Commodore 64 : 1985-1987
My take on the "fathers Oldsmobile". The C=64 was one of the coolest Christmas presents I have ever received. I spent many hours playing games like Temple of Apshai, Ultima II, F-15 Strike Eagle, and Airborne Ranger.
Commodore 128 : 1987-1989
Purchased with my second State of Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Check. I don't think I stopped smiling for months. It was so cool looking and came with 128k of RAM! This computer helped me produce high school homework and finish Electronic Art's: The Bard's Tale III.
Packard Bell PC 286 : 1989-1989
Not really thinking, I bought this PC Clone from Sears but quickly took it back. EGA graphics suck.
Amiga 500 : 1989-1993
Ah, the golden years. The Amiga 500 has to be my favorite game machine of all time. Ever play Gods, Savage, or Shadow of the Beast? This was the first computer I owned to use the "so cool" 3.5 inch disks. I spent many of hours playing games, exchanging games, and going to Joey Bryant's place to get the latest warez. He had access to the only Amiga hooked up to the universities 'Inter-net' which turned out to be a treasure trove for pirate sites.
Apple IIc : 1993-1993
I traded my ultimate gaming machine for an Apple IIc with my long-time friend Mitch. He wanted to start animating stuff and, well I get bored easily. I'm also a little nostalgic and thought it would be cool to have the best designed computer of all time. The Apple IIc was designed by the same person who created the Sony Walkman.
Apple Macintosh LC : 1993-1994
Apple Macintosh LC II : 1994-1995
Apple Macintosh LC III : 1995-1996
Not too many memories about this period. I got my first Macintosh from a girlfriend who bought the LC but later could not afford it. Rather than return the computer, I just bought it from her. That led to my upgrading parade through the LC line. The pizza box was one of the better Macs created. So easy to get in and out of. Always worked and never crashed.
Apple Powerbook 165 : 1995-1996
My first Powerbook! I remember salivating over the ads for the Powerbook 100 (the one with the woman sitting on a mountain ledge) wanting so much to possess one.
Apple Macintosh IIci : 1996-1996
Not happy with the black and white Powerbook display, I exchanged my laptop for a IIci. The net had started becoming popular and browsing in black and white just didn't work. It was on this box that I also learned Photoshop 3.0.
Apple Powerbook 165 : 1996-1997
Back to the laptop because it was just too cool...
Apple Power Macintosh Performa 6116 : 1997-1998
... and back to another color Mac. The first of many Power Macintoshes to crash and crash and crash. But I did get to play Quake and that made it all the better.
UMax 500c - Macintosh Clone : 1998-1998
PC - Pentium II 233MHz : 1998-1998
A year in which I became pissed at Apple and left the loyalty tent for a more stable (and faster) environment of Windows. The UMax box was cool until it kept dying. I would later learn that you could only use one brand of RAM and thus everything that passed through the RAM was coming out corrupt on the other end.
CompUSA PC - Pentium II 233MHz : 1998-2002
Bliss. At the time my generic PC took a power supply dump and without tech support I tried to fix it. I actually got it to work but once I re-soldered the connections it just wouldn't live again. Confirming that I am not to be an electrician.
Apple Power Macintosh G3 350 Mhz Blue & White : 1999-2002
Did I say Bliss before? THIS is bliss. After using the PC exclusively for a year it was so nice to come back to MacOS. Just the way the mouse glides across the screen (and it does when compared to how Windows drives a mouse) says it all. As the LC was easy to access so is the G3 by a factor of 100. Excellent design.
Dell Inspiration 8500 : 2001-2002
A computer earned through work at an Internet start-up. The Dell was a pretty good laptop but the screen looked faded and who wants a 12 pound lap burning device? After using a Macintosh, it was hard to use the Dell for anything design related. Choppy mouse control and lack of free fonts hindered my ability to use it.
Powerbook G3 500 Mhz : 2001-2002
The second best computer I have owned so far. The Powerbook has to be one of the finest lines of computers ever built. What a joy it was to use this machine especially when combined with MacOS X and an Airport wireless connection, it's heaven on Earth until I saw Windows XP run in full glory.
HP zt1130: 2002-2003
When talking about computers, there's best, better, and holy crap! That's what I found at Microcenter one fateful Monday afternoon at the local computer store. It has a comparable feel to the Powerbook G3 but 1.5 pounds lighter and ten times faster. I especially love the DVD/CD burner combo that came with this little 1299.00 wonder. Wasn't sure about buying a HP or even going back to Windows but I have no regrets...
PowerMac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors): 2003-2003
Well that didn't take long. The HP was a great little laptop but using Windows straight for a few months was enough to make me go loopy. By the time I picked up this desktop Macs had regained some speed. I quickly sold this machine after I couldn't take any more of the jet engine cooling fan noise. It was so damn loud and there wasn't any talk of a Apple replacing them for free at the time. Adios!
Powerbook (TiBook) G4 867Mhz: 2003-2004
I have to admit I was not a big fan of the new Powerbook design but after a while it grew on me and they didn't have the jet engine noise that their desktop counterparts suffered from. It was on this machine that I redesigned Airbag in the morning hours sipping on Starbucks Doubleshots while watching 80's re-runs on the hotel television.
Dell Dimension Something-Or-Other: 2003-current
Doing some work for friends resulted in me obtaining a Dell Demension with a blazing fast Intel Pentium IV and a muscle car for a video card. Perfect for, uh, testing websites, and, uh, putting Halflife 2 and World of Warcraft through it's paces. Otherwise it's just a Dell, yawn. This one is about to take early retirement and move to the farm leagues.
Powerbook G4 1.33Ghz: 2004-current
Fearing a complete plunge in the value of the old Powerbook when the newly redesigned unit came out I hopped on Ebay almost made my money back, enough to go directly to the Apple store and pick up a new one. This was the first Mac computer I purchased from an Apple Store. No biggie you say? Pffft. You wouldn't buy a Mercedes from a Dodge dealer now would you. This Powerbook is fully covered under Applecare and ProCare (meaning I'm a card carrying member of Apple's warranty program — aw yeah). This is my axe.
Sony Vaio FS VGN: 2005-current
Normally I don't care to have a PC around isn't a problem. And then Age of Empires III, Black & White 2, and Civilization IV had to hit the shelves just about the same time I needed a Windows based machine to test web development for those days when I work on the dinning room table. If I have to work with Windows I may as well do it in style.
PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0 Ghz: 2005-current
While the Powerbook is so damn good to me it just doesn't drive the 24" monitor on the desk in the office. Knowing I would need a few tax write-offs I decided to grab a PowerMac. It's so damn fast and with 2gigs of RAM helping to run the show tain't nothing slowing this baby down.
Mac mini 1.25Ghz: 2005-current
I couldn't buy a G5 and leave it alone with PCs (what would the neighbors say?) so I bought a little mini so it had something to play with. After the PowerMac aged a bit it outgrew the need for a pen-pal this little guy now sits in a co-location facility working as a fantastic, peppy webserver.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
Dude, I *wish* I could remember the computers we played on in the 80's. My life was mostly video games back then: B52 Bomber, Pitfall, and Dungeons & Dragons on Intellivision; Joust on Atari and various NES stuff.
My computer experience back then was a kickass flight simulator game on a PC (floppy disk anyone?) and good times with the paint program on Apple IIci.
Enough current computers. Holly crap, and I thought I was lucky to have 2.
Ah..the gold old days.
I still remember when we bought our first set of 386 goldstars -- Gogo text based prodigy and shareware Duke Nukem/Commander Keen.
I don't think I could be happier then I am with my ibook though, small clean and white...I don't like how the titanium finish seems to "rub" off the powerbooks.
Please, PLEASE post a photo of the mini at the colo. It has to be funny.
Intense. My current computer is four years old... I was 15 and I dropped about 1800 dollars on it. For some reason I thought I wouldn't regret it when I was about... Fifteen and a half.
I wouldn't complain if I had your current line up.
Bradley, it looks a little something like this.
Steve, when you get to be my age, have a wife who's smarter than most humans on the Earth and is employeed as such, bringing in a double income with no kids (dink!), you'll find it easy to buy technology here and there.
Greg I think I detect a bit of denial of your true self in the title of this entry. Are you now feeling some sort of shame about who and what you are? Do not submit to the pressures of adult life!
For those who are not long time Airbag readers you may not remember that the previous two editions of this post were titled "Geek Resume." Greg, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Remembering every computer you have owned makes you a geek, but to paraphrase the guy whose name is slipping my mind from Wall Street "Geek is good!"
you probably mean 'dell inspiron' rather than 'inspiration.'
Awww, bringing me back to the days of yesterday, the 286s and 386s. When I was growing up, my dad was in the IT business, so we always had a PC
Heh, reminded me to pat my '96 IBM Aptiva 100mhz on the head. Still running under my desk in all it's glory. Gotta love 'em.
This song will bring horrible tears to your eyes:
http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/
That page is OK but the rest of the site is a bit risque for work. Just to let y'all know.
That impressive lineup of current computers just makes me so jealous...
Amiga 1000
Mac IIci
Mac 520c
Mac Duo 230
Mac 7100
Mac 7600 (a couple)
Mac Quadra 9500
Some Compaq piece o' crap
Some Micron piece o' crap (the dark years)
Some Dell (not a complete piece of crap)
Dell 8100
Compaq iPaq (small form factor)
Dell Inspiron 1000 (Japan only - note, not Inspiration - get thos lame product names right)
More Dell 8100s
G4 (slate blue face w 22" original cinema display)
G4 (mirror door w 20" cinema display)
12" G4 Powerbook
A couple other unspectacular Dells
Ah, yes, the Amiga 500 for the Apple IIc, a good trade. Then I traded my sister for a camel and bag of rice.
I'm convinced that anyone who owned or used an Amiga in-the-day walks through life with a different understanding and purpose unattainable through any other means.
Should you ever feel the need to relive your LCIII days, I've got one in the basement.
Hey Greg,
Your old Powerbook is still in use lovingly and usefully. I'm redesigning Everomp here in Miami on my G5 and in Miami (when I'm visiting family) on the little guy. It's still running like a champ.
Er...make that, in Orlando on my G5 and in Miami on the Powerbook. I need coffee. :)
So, I'm only 23, and my resume is gonna be much shorter than y'all's. Our first computer was a 386SX IBM, running at 50mHz with a whopping 4mb of RAM. Windows 3.1.1, baby... got that sucker from Wal-Mart. I remember fondly the days of calling up the E editor in PC-DOS and writing boot disks to get that power-mad Ultima VIII to work. The first time I tried to run Quake, I learned the 386SX's didn't have floating-point units, so my mom's boss decided to toss her 486 DX, I cannibalized parts and learned that Quake at 4mb = about 3 frames per second.
Now I have an AMD machine I built myself, with RAM and hard disk space and graphics power out the wazoo...
...and for whatever reason, I'm foolishly nostalgic for the days of gathering drivers, arranging high memory usage, and the "mem" command showing me XMS and EMS totals.
Figure out a way to return all of those to the stores you bought them from, and you would make Dave Chow very proud...
01) 1993-1998. I don't even know what brand it was. It ran only DOS at first, then Windows 3.1, and eventually Windows 95. It had a hard drive that measured in megabytes, 4mb ram upgraded to 8mb, 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives, eventual cd-rom, several motherboard upgrades.
02) 1998-1999. Dell desktop. 450mhz Pentium II processor, zip drive, dvd-rom, 3.5" floppy drive, 128mb ram (I think). And a 21" Sony Trinitron flat-screen monitor. Windows 98.
03) 1999-2002. Dell desktop. 800mhz Pentium processor, zip drive, dvd-rom, 3.5" floppy, external cd-rw, upgraded to 512mb ram (I think), 10gb hard drive. 17" CRT monitor. Windows ME upgraded to Windows XP. This computer had more problems than you could shake a stick at and Dell was never much interested in truly fixing the situation. Two motherboard replacements by Dell and two hard drive replacements by Dell later, the computer was still acting up. I installed a 40gb hard drive myself and installed Windows XP. Problems fixed, computer sold.
04) 2002-2003. Dell laptop. 1.5ghz Celeron processor, 512mb ram, 15" SXGA screen, cdrw, 3.5" floppy. Windows XP. "Max".
05) 2003-current. Apple iBook G4. 800mhz G4 processor, 40gb hard drive, 640mb ram, 12" screen, combo drive. Jaguar upgraded to Tiger. Ordered three days after the G4's were announced, on Panther release day (October 24, 2003). It was delivered November 3, 2003. Upgraded to Tiger in July 2005. "Astrid".
iPod 01: 10gb 3rd gen. "Gordon".
iPod 02: 30gb 4th gen. Photo. "Gordon.