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Move over, parvenus!
My first computer was a Commodore PET 2001 with 8KB (that's KILO-bytes)! My dad bought it in 1977, and it was one of the first five of its kind in Israel.
The Commodore PET 2001 had a built-in cassette recorder/player, which could be used to store/load programs and data. Given that many (most?) mainframes of the time still used tape for mass storage (a disk drive might be used for the O/S and for commonly-run programs), I take exception to the assertion that a computer with a cassette tape was not a computer.
I used it for many things, from calculating e and pi (to about 10,000 digits - all that I could do in-memory) to learning 6502 assembly language to game playing (I purchased an incredibly slow version of chess that ran in those 8KB).
Those were the days! 
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I sooooo wanted one of those... but my dad bought an Exidy Sorcerer[^]. I later borrowed it for an extended period of time. My actual first computer was an Amiga 1000.. which I still have and fire up once in a while. I even still have the original monitor and Rom Kernel manuals (a set with the mislabeled manual).
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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C64, at first with NO storage, as I got it from a school buddy at 12..13 years or so, but his FDD was broken. So I learned BASIC from the manual and wrote little programs, each day a new one  Until I got a floppy drive from someone else weeks later.
Interestingly it came with a mouse. So I learned a bit asm and wrote a IRQ based "mouse driver" moving a HW sprite arrow around, something I'd seen on a PC at a buddy's house ^^
As for PCs, it was a Tandon PC XT, 5MHz, 640KB RAM, no hdd, dual 5.25" floppy, monochrome orange monitor, MSDOS 3.2 or so. With GWBASIC, ugh ^^ The school had dumped it, so I thought, let's try a real PC.
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If the Spectrum doesn't count (guess which one from my username) then the Atari STFM - 8Mhz CPU and 512KB of RAM.
First PC? 486 with a 25Mhx CPU overclocked to 33Mhz, 4Mb RAM, 170Mb HDD - that thing cost me nearly a grand in 1994. I still have the CPU
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My first "real" computer? Are we counting only computers we've owned personally, or should we include computers we've used that belonged to others (e.g., employers)?
The first computer I ever owned was a laboratory-surplus ADDS MultiVision prototype: an Intel 8085-based machine that ran a CP/M-80-compatible O/S that I designed. It had 64 KiloBytes of RAM, two 5.25-inch floppy disk drives, interfaced to an external RS-232 terminal, and was patched together with clip wires and faith. I managed to snarf a 30 MegaByte Seagate Winchester disk drive prototype for it, but as the thing required more electrical power than my home could supply it -- it weighed 60 pounds and had 14 inch platters -- I never got it to work properly.
The first computer I ever worked on was an IBM 1800 "minicomputer" that took up a room the size of a small cafeteria. It had 6.2 KiloWords of 16-bit-wide core memory, 256 KiloBytes of disk storage, and a single 9-track tape drive. It was originally intended for the control of laboratory equipment, but was never used for that purpose...possibly because it would crash at a harsh look and took approximately 20 minutes to bootstrap.
Feeling a little younger now?
(This message is programming you in ways you cannot detect. Be afraid.)
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Transam Triton. Practical Electronics Magazine project from 1978. Built from components based around an 8080 processor and running Tiny Basic with a character based screen. After building it I was hooked! I re-designed it around an 8085 processor adding a 'fancy' video around a new Texas Instruments chip and writing a load of machine code graphics routines. Eventually went BBC Computer then PC. Great fun!
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IBM PC Convertable with Intel 8088 processor (4.77 mhz), 512k ram, no HDD, but twin 3.5" DS floppy (not DSDD, mind you), monochrome nonback-lit graphics with a 4 color CGA monitor added on.  (16 color EGA blew my mind when I first saw it...) wrote my first Basica programs on this beauty! wish I still had it...
modified 21-Jan-15 10:48am.
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In university, Xerox Sigma 6. My first was an Apple IIe with dual 360k floppies I bought before float in the Marines. You should have seen the admin guys look at me: "Here's that report sorted by serial number, here it is sorted by last name, here it is sorted by rank and date of rank." In the off hours the troops would play NFL football on it.
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1978 - My first true [digital] love.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_Data_Processor#mediaviewer/File:PDP-12-Update-Uppsala.jpeg[^]
I used it to do my thesis on speech recognition by computer. I actually had a functional zero-crossing detector interface module (c/w directional microphone) and the software written.
If I'd only stuck with it after my paper was written.... one of the few regrets of my life.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. 
(P.S. Ok, I didn't own it. More like it's owned me all these years.)
Cheers,
Mike Fidler
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright
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Ithaca Intersystems DPS-1, Z80 processor, S100 motherboard, 64K RAM + 64K hard-to-access memory, 2 x 720K 8" disk drives in a separate cabinet. Computer + disks weighed > 80lbs together. Text-only monitor was connected by RS-232. I also had a 512 x 512 graphics monitor and a primitive dot-matrix printer. I programmed in assembler, Pascal, an muLISP.
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Peter, are you THE Peter Grogono who wrote "Programming in Pascal" (circa 1980) - the book that changed my life (for the better) forever?
/ravi
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Yes, that's me. Good to hear that I changed your life -- for the better I wrote the Pascal book during 1977-78, before I had my own computer. The Pascal programs in the book ran on a CDC 6400 at the university where I was working.
Peter
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Wow. It's an honor to bump into you @ CP! I think I emailed you a couple years ago to thank you for opening doors for me in a way you could probably not have imagined. I'm pretty sure I've saved your reply.
Thank you, again! ![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
/ravi
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I bought my first PC in 1984 (had been using university and work hardware before that):
- IBM-AT 80286 processor @ 8MHz, 512KB RAM
- Hercules EGA Graphics
- 20 MB Seagate hard disk
- 5¼" 360K floppy drive
- 5¼" 1.2M floppy drive
- Princeton Graphics Color Monitor
- Okidata Microline 192 dot matrix printer
- Hayes 1200 Modem
Software:
- MS-DOS 3.1
- PC Write (editor)
- Lattice C compiler
- Vitamin C GUI SDK for DOS
The hardware set me back $4500. I think the compiler was $300, Vitamin C was $50 and PC Write was $30. The box came with MS-DOS.
I misread your question as "What was your first PC?" My first computer was a Honeywell Multics system with the world's most awesome terminals I'd ever seen. Circa 1980.
/ravi
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Mine was a TRS-80 MC-10 (baby CoCo). It had 4k of RAM, jacks for attaching a tape deck to load software that didn't exist, and could display a whole nine colors. Even for the time, it was a PoS, it made the C64 look like a supercomputer. But it was mine, and I learned to write (short) programs on it.
OriginalGriff wrote: I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count
Ridiculous, you're excluding most 8-bit computers because they used tape instead of (expensive at the time) floppy drives. Back in the day, those were "real" computers. This just seems like an arbitrary way to exclude anyone who got their first computer in the '80s and didn't have a lot of money (those business-class IBMs went for $3k-$5k in '80s dollars).
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Would you believe a DEC PDP-8/I, in 1971? I/O was a 10 CPS ASR-33 Teletype with paper tape. Life got a lot better when I managed to score a 300 CPS tape reader.
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Altair 8800 (still up in the attic)
64K Ram (a portion of that was ROM for the CUTER system)
Punched paper tape for storing programs
Front panel switch input
Video to Channel 3 NTSC
Eventually upgraded to Micropolis 390K floppy drive
I'm not a programmer but I play one at the office
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Wow,
Timex Sinclair (admittedly, no drive, but a 40 col thermal printer!) [I returned it, BTW]
TI 99/4A (Expansion Pack, Plus Floppy)
TRS-80 Model 1
PDP-11/34a (at school, 20 paper terminals, and 3 CRTs for the cool kids, LOL)
All within 1yr.
Then I moved UP in the world: I got a Tandy-1200 HD (monochrome, green screen) DOS.
With a HD and a Floppy, LOL...
This lasted me until my first Dell in College. And I have been using various Dells since!
(Of course, Dell was called PCs Limited back then).
Kirk Out!
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My first computer was an s100 bus z80 base system (back in the late 70's). I wire wrapped all the boards except for the graphics card (16 lines by 64 ASCII characters) which connected to a small TV. I had a 2KB monitor program called Zapple and a total of 4K of RAM. I use to know most of the z80 instruction set by the numbers since I didn't have a z80 assembler. This system eventually morphed into a CP/M system with 48KB of RAM and 2 high density 8 inch floppy drives! Talk about a fun time learning about computer hardware and software.
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My first computer was one I designed and built myself, starting the day the 8080 CPU was released, in late 1974. There was no commercially available microcomputer in those days. By Feb. 1975 I had it up and running, with a huge 1K of RAM! I had to put a small boot program using the front panel switches, and I had an old 33ASR teletype with a paper tape punch and reader for mass storage, as well as keyboard input and printed output.
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My first was a Philco C2 (named for the building that housed it). It had a fantastic 28k of RAM. Data and programs were loaded using 80 byte punch cards. Due to limitations, we could only load 2007 data cards. If we exceeded the data limit, I would have to do the calculation on a Friden calculator to determine which of the cards I could yank to complete the run on the C2.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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My first was a Commodore Pet 2001 with no HDD, no FDD, and no cassette tape drive. I had to type programs in every time.
My second was a Commodore Pet 4000 with the integrated "datasette" cassette tape drive.
Third was a Franklin Ace 2000 (Apple IIe clone) with a 5MB HDD and 5.25" floppy. I added a Bernoulli box with two 10MB cartridges the next year.
I kept them in the garage until about 15 years ago, when my wife made me start "disposing" of all my old computer equipment.
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OriginalGriff wrote:
What was your first "real" computer? (I'm not counting Spectrums and their ilk here: if it had a cassette tape it doesn't count )
Mine was a Xerox 820 with the dual-processor option plus an eight-inch floppy drive and an eight-inch, eight megabyte hard drive in a separate case. It was already eight years old when I got it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_820
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My first real computer was a 16K TRS-80 Color Computer; I know that may not fit your specs as to it being a "real" computer. I started with a cassette tape, but quickly (within a year) convinced my parents to get me a floppy drive.
I later moved to the Color Computer 3, and eventually upgraded it from 128K to 512K. I still have both of those machines, and they both work today.
My last Radio Shack machine - which would fit your definition - was a Tandy 1100HD; it was also my first "laptop" (certainly not a luggable like the Kaypro, but nothing like today's lightweight beasts). It had a 20Mb hard drive, and a 3.5 inch floppy. I still have that machine as well (though I don't know if it still works - I haven't turned it on in ages).
My next machines after that were an Amiga 2000, then an Amiga 1200. Then I got a 486 DX2/50 after Commodore bit the dust - plus I fell in love with the game, Myst, at the store - and had to have that system to play it.
As far a PC CPUs are concerned, my favorite has always been the AMD 586/133 - a weird hybrid; basically a crazy-fast 486 - at the time, it could outperform some of the lower-end pentiums (back when there was a serious AMD/Intel rivalry), for a fraction of the cost. It could be overclocked to 166 MHz fairly reliably, too.
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