How long have you been using a computer?

[426HEMI]

Had to be 78 or 79 when I was in the AirForce.  We did the cards to program computers back then I started and went through all of the windows things.  Tape drives and very slow computers and 5 1/2 and 3 1/4 drives.  O well telling my age I guess.

[Aussie Challenger]

  Bought a commodore 64 in 1985 and wanted to run my business stock with it (mechanical workshop/spares), soon found out it wouldn't work the way I wanted it to. Obtained a 8088 with 2   5 1/4" floppy's in early 90's, did a computor tech's course in mid '90's and started building my own after that.
  I haven't kept up with the technology but still build the odd computor occasionally and am still on dial up. 

[BIGSHCLUNK]

We had the first one at the shop about 93-94... super dos. Lots of people never heard of it but very common in my industry. I didnt have my own pc (windows 98) till 98. Still tons of stuff I dont know how to do in windows and I still hate VISTA! And I updated the shops computers about 3 months ago to a windows/linux thing from how I understand it. So learning curve on both ends! I get by by nothing fancy, my inventory guy at the shop (25 yrs old) wizzes thru it like nothing. Must be something about old junk yard dogs and new tricks. 

[Oldschool]

I can't remember the year, but it was a H-P 286 computer. I thought I was in high cotton...       My how times have changed. I am still behind on what is current leading edge technology. I am not a techno person really. To give you an example of how non-techno I really am, it took me 4-5 years to figger out how to get the clock on the front of my old vcr to quit flashing 12:00 o'clock.  I finally just got a piece of black electrical tape and covered it up....        

BUT I FIXED IT!!     

[Topcat]

I feel like a newbie compared to some of you. 

[Mike70]

I don't remember the year either - mid 80's. The first one was a Tandy Color computer II. Hooked up to a TV for the monitor. Programs written in Basic, stored on a cassette in a tape recorder. Next was a Tandy 1000. No hard drive, but 2 5.25 floppies!!!

Now I really feel old.

[FJ5_440]

Started using a Trash-80 at home and an Apple II in school in 80-81.  Went to a Texas Instruments TI994 and then a TI994A (which I still have packed away somewhere) at home until I could come up with the money for the newly released IBM XT with a huge 10MB hard drive.  I later upgraded when the massive 40GB harddrives became available.  Now I feel old.

[Bullitt-]

I feel like a newbie compared to some of you. 

My Father-in-law makes us all look like NEWBs... in the mid to late 60's he programmed, & I mean wrote the program, for the flight control computer to take the Apollo to the Moon & back...Think he said he had something like 8MB to work with.

[Pistol Gripper]

Bought my first PC ( Trash-80 ) in 78.  Followed by an IBM PC, a 286, a 386SX-16, then too many to count.  Longest lasting was a dual Intel Pro 1meg cache computer that was at the top of the food chain for 2 - 3 years.  Now they're pretty much disposable.

P.G.

[JH27N0B]

I started using a PC regularly at work in the mid 90's, though I had done used the word processor on one my dad had in the 80's and used a computer in college in a Fortran class also in the 80's.
I didn't get my first PC at home until just when XP came out, in fall of '01 I think it was.  I got cable internet then, so I never had the opportunity to "enjoy" dial up!
I've had my present computer since 2005, it is getting a bit buggy so I would like to upgrade someday soon, to a new Windows 7 machine.

[cudazappa]

I started back in 3rd grade... I'd guess 88-89 Apple II... Remember fighting classmates for the II GS and in 8th grade... ooo macs!!  Got big into html and internet in freshman in high school (1994).  Dad got me a 286 about 8th grade, and I used a borrowed army laptop (I think a P1 90MHz) til I finished senior year.  For graduation I spent $2833.84 and got a Gateway 400mHz Pentium 2 box with a DVD drive!!!  I was the envy of my dorm floor...  Since then I've bought 3 used dells, don't like buying new.  Still have the last two.  First is a dual P4 Xeon 1.8GHz box, 1GB memory, really good video card, 3 burners, 2 hard drives (parents now use it mostly, but its still my CAD box) running Win 2k, and I have my slightly old laptop for a year now 2GHz and 1 GB memory with Win XP.  All running sweet.

[dodj]

And after you used it for two or three years, you'd have a tough time selling it for $20. No matter what you paid for it new.

[Alaskan_TA]

14 or 15 years ago, up until then, I swore I would never have one.

As the T/A Registry grew, I realized one was needed. I traded my 1970 Barracuda for a system to get started. I still miss the car at times.

[Killer_Mopar]

Dont really have an early year like some of you older gents. But I have an early age; Since I was 5, which was 1991. My dad bought it for my sister and me; it was a 386 with a then super-huge 100mb hard drive and windows 3.1....even remember when it was upgraded to a 4x CD-rom When I was younger, I remember thinking I would NEVER use all that memory or computing power. Nowadays, my phone has more computing power and memory than my 4 first computers combined 

[Bluemonster71RT]

Like some of you the same about 85 or so. The Commodore 64,8086, Apple, Apple II ,Apple IIe, 286,386,486 then bam 586. I have a t-shirt that says "We made it 586" lol.

I was in  Jr.year of trade school Industrial Electronics when the 586 came out. Our class got 5 of them no one else in the school did.  I have been building gaming PCs for some time now. Funny how even a cheap video card has more processing power than any of the older computers.  I mean crap, we have water cooling now how cool is that pun intended.

For the past few years it's been hard to keep up with everything new.  Looks like a lull now but something big will be out soon.