So here I was, lying on my bed and reading On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Commodore (which is the most enthralling book I've read in the past years and is a must for anyone interested in computer history and business management) and suddenly a wave of nostalgia hit me.

I started reminiscing about my old computers. I first bought a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k, with the rubber keys, and remembered the fun I had playing all the games for that computer. Then I bought a Commodore 64, then various Amigas, then PCs, and in-between tons of consoles. But it's the computers, especially the Spectrum 48k and Commodore 64 and Amiga 500 that I remember the most.

So this thread is about you telling the memories of your old computers, from the early PCs to the TRS-80 and PET-2001.

I'll start.

I remember, in the Spectrum days, I bought a game from Imagine called Movie. It was an isometric game where one played a detective and interacted with lots of characters. It was a fun game but, like most games of this time, fiendishly difficult to complete, and there weren't any save points, or even a save feature at all. But it was fun, and I remember there was a room blocked by a suit of armour. So how to enter the room? Simple, you spoke a word to the parrot in the room and the suit of armor started floating around the room. Those were good times. Or my favourite Spectrum game, Heavy On The Magick, which was a kind of an adventure game where you had to get out of a dungeon. You could do pratically everything in that game, and it was one of the most fun games I ever played anywhere.

Then came the Commodore 64. What I remember best about the C64 is the SID chip, the sound chip. Boy, could that little computer play some mean tunes. I got addicted to them, and still do. But the best was the Last Ninja series. Man, did that game have some great graphics and music, and a fun gameplay to boot. Anyone remember that series?

So, tell us about your past computers that gave you so much fond memories.

One day in 1980, when I was 10, Dad borrowed a ZX80 from a colleague. They were made by Sinclair and had a keyboard which was just a plastic sheet over microswitches. They had about 500b memory (yes, 500 BYTES - half a kb - about 20 lines of Basic).

My dad, plugged the ZX80 into the TV and gave me a leaflet on Basic. If I remember we had the thing for about 3 days and I wrote half a dozen programmes. Dad must have been suitably impressed because later that year the ZX81 came out (black, rather than white and with a massive 1k of memory) and he came home with one of the earliest ones. It saw a lot of action and was pretty knackered by the time the first Spectrum came out (I got a 16k one that first Christmas).

My Dad worked in the civil service and was an early advocate for PCs over mainframe. I remember there was some major project going to take place, costing massive amounts, to provide the ability for DSS offices to validate the check digits on social security numbers. He brought the algorithm home and I wrote a few lines of basic which did the job, so he took the ZX81 into the office to prove that it could all be done for less than £100 per site.

Aaah, simpler times. You could take a photocopied algorithm home in those days. These days you cant even post a CD out with personal and bank account details of half the population without the press making a fuss.

Here are some pics taken from the net with setups of various computers:

An all bells, all whistles setup of a C64:

http://home.ica.net/~leifb/commodore/64setup.jpg

An insane setup for a C128:

http://www.interstyles.nl/c64place.jpg

One simple C64C:

http://www.blakespot.com/list/images/c64c_1.jpg

An Amiga 2000:

http://www.blakespot.com/list/images/a2000.jpg

A little gem, an Amiga 1000:

http://www.blakespot.com/list/images/a1000.jpg

A ZX81

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~wayrich/computer-history/zx81.j...

A simple breadbox C64:

http://photo.ringo.com/203/203716774RL235059947.jpg

A ZX Spectrum 48K:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Sin...

A Sinclair Spectrum +2:

http://computermuseum.50megs.com/images/collection/sinclair%...


Fell free to add more pics of retro computers.

We had a C64, I loved the Bard's Tale games. We also had a lot of fun with the Epyx Games series(World Games, Summer Games, California Games, etc.). We later got an Amiga 500 with the ram expansion for a total of 1 meg!!! My brother and I were blown away by games like Shadow of the Beast, but I think my favorite game was A Rock Star Ate My Hamster. I just remember that on e well. We did spend a lot of time playing Genghis Khan and Bandit Kings of Ancient China.

The first Computer I bought was a 48k ZX Spectrum, some great games on that machine, especially Ultimates Jet-Pac. The sound chip was terrible, at best it sounded like someone frying sausage & eggs in the kitchen, and the on-screen dot crawl was a strange thing. I spent many an hour typing in pages of Basic from Your Sinclair magazine, just to watch a dot bob its way across the screen, or simply watch the machine reset...




Before that I'd had the consoles Atari2600 and a few Grandstand Pong style machines. the first one didn't have on-screen scoring, just abacus style sections on the top of the machine for sliding your scores along.



After the Spectrum I upgraded to a Commodore 64. The SID chip is still awesome sounding, Rob Hubbard really knew how to make it sing. Sanxion is one of my all-time favourite tunes.



After that I went back into consoles, Sega Master System, Megadrive, SNES, Playstation, before ending up a PC junkie with over 9,000 Roms and a select few emulators.

And here's a tribute to the Last Ninja series for the C64:

Do you know the HVSC collection? It's a collection of almost all the SID songs ever made for the C64. And it has that wonderful Sanxion song by Hubbard which is still amazing to listen to today.

I started out with a Dragon 64, made in Wales, hence the name about 27 years ago, the games were very simple blocky games but at that time they were ground breaking and so therefore very enjoyable, i bypassed the sinclair and went straight to an Amstrad, this is where i played my first wargame, "Arnhem" which to this day is still my favourite period of gaming, but the Amstrad also introduced me to the simplistic adventure games, many could be completed in an evening but there were also more complicated games names slip my memory but i remember being in a burning house and having to look for clues, the second part of this game had you chasing around london (Pettigrews Diary i think it was called). Then i remember 2 games that were of similar ilk, one was set in the time of the druids and the other set in a mythological time set in the future i think. These were massive games for the day they even allowed you to have a graphic every so often jaw dropping stuff for the day. Then i managed to buy a PC and more wargames and the excellent Commandos series of games (pity they decided to make it FPS which i cant play i go all dizzy in a matter of seconds playing these ) Desperados, Robin Hood and Star Trek Away Team all followed a similar RTS small squad gameplay. But now I only have one game on my computer; Steel Panthers which i play occasionaly, I have for a long time now looked for a game that will play like Ambush! but alas nothing comes near it, which I think proves that theres a need for both board games and computer games too

PS anyone remember spending literaly hours typing in pages of programming text from various magazines to then try to find your mistakes and when everything was ok and ready to run you would get a swirl of colour and a few notes which lasted about 10 seconds, and the wry smile when you had to type in "R2D2" (right 2 down 2)

edit was to add the PS

Ah the C64! I almost went for a VIC-20, but then the C64 came out. Mine had a 4-digit serial number, which wasn't bad for a machine which went on to sell over 6 million (I believe) worldwide.

Great sound and great graphics too. I had some great times on that computer!

I also had a Jupiter Ace - designed by the guys from the Sinclair design team, but using Forth instead of Basic. I wrote some stuff in that (including Breakout) and my love of programming was born. My first ever h/w mod was for the Jupiter Ace - the expansion slot had the same pinouts as the ZX81 but in a different order, so a friend's Dad taught me to solder and such like and we made an adapter so we could attach ZX81 peripherals like memory expansion. (Even though the Jupiter Ace had a massive 3kb to begin with, so expansion was hardly necessary...)

Anyhoo, they both lasted for years, and much fun was had.

I had an Acorn A5000 too, and did my first computer music on that (midi port built in as standard, as I recall...). Had that in the loft until really recently, when an acquaintance mentioned that there's still a user group, so I was able to give it away to a good home!

If I had to choose, it would be the C64, though. Nothing beats the SID through a good speaker system!

Around 20 million actually. It's the most sold computer system ever according to the Guiness Book of Records.

Yes I have the Sidplay 2 Player and the HVSC collection burnt onto a disc. It's a great little program for listening to all those classics.

I'd have to say these are my 10 greatest games:

Commodore 64:

1. California Games
2. Uridium
3. Barry McGuigans Boxing
4. Space Taxi
5. Mission Impossible
6. Armalyte
7. Boulderdash
8. Way of the Exploding Fist
9. Delta
10. Sanxion

ZX Spectrum

1. Jet-Pac
2. Attic Attak
3. Fairlight
4. Zombie Zombie
5. 3D deathchase
6. Starstrike
7. I-Ball 2
8. Thrust
9. Panzerdrome
10. Slimeys Mine

I'm pretty sure it was Impossible Mission. Man, I loved that game.

Man, I loved my C64. I mean like deep, passionate love. BFF.

There's the 15 year old Goo sitting in his room with knee-high socks with stripes on the top, baseball cap backwards, Izod shirt, Tears for Fears on the record player, braces on the teeth, about to beat Impossible Mission for the first time. It's like Ode on a Grecian Urn, a moment forever captured in the height of its poignancy.

Man, I loved my C64.

So I was right - 20 million is 'over 6 million'...

Oh, goodness me, yes! They should bring that back! Make people type in the code needed for the latest graphic-heavy first person shooter adventure demo... Cover DVDs! I don't know, what is the world coming too, etc...

And here are my favourite games:

ZX Spectrum

1. Heavy On The Magick
2. Back To Skool
3. Chuckie Egg
4. Target Renegade
5. Spindizzy
6. Tau Ceti
7. Fairlight
8. Knight Lore
9. Dark Sceptre
10. The Great Escape

Commodore 64

1. Times Of Lore
2. Last Ninja 1
3. Paradroid
4. Dropzone
5. Armalyte
6. Mercenary
7. Wizball
8. Last Ninja 2
9. Turrican 2
10. Myth

Amiga

1. Eye Of The Beholder 1
2. Kult
3. Speedball 2
4. Sensible World Of Soccer
5. Turrican 2
6. Rainbow Islands
7. Starglider 2
8. Wings
9. Pirates!
10. Corruption

That's some pretty good ancient games. But what about the worst ones? I still remember the ZX spectrum version of 'uchi mata' with dread.

You see, it's a Judo game. Yes, not karate, judo. A sport about subtle movements that were impossible to do any justice with the graphics of the era. Add an insane control system that doesn't make any sense, and constant sprite flickering, and you get a total disaster.

I can't remember exactly when we got the ZX81, but it was one that my older, engineer cousin bought as a kit and put together. It had the 16k memory module, so it was a potent machine. I don't remember actually doing a whole lot more than playing around with it, much less playing games on it. I saved most of that for the Apple IIe I had. My parents, bless them, spent what was a truly ridiculous amount of money on that machine--a DMP, the extra memory, two 5.25-inch drives, color monitor. I spent a lot of time typing in programs from COMPUTE! magazine into that baby, including a flight sim I don't think I ever got to work, despite getting some help from a fellow programmer. My favorite commercial game there was Wizardry, with its weird spell names (like TILTOWAIT, which was akin to a nuclear explosion). That game impressed me not only for its fun gameplay but because it was written in Pascal, which I tried to teach myself with very limited success. When COMPUTE! stopped carrying programs to type in, I knew a dark day had come when these machines just became black boxes. Although I loved my first Mac (still have it, and it'll probably still boot), I never cared much for programming.

I remember using a PET and a VIC-20 at school, but the first computer I owned was a glorious TI99-4A. Man, I loved that machine. I think I got it in 1980 or 1981. My parents were able to purchase it for $99 because the company was already trying to survive a poor marketing strategy. I wrote thousands of programs for my TI99, and learned everything useful in life from my BASIC and extended BASIC manuals.

I gave it to a neighbourhood kid long ago, but just recently I was rumaging through my parent's basement and I came across some vintage (and pristine) third-party hardware for my old TI. I hadn't looked in that box in over twenty years. Sold it for a decent amount on eBay, but I was incredibly nostalgic. The only thing I still own from my TI days is a book I bought, called The Orphan Chronicles, all about TI owners who fight the good fight and still use their TIs.

My favourite early machine remains the Jupiter Ace. You have to love a machine with Forth in ROM. The first system I worked on was an S360 via a paper-tape driven teletype. The first personal computer I used was a Commodore PET. 6502 Assembler was both sweet and an utter mess compared to Z80 or PDP-11 assembler. The first machine I owned was an Advance 86B -- the first ever IBM PC clon.

My dad worked at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Howard County, Maryland. One day in the early 60s he brought home a programmable calculator. It came with its own little cart for wheeling around. It had two card reading devices. You could stick one card in each device and the hinged lid would clamp down on it. The machine couldn't handle a program which needed more than two cards. You could program the cards by punching out holes. I wrote a program which solved quadratic equations.

The coolest thing about it was the display. Each digit place was a vacuum tube with each of the digits 0-9 superimposed on top of each other. To display the proper digit, the current went through the wires for that digit display, which glowed bright yellow. This was before the LCD concept of using seven line segments to represent any digit. Each digit in this tube had its own complete and separate wire sculpture.

A few years later my dad brought home a Gimix computer which ran on the Motorola 6800 chip, using the OS-9 operating system, which was later made available for the TRS-80 Color Computer, which used an M6809 chip, sort of a cross between an 8-bit and a 16-bit device. I later got a "CoCo." It had tons of games, but this is from the 80s. You can play on a CoCo virtual console online at http://members.cox.net/javacoco/

I never saw the first computer I used. Our school classes used a computer at the local university. We wrote the programs in class (in B5700 algol), went down and made up punch cards and handed them in. Next week we got the results back - made debugging a bit slow Somehow I don't feel nostalgic about it at all.

Here's my first computer, which I dug out of the closet.



What a way to commemorate my 5000th picture with this camera!

Actually, I remember buying a TRS-80 model 100 and then returning it. Was that first or second?

Give me a modern computer instead...

Oh God, the awful games that the Spectrum and Commodore 64 had. And when I mean awful, I mean really unaldutered, pure awfulness. I mean, who remembers the CRL games for the C64? Those games were so bad, so awful they defined what the word bad really means.

And some Mastertronics games for the Spectrum were so bad that they will forever be engrained in my memory.

I mean, most budget games for the Spectrum were awful, but there were some good ones. Who remembers Joe Blade? That was such a cool game for the Spectrum.

Ah, memories. I miss my Spectrum and Commodore 64. Those were the times, when games were being defined as we know them today.