What was your first school computer to use and when?

[Bungo Pony]

I remember trying to use some sort of Apple II in Grade 1. You needed to use commands to draw things on it, and I got incredibly frustrated with it. The teacher eventually let me skip that project because I was having so much trouble. Ah, the days before the mouse!

My high school had a number of computer labs. The labs I used were the CBM / SuperPET lab where you had to wait your turn to load the word processing software from one lowly floppy drive. The other lab I used was the Vic20 lab. I really wish I could have a picture of a lab full of Vic20s hooked up to black & white televisions. There weren't enough computers to go around, so we had to pair up. Both of these labs were being used in 1990-1991.

When I was in Grade 10, I got to use the IBM PC-XT lab for typing lessons. None of these computers had hard drives, you had to boot from a floppy.

There was also a Commodore 64 lab, but I never had the privilege of using that one

 

[strollin]

My first computer program -- sometime in the 60s -- was in Fortran, and was supposed to print a picture of a rocket. I think we had to write the instructions out on paper and someone at a college computer lab punched the cards based on that. And of course there was a bug in the program and my picture was not what I wanted. I was pretty frustrated with computers in general through college (a small amount of work on Multics) because it was so painful to debug anything, so I was kind of turned off by computers until the home computer era -- a Commodore 64 got me interested again.

I can really relate to that. My first programming class was in 1976, RPGII. We had to write our programs up on coding sheets, then punch them up on punch cards, then put the program deck and data deck into a card hopper. The cards were read then we sat down and waited for about 20 minutes until garbage spewed out of the local printer. Debugging mostly consisted of putting Print statements thruout the program so you could determine approximately where the thing ran into problems. After that class I couldn't believe anyone would ever want to be a programmer. It wasn't until 1984 when I got my first PC to use at work that I became interested in computers. I took a C programming class and was hooked, been in software now since 1986.

 

[billdeg]

1980 terminal access to Dow Jones service. Middle school library admin office. Not sure how I got in there, but I remember it was a privilege.

 

[Luzur]

a Compis (COMPuter In School) was my first school computer i ever used, in the middle of the 80's, equipped with CP/M-86 operating system.

http://pc-museum.com/030-compis/index.htm

after that it was the usual Pentiums II's or III's

 

[michal]

Was I ever in school ? Oh yes... But it had no computers until my father's company provided it with some.
So I've been sort of a technology-leader in my area, breaking one joystick after another at home on a ZX Spectrum .

 

[bluethunder]

Early 80's -- Apple ]['s in elementary school.. Played lemonade stand, and kings quest. And of course, printshop, spending all period printing one banner out, or birthday cards.

Mid - Late 80's -- The highschool had a massive MAC 512/Plus lab.. Other than playing NET-Trek, cute but useless computers (I obviously didn't buy into the cult of apple )

 

[DOS lives on!!]

The first one I ever used was an Apple Macintosh Performa 5400. With it's built in CD drive, floppy drive, great sounding speakers, and just the way it looked, I loved it. And still do.

Along with that, I also used (I think) an IBM Aptiva system. I remember the hard drive was bad, so Windows 95 didn't run too well, especially installing games. I could've fixed it, but I knew very little in kindergarden.

 

[Tor]

Ah, and old thread I hadn't seen before.
The first school computer I used would maybe be the AIM-65, somewhen around 1978 probably. Possibly 1977, but that's the year they were introduced I think and I don't remember how early we got them. But I also started to use the school's minicomputer around the same time (or maybe that was 1979), I always remembered it as an Alpha LSI but on the other hand I also remember it as an ICL, and both can't be true at the same time I presume. Core memory, paper tape, tty. Power switch was a key at the door entrance. I got my own key and spent many weekends there. When I left in the evening I could just switch off the power, then the next morning switch it on again and continue where I left off.. core memory was nice that way.

-Tor
EDIT: I'm off by a year in some of the above.. I started my electronics education in 1975, not 1976 as I thought (I know in which class I started to use the computers so I calculated from the first year..). So we probably had the AIM-65s as soon as they became available, which must have been in 1977 then, or no later than early 1978. And I started using that mini in 1978.

 

[pearce_jj]

The school I was at got a BBC Micro when I was about 8, but my Dad had a Model 4P at home by then.

I remember being disciplined for handing in 'photocopied' work, actually I'd spent pretty much all weekend typing it in to Scripsit and it was printed out on a DWP210. Still, it didn't put me off

 

[RWallmow]

There's photos of me at my grandparents dining room table at about 4 years old (1986ish) playing with a borrowed Apple //c (I think maybe my aunt had borrowed it for the summer from the school she was teaching at, not uncommon back then), don't really remember this much, but its worth noting.

First times using a computer that I can really remember are the various Apple II's in elementary school (][+, //e, //c, even IIgs later on) playing number munchers and oregon trail. First real experiences with computers in our home was when I was about 10, and I started playing with the 286 my grandmas work let her use at home (was something like a $5k machine back then with monitor and 24-pin printer), eventually they got me my own 2nd hand Apple //c (With Imagewriter II) at the age of about 12 or so (1993-4ish), by 1995ish I also had a 2nd hand 386, which I eventually even ran Win95 on, and would be continually upgraded from there.

I should also note we got broadband in about 1997-98 and I had to learn about Linux and TCP/IP to build my own router if I wanted to use more than one of our(many by that time) computers in the house online at the same time. You couldn't exactly go and pickup a linksys/dlink/netgear router from the local store back then, it was either a REALLY expensive professional router, or you built your own, home networks were uncommon then. My router was an old 486 with 2 ISA 10base NICs and running some now ancient version of redhat I believe. It did well to serve the 10m/33.6k cable-modem to My K6-233 and hand full of 486's.