
Floppy Disk
CD Reader (later upgraded to DVD writer in 2004).
14" Monitor

Used to play NFS2, NFS5, NFS Underground, CS, AOE and many more games. Good old days with DC++

Dad had bought FronTech speakers for 1300 that time they were one of the best sounding speakers. Just a great sound.