What was your first "gaming" computer?

Shagster · Post by **Shagster** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:48 pm

I don't mean the first computer specifically meant for gaming. Just the first computer you had that got you started on computer games. (not console).

I had two. The ibm 286 tower with games like Kings Quest, Chessmaster, and Gold Rush. That was my dads. I had a pc jr with the cartridge loaded games.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 5:51 pm

IBM model 70, 386, 12-16 mhz, 8MB RAM, 30MB hard drive, DOS 4.X, Windows 3.1

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 6:52 pm

Apple IIc.

came this ->||<- close to getting a PC jr. instead, but the keyboard was just too cheesy.

RoscoPColtrane · Post by **RoscoPColtrane** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 7:17 pm

486 33mhz , 8 meg ram, 512 meg hdd, w/ cd rom! Kick ass eh?

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 7:52 pm

PIII 500mhz

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 8:00 pm

I think it was a 286 but I know I had a 486 setup... But I have no idea cept that it was SLOOOOOOOWWWW!!!! lol compared to what I'm running now.

Bastid · Post by **Bastid** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 9:05 pm

by gaming... do you mean solitare?

the first pc i got that was for "gaming" was a Pentium 200MMX with 64mb ram and a 16mb generic 2d vid card... later upgraded to a 32 mb ati rage...

Immortal · Post by **Immortal** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 10:16 pm

It has to be a 386. I can't remember the specs, I was too young then. I played card game and adventure games on it.

I remember there's this game where u press space bar and it means a 'punch'. I tapped the spacebar so much it broke.

KINGoFOOLS · Post by **KINGoFOOLS** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:29 pm

Comadore 64...lol

Illini25 · Post by **Illini25** » Fri Jul 07, 2006 11:30 am

Izzo wrote:PIII 500mhz

Same.

IBM Aptiva 550.

Unholy · Post by **Unholy** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 1:19 am

IBM 386DX II, 300MB HDD, 4MB Ram, 2MB ISA Vid Card, and a 2400 baud modem with more dip sitches than I know what to do with. Had Windows 3.1 on it but I don't really recall using it since I can run my games in dos mode and that's what it booted up on. I remember playing Doom, Castlevania 3D, and Warcraft I/II on that thing.

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 1:50 am

Pentium 60/1 mb onboard/ 16mb ram/win 3.11 @ $3k

I played Doom and Myst, barely. I saw Quake on my bro in laws computer and tried it out on mine but it was a no go...then it began, the money pit of PC upgrading.

BrandonB · Post by **BrandonB** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 2:43 am

Pentium 3 900Mhz, 16MB of RAM I think.

Blisster · Post by **Blisster** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 9:10 pm

Faust wrote:Apple IIc.

came this ->||<- close to getting a PC jr. instead, but the keyboard was just too cheesy.

I never owned one, but they had a few at the library you could go and use. Used to trade games on floppies (5 1/4"ers) with the other kids that played, like the original Castle Wolfenstein, Cannonball, Bolo, Lode Runner, etc. (all in delicious green or amber monochrome!)

Then I got my own TRS-80 Color Computer 2 (with Extended Color Basic and 64K of memory!)

Then my mom got a 386 IBM clone, on which I played X-Wing, Wolfenstein 3-D and some other titles I can't immediately recall)

SlyOneDoofy · Post by **SlyOneDoofy** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 2:13 am

Commodore 64......played ForbiddenForest (from a cassete drive that took 14 minutes to load), Pitfall, and the Hunchback of Notre dame. The stepped up to a 386 and played a Dragonlance game I had to rent that really didn't work.

Edit: also played Pacman on the 386 and when you hit the "turbo button" on the case it ran the game too fast to play.

DJ Brian · Post by **DJ Brian** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:33 pm

Packard Bell 486, 50mhz 8mb ram windows 3.11 later upgraded to 16mb of ram and windows 95

Rivas · Post by **Rivas** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 5:07 am

MS DOS 6.22,386 SX40 40mhz, 4mb ram,no idea how much space i had,4mb 3D voodoo video card
i remember playing Dune2,Star wars,Wolfenstein 1,2,Defender of the crown,Doom,Golden Axe and Civilization.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:10 am

rivas wrote:MS DOS 6.22,386 SX40 40mhz, 4mb ram,no idea how much space i had,4mb 3D voodoo video card

Those 3Dfx Voodoo cards didn't come out until mid-Win95 days...ran on Glide (an OpenGL lite API)..it couldn't run by itself as a stand along video card...only ran as a daughter card when a game utilized DX or Glide.

Gandalf · Post by **Gandalf** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 12:15 pm

PII or something with 32mb ram or something with windows 95 and voodoo old card.

Rivas · Post by **Rivas** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 5:22 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote: Those 3Dfx Voodoo cards didn't come out until mid-Win95 days...ran on Glide (an OpenGL lite API)..it couldn't run by itself as a stand along video card...only ran as a daughter card when a game utilized DX or Glide.

wrong,first one did work without win95,and there wasnt even win95 yet if i rememember right
you are talking about the glide api and then etc etc and it stopped with voodoo5 64mb video card
the first ones were working in dos enviroment,you just had to edit autoexec.bat and config.sys
http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/dive ... 6kgb-2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Dfx

some of the games wasnt even compatible in windows95,you couldnt even play them i had to always go to DOS and start it from there.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 9:03 am

rivas wrote:wrong,first one did work without win95,and there wasnt even win95 yet if i rememember right
you are talking about the glide api and then etc etc and it stopped with voodoo5 64mb video card
the first ones were working in dos enviroment,you just had to edit autoexec.bat and config.sys
http://www.x86-secret.com/articles/dive ... 6kgb-2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Dfx

some of the games wasnt even compatible in windows95,you couldnt even play them i had to always go to DOS and start it from there.

How is that wrong? Those links only re-enforce what I mentioned...that they did not come out until mid-95 days. Your quote makes it sound like you were running one back in the DOS days. That's what caught me...since it didn't come out until after Win95 was out.

I quote "the first Voodoo Graphics cards came at the beginning of August 1996 on the market"

And I mentioned it was a separate video card..that only kicked in with DX and glide based games. That was also re-enforced by your link...

I quote "The Voodoo 1, as the Voodoo Graphics would be later known, was notable for its lack of an onboard VGA controller. This meant a Voodoo equipped PC still required a separate VGA graphics card, meaning it was very expensive to have both 3D and 2D acceleration, and the user lost an extra slot. The Voodoo 1 occupied a separate PCI slot and only kicked in when the host PC ran a 3D game that had been programmed to use the Voodoo. A passthrough VGA cable daisy-chained the VGA card to the Voodoo 1, and then out to the monitor. Although this was a cumbersome arrangement that hurt the analog signal quality of the separate 2D card, hardcore PC gamers were willing to put up with it to gain what was (then) the ultimate in 3D graphics."

I purchased the first generation Voodoo the very first month it came out from 3Dfx, their Monster 3D card..I probably still have it somewhere in a box. I know it did run under DOS...as I bought it to run GLQuake. And I later ran a pair of 12 meg Voodoo2 cards in SLI. And a I had a Rush card after that (but not for long..it sucked) But you quoted it as your sole video card...there must have been another one there as your primary VGA.

tao_jones · Post by **tao_jones** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 9:17 am

TI 99 4A - I was the man at Parsec.

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:02 am

Atari 800xl

Shagster · Post by **Shagster** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:06 am

Stop being gay, voodoo is dead, let it RIP.

Blisster · Post by **Blisster** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 12:43 pm

Russell wrote:Atari 800xl

nice!

a friend had one of the 1600xl's back in the day. Man, the graphics on that thing were KICK ASS. BallBlazer FTW!

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:38 am

Shagster wrote:Stop being gay, voodoo is dead, let it RIP.

Voodoo is not dead! I still have a box running a Voodoo 4 4500!

Jim · Post by **Jim** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 2:19 am

I guess my answer depends on what is considered a "computer."

Russell wrote:Atari 800xl

Man, I loved that little bugger. Had some great games/software that rivaled the arcade titles (ie Pac-Man was actually Pac-Man, not the ripoff that was on the Atari 2600). I think I still have the 300 baud modem for that around here somewhere.

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Atari 800xl

I purchased the first generation Voodoo the very first month it came out from 3Dfx, their Monster 3D card..I probably still have it somewhere in a box. I know it did run under DOS...as I bought it to run GLQuake. And I later ran a pair of 12 meg Voodoo2 cards in SLI. And a I had a Rush card after that (but not for long..it sucked) But you quoted it as your sole video card...there must have been another one there as your primary VGA.[/QUOTE]
Man, nothing beat having dual Voodoo2's at that time. Being able to run games at the insanely high resolution (at the time) of 1024x768 pushed PC gaming graphics far beyond the pixellated mess that Playstation was offering at the time. I do recall spending around ~$600 for a pair of 12MB cards when they came out.

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:29 pm

Radio Shack TRS-80, monochrome POS.. Zaxxon was the only game I could get to work correctly. The rest of the games I tried spending hours copying the BASIC code out of a "TRS-80 Games" book, but you had to do so much debugging I never had the patience to get a single game working correctly.

First real PC used for gaming was a custom built 486DX2 66MHz, 8MB RAM, 720MB HD, 2MB Trident graphics, SoundBlaster 16.

Speaking of old graphics cards, anyone remember the Canopus Pure 3d set? Man, Quake II looked gorgeous on 12MB of Canopus goodness.

mountainman · Post by **mountainman** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:53 pm

I remember my Tandy 1000SX... not sure if I had games for it.

Oregon Trail, baby!!!

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 6:07 am

486DX33, 8 meg ram, 200 meg hard drive, 28.8k modem with 2meg graphics card. LAN parties were on coax ethernet. It played Doom well. I recall the dial up lagged so bad on quake servers. Ping times were always in the 3 and 500s.

Farmers telephone company in South Carolina was more then shottie... If there was rain of any kind, you lost your connection. The phone lines comming to my house where under ground (no poles anywhere). This was old copper lines that were wrapped with paper inside a layer of cotten with plastic cladding. This was, 1992 to 95 time frame. I was so glad when I moved.

Mr King · Post by **Mr King** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:59 pm

Wow, it seems like a lot of you guys got a much earlier start than me

P3 1.6 Ghz, 128mg RAM, 18gig HD, win2000

Rivas · Post by **Rivas** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 4:26 pm

YeOldeStonecat wrote:How is that wrong? Those links only re-enforce what I mentioned...that they did not come out until mid-95 days. Your quote makes it sound like you were running one back in the DOS days. That's what caught me...since it didn't come out until after Win95 was out.

I quote "the first Voodoo Graphics cards came at the beginning of August 1996 on the market"

And I mentioned it was a separate video card..that only kicked in with DX and glide based games. That was also re-enforced by your link...

I quote "The Voodoo 1, as the Voodoo Graphics would be later known, was notable for its lack of an onboard VGA controller. This meant a Voodoo equipped PC still required a separate VGA graphics card, meaning it was very expensive to have both 3D and 2D acceleration, and the user lost an extra slot. The Voodoo 1 occupied a separate PCI slot and only kicked in when the host PC ran a 3D game that had been programmed to use the Voodoo. A passthrough VGA cable daisy-chained the VGA card to the Voodoo 1, and then out to the monitor. Although this was a cumbersome arrangement that hurt the analog signal quality of the separate 2D card, hardcore PC gamers were willing to put up with it to gain what was (then) the ultimate in 3D graphics."

I purchased the first generation Voodoo the very first month it came out from 3Dfx, their Monster 3D card..I probably still have it somewhere in a box. I know it did run under DOS...as I bought it to run GLQuake. And I later ran a pair of 12 meg Voodoo2 cards in SLI. And a I had a Rush card after that (but not for long..it sucked) But you quoted it as your sole video card...there must have been another one there as your primary VGA.

ops sorry the card was from 3dfx first generation voodoo lol,my apologies and yes it was the first one,but hell i dont remember windows95 at that time i think (i'm not saying you are wrong and i'm right) they came right after or before 486 DX2/66mhz or was it 386 dx2/66 i really dont remember.it was soooo long time ago.then i was waiting quite a few years before i bought next one and it was voodoo their last card i think,it had 64mb ram.Dont remember who bought them or they went bankrupcy?I still remember when i was reading some PC magazine and the authors were arguing if intel will be able break up 133 mhz barrier (it was the time of DX5 133mhz?) now it sounds so funny.

fixationdarknes · Post by **fixationdarknes** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 11:44 pm

-Intel Pentium w/ 90 MHz
-TNT video card, 8 mb ram or something
-dunno how much hd space
-16 mb ram? kind of guessing here

Was totally awesome when we first got it.

danmick21 · Post by **danmick21** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:43 pm

Shagster wrote:I don't mean the first computer specifically meant for gaming. Just the first computer you had that got you started on computer games. (not console).

I had two. The ibm 286 tower with games like Kings Quest, Chessmaster, and Gold Rush. That was my dads. I had a pc jr with the cartridge loaded games.

Commodore 64 ruled!!

beze · Post by **beze** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 6:14 pm

First actual gaming rig was an Apple II+, way back in the day. Stayed with Macs for years. First serious PC gaming rig for personal use was a 400mhz some-odd with 128 megs of RAM and bought my first 3-D card, a 3DFX Voodoo3. Boy, I thought that was the shznit back then.

Shagster · Post by **Shagster** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 7:53 pm

beze wrote:First actual gaming rig was an Apple II+, way back in the day. Stayed with Macs for years. First serious PC gaming rig for personal use was a 400mhz some-odd with 128 megs of RAM and bought my first 3-D card, a 3DFX Voodoo3. Boy, I thought that was the shznit back then.

Man, voodoo was the day. I still have a voodoo 5 5500 pci card. Got it for $10. It was a backup in case I had to reflash my video card bios.

Massa · Post by **Massa** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 3:18 am

My first real "gaming" PC was a P2 400Mhz,running with a Voodoo 2 and an S3 Vid card. It had 128MB of RAM and an 8gig HDD.

My first games however, were played on a 486DX2 system, 32 megs of ram, local bus ISA video and a 1gig hard drive.

tradewiz50 · Post by **tradewiz50** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 5:25 pm

Radio Shack TRS80. Circa 1980