The oldest CPU that I remember using was an i486 running Windows 3.11. This was in 96 or so, I was allowed to fool around with an older desktop at one of my parent’s office (all the other computers had Pentiums and ran Windows 95).
I honestly probably did use an i386 during an (earlier) office visit, but I was too young too know anything about computers (I vaguely knew what a Pentium was when I was 8).
First CPU I recall was a 286 and my dad had set up some games in there to play including my favorite - Moonbugs. Unfortunately, the game timing was apparently coded to the CPU speed rather than the clock because when we upgraded to a 386 the game would run and end with GAME OVER in less than a second.
I had been excited about the new, faster computer until that discovery, lol.
We’d managed to snag a second-hand i186-based PC, with integrated green-and-black screen and two 5 1/4" floppy drives. Most useless excuse for a computer you ever did see; good luck trying to take notes with edlin on DOS any faster than just writing them down. Super-futuristic looking, though - predated the iMac by over twenty years.
Remember getting a ZX Spectrum for Xmas and being astonished that computers could actually display colour and play games. Z80 for the win.
I think the oldest I really used myself was the Apple II computers we’d use in computer class in elementary school, although I think they might’ve been a bit outdated since the Macintosh had already been out for five years when I started kindergarten. Our family’s first computer was a 286 compatible built by a guy at my dad’s job. It came with some version of DOS and Windows 3.1. I strongly suspect all of the software he delivered on it was warez.
I only started seeing Macs in the country I was living in at that time in the mid 2000s. And even then it was only very well off families (and this was by far the richest city in the country).
The Apple II was popular in schools and it seems Apple thought that getting into the education market would lead to home sales, but the lower cost of PC hardware and Microsoft’s success at business sales seemed to win out. We started using Macs when I got to fifth grade and sixth grade, but by eighth grade I was in a different school and we used Windows anytime we used a computer. It wasn’t until I went to university that I saw and used Macs again, since I was studying broadcast communication. The university was huge and had all sorts of options. Classrooms with computers would get whatever worked best for their usage but the open computer labs would have a mix of Windows, Macs, Red Hat Linux, and Sun Solaris. Everything ran Novell NetWare so it didn’t really matter what computer we used unless we needed software specific to an operating system, like Final Cut Pro.
The oldest CPU that I remember using was an i486 running Windows 3.11. This was in 96 or so, I was allowed to fool around with an older desktop at one of my parent’s office (all the other computers had Pentiums and ran Windows 95).
I honestly probably did use an i386 during an (earlier) office visit, but I was too young too know anything about computers (I vaguely knew what a Pentium was when I was 8).
First CPU I recall was a 286 and my dad had set up some games in there to play including my favorite - Moonbugs. Unfortunately, the game timing was apparently coded to the CPU speed rather than the clock because when we upgraded to a 386 the game would run and end with GAME OVER in less than a second.
I had been excited about the new, faster computer until that discovery, lol.
Z80 for me, take that, ha!
6502 was my poison.
Mine too, just after Z80. Then 68000 (later plus add-on 286 board) and only after it was a pure 386.
We’d managed to snag a second-hand i186-based PC, with integrated green-and-black screen and two 5 1/4" floppy drives. Most useless excuse for a computer you ever did see; good luck trying to take notes with
edlinon DOS any faster than just writing them down. Super-futuristic looking, though - predated the iMac by over twenty years.Remember getting a ZX Spectrum for Xmas and being astonished that computers could actually display colour and play games. Z80 for the win.
Those were 80186? Cool, never saw one. I did some computing at school’s 8086 PC, though.
From my understanding, Z80 was already on the way out on desktop by the time I was born. 😆
I think the oldest I really used myself was the Apple II computers we’d use in computer class in elementary school, although I think they might’ve been a bit outdated since the Macintosh had already been out for five years when I started kindergarten. Our family’s first computer was a 286 compatible built by a guy at my dad’s job. It came with some version of DOS and Windows 3.1. I strongly suspect all of the software he delivered on it was warez.
I only started seeing Macs in the country I was living in at that time in the mid 2000s. And even then it was only very well off families (and this was by far the richest city in the country).
The Apple II was popular in schools and it seems Apple thought that getting into the education market would lead to home sales, but the lower cost of PC hardware and Microsoft’s success at business sales seemed to win out. We started using Macs when I got to fifth grade and sixth grade, but by eighth grade I was in a different school and we used Windows anytime we used a computer. It wasn’t until I went to university that I saw and used Macs again, since I was studying broadcast communication. The university was huge and had all sorts of options. Classrooms with computers would get whatever worked best for their usage but the open computer labs would have a mix of Windows, Macs, Red Hat Linux, and Sun Solaris. Everything ran Novell NetWare so it didn’t really matter what computer we used unless we needed software specific to an operating system, like Final Cut Pro.