[MunnabhaiMBBS]

Our First Computer

Year : 1988

Make & Model : An imported IBM PC-XT
Processor speed : 4-6 Mhz
Ram : 64k
Monitor : IBM / Colour with 3 knobs
Disk Drives : 2 Floppy drives (1 for O/S and 1 for programs)
Chassis : Horizontal
Printer : Super 5 - Dot Matrix

O/S : Dos
Programs : Lotus 1-2-3 / Wordstar (WS) / PrintShop, Dollars and Cents (Accounting Software) etc.
Games : Prince 1 (Sounds better than Price of Persia 1 ), PacMan, Apollo 11, Dave, Paratrooper etc.

Some interesting anecdotes:

- First HDD we bought was a luxurious 20 MB hard disk drive.
- Have used Windows 3.1 with a keyboard till the time be bought our first mouse.
- Installed Win 95 on a 486 with 8 MB Ram / Result = ~10 mins of bootup time.
- Burnt a motherboard while overclocking the processor from 233 MHz to 333 MHz.
- Experienced the "buffer underrun" error every now and then while writing CDs. Was annoying to slow down the writing speed from 8x to 2x/4x.
- Was super happy when I could watch a VCD using Xing media player without adding any extra hardware.
- Used to eagerly await for every single issue of Chip/Digit for their free CDs
- Remember the first ever Pentium 3 processor costing upward INR ~1lac at launch (It was reviewed in Chip's Sep/Oct 2000 issue)
- Extensively used Pkzip and pkunzip to copy games in compressed format
- How could I forget the thousands of Autoexec.bat and Config.sys combinations
- Favourite yesteryear display/sound cards : Sis 6215/Ess1868
- Duke Nukem 3D - Hahahaha!!!
- IDDQD, IDKFA, Prince.exe yippeeyahoo -Oh, those cheat codes!

It was a different era altogether!

[Mr.Boss]

Early 2000
Make : Zenith PC
Processor : Intel P3
HDD : 40GB
RAM : 128MB (later upgraded to 256MB)
Drives : CD ROM & Floppy drive
OS : Win98
Monitor : 14" Color CRT
Keyboard & Mouse : PS2, roller ball type mouse
Speaker : 2.0 from Zenith
UPS : Couldn't remember the brand, had 20 mins back-up
Printer : TVS dot matrix

PS: We still have the old box, intact after 2 decades

[saket77]

Year 2000, got a PC assembled.

Intel Pentium-III, 933 MHz (which I found to be overclocked later), 128MB RAM, 20GB HDD, Mercury 850 or something motherboard which had PCI expansion slots with LG 14" colour monitor. Also added an HP640C colour inkjet printer a couple of years later to the system. I toredown the printer sometime in 2019.

Later this was upgraded to P-4, 1.8GHZ machine and added an Acer LCD monitor. Finally it was taken off duty after a few years. I think it still lies somewhere in my house. Also remember having a 'sancharnet' dial up connection with the modem making funny noises while connecting.

[Leoshashi]

December 1999: A Compaq Presario desktop. I don't remember much about it since it came home when I was barely 7 years old. Some things which I could recall:

-Processor was Pentium 3, and had 128MB RAM

-Had a huge 19 inch monitor with speakers mounted on sides. Was a big thing for its time. Exactly like this:



-Its price back then was 78k I clearly remember this since dad's colleague commented that you could have got a top model Zen instead of LX which we had booked, with this amount.

-Came with a mechanical mouse, and it's ball was one of my favorite things to play with.

-I mainly used it to play games like Battlezone, Mario etc.

[mayankk]

The first home computer I had was a 120 Mhz, i think Pentium 2, with a handful MBs of storage, and some kbs of RAM in mid/late 90s. Windows 3x, then 95. Installation was done through 20-30 3" FDDs, which used to be done almost every 4-5 months. God help you if even one got corrupted!
Creative speakers, and it would only do 2 things at the same time, which for me was playing an audio disc while playing Golf on the PC.
Good days!

[Gansan]

This is what I bought, assembled, in 1999. This photo is the actual quotation for it. Need I say more?!

The OS was Windows 95.

[sreejithkk]

Make : Assembled in 2001
Processor : Intel P3 866MHz
Motherboard : Intel
HDD : 20GB
RAM : 256MB
Drives : CD ROM & Floppy drive
OS : Windows Me (Later upgraded to XP, when it was available)
Monitor : Samsung 16" Color CRT
Keyboard & Mouse : PS2, roller ball type mouse
Speaker : I think it was Mercury or Priya
Printer : Epson Inkjet
Total cost was about 56000 Rs

[reignofchaos]

Mine was a PCL multimedia desktop with the following config:

Pentium 120
8MB EDO RAM (Later upgraded to 32)
1.2GB Hard Drive
1MB Cirrus Logic VGA card
Sound Blaster 16 + Creative 8X CD Rom + Some speakers
First DOS, then Win95

Used this PC for a whole 4-5 years (1996-2000) before I finally succeeded in pestering Dad to buy me a PIII machine with 3D acceleration.

[padmrajravi]

Interesting thread. My dad had a Casio handheld computer that he purchased sometime in the 80s. This was the first computer that I saw. It supported some primitive version of BASIC programming language and even had a small floppy disk-like thing. Looked something like this.



In the late 90s, we purchased a second hand ( Or third hand or fourth hand) 8088 computer from an institute for 3000 Rs. I remember playing Prince and Packman on that computer. It ran on DOS, had 20 MB hard disk memory, and a floppy disk. I have no idea about the RAM it had.

We used it till the early 2000s after which we upgraded to a Celeron computer with 64 MB RAM and 20GB hard disk. It was a Zenith PC and costed about 38k then. I remember arguing with my Dad to choose the Pentium processor instead of Celeron, but Dad decided against it for saving 6000 Rs. It came with Windows 98 and stayed with us till 2010. I upgraded both RAM and processor multiple times with used components. When it died, it was running a Pentium processor and 256 MB of RAM.

[anandhsub]

I got my first computer ( assembled) in 1999.

Specs
Pentium Celeron processor
4.3 GB hard disk
32MB RAM
Windows 98
Lexmark Colour printer
Dont remember the monitor or the speaker.

Had a Satyam 32kbps internet connection (100 hours in the morning + 100 hours at night)

Used till 2006 or so.

[gischethans]

My first PC came home in 2007. It was an IBM/Lenovo ThinkCentre.

Specs -
Intel Dual-Core Processor
160 GB HDD
1 GB RAM
Windows XP and Red Hat Linux (remember asking the dealer for a host of software to be installed - little did I know about software piracy)
Lenovo 15" LCD Monitor
Lenovo keyboard and mouse
Creative speakers

Used BSNL NetOne and SancharNet dialup internet for about two years before opting for BSNL night unlimited (2 AM - 8 AM) broadband plan when I joined M.Tech Program.

The machine was in use until 2019 after a RAM and hard disk upgrade. It still worked but I replaced it with a higher-powered machine.

[xcentrk]

My first one is:

Assembled around 2000-01
Intel P3 866MHz
Intel MB
20GB HDD / 256MB
CD ROM & Floppy drive
Windows 98 (Later upgraded myself to Me & then to XP)
Samsung 15" CRT
Mercury Cabinet
PS2 Keyboard & Mouse with the ball roller
A Mercury Speaker, Just 2 speakers with no Sub

And it costed us close to 50 grand IIRC.

It was in use till 2006 before I started assembled my own PCs with the help of my uncle. I kept the Cabinet and other parts and replaced the Proccy+Mobo+RAM to a better one.

- A Pentium 4 HT 3GHz(Which I OC'ed to 4GHz) + Mercury Mobo + 512MB RAM. I used this PC to play GTA:SA, Max Payne and lot more and it was fun.

- Bought my first GPU somewhere around 2007-08. A used Nvidia GPU and later bought a AMD 4600 GPU at 2008.

- The P4 was with me till 2011, where I again changed the Proccy+Mobo+RAM to E7400+ASUS Mobo+2GB RAM.

- Then I changed the Proccy to Q6600+4GB RAM around 2013

- Now I have i5 2500k+MSI Mobo+8GB+750Ti

It was fun working with PC's those days when it was a novelty. We enjoyed with very little. We spent hours with Paint and Smashing the screen with hammer app, and lot more. Now with all the apps and games, I don't enjoy as much as I did back then!

[am1m]

Didn't own a PC till college, but the first computer I remember using at a friend's place in Bangalore was a ZX Spectrum. If I remember, the software was on cassettes (like audio cassettes)!

[TejasKinger]

While my parents have always worked in the computer industry (my father, in fact, used to sell computers early in his career - mid-80s), we got our first home computer only in 1998 in Dehli.

It was an HP Brio BA410. Completely stock spec - stock white HP monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

The specs were:

HP Brio BA410
Intel® Celeron™ processor at 633MHz
64MB SDRAM
10GB HD
Windows® 98

Served us quite reliably till about 2005-06ish.

Specs and image from the HP website (surprised they still have it listed).

[jkrishnakj]

Originally Posted by Mr.Boss

Early 2000

That box bought back old memories. I had purchased this exact model and specs in the year 2000. Cant remember how much it costed though. My HDD and Ram were of a lesser configuration, but can not forget the Zenith P3. Yahoo messenger was the go-to messaging engine the world over.

The games that I had on this PC were superb - Dave, Road Rash were the most famous ones that I used to enjoy. Two small external speakers, one Mic and one external camera was bought as accessories. And of-course, not to forget the distinct tone of the VSNL PoP internet connection sound bytes.