I was thinking about the various computers I've used. I grew up in the 70s when home computers were really rare. I think a friend had a ZX80 when I was about 13, but the nearest I came was playing arcade games like Pong.
My first real experience of using a computer was via one of these. We had one at school that connected to a local college via an acoustic coupler. That's something you pushed a telephone handset into and it used sound. This was slower than a modem, but fast enough for what this did.
A few years later I got a BBC Micro. It had a mighty 16kB of memory (upgraded to 32kB by me), loaded from cassette and a fairly puny CPU, but I had a lot of fun with it. When I learned about fractals I had to try making my own. Something like this may have taken hours.
Although I worked with various IBM compatible computers (now just known as PCs) on DOS and Windows I didn't do much at home with computers for a while. Eventually I bought a second hand Amiga 500. That was great for games. Later I got the Amiga 1200. That got upgraded extensively until I was able to use it to emulate a Mac. I didn't get onto the internet for a while, but I was into bulletin boards. I went through various modems in search of more speed.
Eventually I decided I needed to get a 'PC' (I don't like this as a it is used as it just means Personal Computer). I got a Windows 95 machine. That was the last PC that I didn't build myself. I've been through lots since then using Windows 98, NT, 2000. I found Windows frustrating and experimented with Linux. I think it was Red Hat first followed by Mandrake, Knoppix and then Ubuntu, which I have stuck with for many years. I obviously had at least three computers when this was taken. I suspect one was still running Windows as the kids played some games on it.
I'm not into gaming, so I don't need the latest hardware. I've had my current AMD quad-core for a few years and it is fine for running Ubuntu for all my needs. I've seen a lot of changes over the years. From paper printout to multiple screens. There's a whole other history in the mobile devices I've used.
Steem on!
I'll buy guitar picks for Steem Dollars
If this post is over seven days old you can vote up one of my newer posts to reward me.