What was the first version of Windows you ran?

[Glenn]

In Gary's case, maybe his fathers hand

[Gary]

Maybe the question should be, how did you pay for your first windows

Well we had a quote from Anglian......

[Niall]

My first o/s was 98SE back in 1999. For some reason I didn't buy a PC until then, despite using them for 10 years by that time.

As for computer hardware, I started with a ZX81 (I swapped it for a 6 wheel tyrrel remote controlled car ), then Acorn Electron, BBC model A (then a B), Ti994a(texus instruments) http://oldcomputers.net/ti994a.html , Amiga500 then a 10 year period where I just played games consoles, then finally the PC

[Rik]

You missed the best bit, Niall, all that re-booting the computer 10 times a day when it kept locking up.

[Niall]

The PCs I used at Wrexham ITeC all ran on DOS. Even though windows OS had been released, it was widely regarded by the techy savvy at the time, as "an unstable waste of time".

[Rik]

A bit like ADSL really.

[Niall]

 

[Sebby]

A bit like ADSL really.

Let's be fair, it's ADSL2+.

[Rik]

Not for everyone, Seb.

[Sebby]

Okay, everyone apart from you.

[Rik]

I was thinking of those on Max having problems.

[Sebby]

Ah. I'll just quietly step out of this thread...

[Rik]

Don't wake the children.

[LesD]

At home the first machine was a BBC Model B with its BBC BASIC OS.
Later I added an extra fiveway Sideways ROM extender board with two 16 KB RAMS chips on it and a 5-1/4" "proper" floppy diskdrive that that a 256 KB RAM drive in it too.
(For the youngsters note the KB's where the K's are not typos)  
It never ceases to amaze me these days just how many and how varied the programs were that ran in just 32KB of RAM!
Originally with a cassette player to load the programs from tape my eldest daughter learnt to count in hex as each block of code was slowly loaded and its number displayed on the TV screen.

Next it was a 486 with its integral maths co-processor facility running MS DOS 5.1 from a "massive" 110 MB hard disk drive.
(I have the DOS manual and the disks squirreled away somewhere I feel sure - maybe in the loft)
Word Perfect, XTGold and DOS games galore for the kids to name but a few applications.
This machine also ran Windows 3.1 then 3.11 for Workgroups and the DOS went up to 6.2 or maybe even 6.22.
Remember Memory managers like QEMM (Quarterdeck Expanded Memory Manager) to get stuff loaded above that 640 KB barrier.

To send my eldest daughter off to University with her own machine we obtained a second hand IBM PS/2 Model 55 SX that soon had a maths co-processor chip added and a software upgrade to Windows 95 if my memory is not playing tricks on me and yes I to do remember all those disk!
This machine came with a set of Windows 3.0 floppy disks but I never installed this version of Windows going straight to W95.
(Dare I say that I just might still have these W3.0 disk somewhere safe)  

My younger daughter took my original 486 running W3.11 to university and I had a new machine with a Cyrix P166 processor running W95 on it to start with.

For my son when he went to university, initially he took this "new" machine with W98SE installed on it by then. After his first year we obtained a PC Chips M571 that came with a Cyrix P233 processor but during the Summer break that year we upgraded this machine with an AMD K6-2 450 MHz processor and had it running Windows 2000 before the new term started.

My own OS's went from DOS through W3.1, W3.11, W95, W98SE, XP Pro (x86) Vista Home Premium (x86) and now W7 RC with W7 Home Premium (x64) pre-ordered for October.

I managed to miss Windows Millennium, Windows 2000 and XP Home myself but have installed and maintained all but Millennium for family members but have maintained Millennium on a machine that came with it pre-installed from new.

For me Millennium is like Vista, rushed to market and short lived. I did install NT4 for the experience at home on a long gone tinkering machine but used it extensively for many years a work. I believe NT was short for New Technology, the technology that broke that 640 KB barrier that all the DOS based OS's prior to NT4 and then Win2K suffered with up to and including Millennium.

Let's not forget the mechanical wonders of the dot matrix printers of the early days.
I remember waiting for prices to come down to affordable levels for home consumption.

There we are a potted history as best my aging memory can recall but if I have any of it wrong I am sure someone with better recall than I will put me right.

As I have said before I never use ten words when a hundred will do.  

[JohnH]

Today, I nearly broke my back lifting three old CRT screens out of the loft and down to the local dump. I'd forgotten how heavy those things were.

[Simon]

Today, I nearly broke my back lifting three old CRT screens out of the loft and down to the local dump. I'd forgotten how heavy those things were.

Mine are in the bottom of the wardrobe, for easy access. 

[Rik]

We really do hoard, don't we.

I, too, had the ROM extender board for my Beeb, Les, plus a 2nd processor, both the 6502 and the Z80, modem, a dual floppy (at ridiculous cost), eventually adding a 10MB (and I do mean MB) HD at the cost of £300. I used Epson, Taxan and NEC dot matrix printers, the last being a wide carriage machine with colour ribbon. I had an amber monitor, forget the make, and a Taxan colour one - steel case.

It was a good machine, though, easy to program, either in BASIC or machine code.

[cavillas]

My first computer was one I built from LSI and prgoramed with switches 

[Rik]

I can remember building a binary adding machine at school. Simple, but it gave great satisfaction when it worked.

[Niall]

We really do hoard, don't we.

I, too, had the ROM extender board for my Beeb, Les, plus a 2nd processor, both the 6502 and the Z80, modem, a dual floppy (at ridiculous cost), eventually adding a 10MB (and I do mean MB) HD at the cost of £300. I used Epson, Taxan and NEC dot matrix printers, the last being a wide carriage machine with colour ribbon. I had an amber monitor, forget the make, and a Taxan colour one - steel case.

It was a good machine, though, easy to program, either in BASIC or machine code.

That reminds me of the time I went to a computer fair to get a Plextor CD writer. It was one of the first ones out and I saved £70 getting it there. It still cost me £176 though!

[Rik]

The first CD-ROM drive I bought was bundled with Corel Draw. A SCSI drive, the bundle price was £520...

[talos]

I had a Rom extender plugged in to the back of my ZX81 which would "wobble" if the keys were pressed too hard, ruining hours of programing laboriously typed in two finger style.

[Rik]

Been there, Bob, especially when saving stuff to tape, therefore not very often...

[Niall]

The first CD-ROM drive I bought was bundled with Corel Draw. A SCSI drive, the bundle price was £520...

[Niall]

I had a Rom extender plugged in to the back of my ZX81 which would "wobble" if the keys were pressed too hard, ruining hours of programing laboriously typed in two finger style.

Haha I remember that. You only had to touch it and the ZX81 would crash. I actually preferred the look of the white ZX80