A friend bought a Vic-20 and a few months later I bought a Commodore 64 for a lot less. Later, I bought a 286 and a few months later, my friend bought a 386 for about half the price I paid. We still compete on processor and internet speeds.

I remember being a member of CompuServe back when it was all text based. We've come quite a way.

I actually was one of the first people to online-date, and prob one of the very first to on-line cross-country
date. I started out with compuserve, when the new mail blinking light was prob more exciting than just about anything on the internet that came to be. Met a woman online from San Francisco, actually lived with her for a very short while,
around 1993. This was long before TV shows began to feature on-line dating. before even AOL on-line chat,
believe it or not. Later
on I had a lot of fun with AOL chat in the mid-late 90's, and met
(and yes, again lived)
with a woman with two kids in Alaska, and a
woman from San Diego,
who I dated for several years. It's been a very long time since I've dated online, as I'm presently engaged, ironically, with someone I met in real life out in Austin, Tex.
As for PC's, It's amazing how the whole 80's and even early 90's were essentially completely untethered from others. Each was its own little isolated universe, where wee obviously had no worry of viruses, outside of the occasional contaminated floppy.
I think they were almost meant to be commected. If you really think about it, an unmoored computer now, completely isolated, is like a honeybee, absolutely meaningless without any context outside itself.
And who knows what the future has in store?

I go back to 1967 on the Digi-Comp 1, a mighty mechanical 3-bit computer. That's right, bit, not byte. I was paid a whopping $10 each for 7 programs of mine that were included in a DC 1 book.

Here is a photo of me with DC 1 and my other 1967 computers at Boing Boing: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/01/origins_of_cyberspac.html

Wow, Mike, i take my geek hat off to you. You truly are a propeller-head!

I couldn't even tell you what type of computer I first used in 1984; heck, I'd have a hard time now with this one. But I was working in a bank that processed only million dollar loans and deposits; we did the book work BY HAND. I also had just had my first son. The bosses showed us the computer with the big old printer; it had to be bigger than my kitchen table today! I remember my boss saying my son would know more about computers than I would in the future. Well, sorry to say, he was right. :(

Twas a TI 99-4A (Texas Instruments). Had to use a cassette to record a program. I loved the potential of computers but being a programmer was not practical so I sold it a year or so later, around 83, maybe. I lusted for the new fangled Coleco with tape drive but did not bite. Then in 87, our mother got my brother and I a Commodore C-128 and a double sided floppy (C-1571) built in. By this time software was available and for a Commodore, fairly cheap. It was delightful. I had PaperClip 3 word processor, and a database program, too. Had a Panasonic KXP-1124 24 pin printer which was pretty slick for the time.

But Commodore had no real hard drive options that you did not had to sell your soul for, so around 90, I got me a used Mac SE with a whopping 100 MB internal hard drive and 4 whole MBs of RAM. Hooey! I could still use the Panasonic printer, too. Hog Heaven!

I kept upgrading by waiting till the new models were like 5 years old and then getting them. But in 2004, I needed a lap top and the best options for the lest money were clearly on the PC Windows side so I guts me an IBM thinkpad T21 and now use an HP most of the time. Still got Macs but haven’t used them in a while. Most of what I do requires software that is better on PCs, Cheaper used on PCs, and upgraded more often and with much better versions than the wait 2 years for a Mac version at twice the price.

And I got really mad at Apple and Jobs for upgrading their OS nearly every year and rarely would most programs be compatible with previous or newer OS versions. Upgrades way too often and software outdated as a result. Apple/Jobs is really arrogant and obnoxious so now I’m a PC. Yeah, XP is not as good or stable as Mac and viruses are something to deal with but its really not all that bad in view of what I have gained in more affordable and powerful software. I love OCR, Online Bible, Office, Dragon Speak VR, FrontPage 2000, Acrobat, Photoshop, and I can not recommend enough for people who deal with paper a lot or things that generate paper and documentation to get Fujitsu’s ScanSnap. I should have bought this years ago and you should, too. Super fast and easy.

I built mine, it was a Sinclair. formed assembled and soldered the whole thing. It worked the first time. Learned to program in basic. Since then i have fixed & build many computers.

I don't remember when I started fooling around with computers. Probably the early eighties? I started with the Commodore also. I must admit that there was nothing I could do with it. I was computer stupid and basic was beyond my comprehension. Somewhere along the way, I got another computer. A Rat Shack (Radio Shack) and it had an operating system that I was able to work with. 5 and a half inch floppys and no speed. I used for quite awhile. I then purchased a Rat Shack portable computer that was fun and compact, but all your files would have to be loaded to cassette tapes! That's right little cassette tapes. I also used that machine to first start on the internet. It was basically a dumb terminal. I am now self trained in all my computer experience and do have moden equipment today! I got my ham license in 1992. I also used several old IBM dumb terminals to learn packet radio and able to access the Internet with packet radio using BBS services that were available. Some had gateways to the new internet. So for me, probably 1982 is my first exposure to home computer.