I am a 25 year old that has been lucky enough to have been raised in a fairly technocentric household that was among the first to adopt computers and the Internet in our area. I should note that our house is largely surrounded by fields and did not have cable access until 1999 so this was quite the feat.
I should note that while we often had computers, the systems were never the focus of our being. When it was not raining I could not be found sitting at a desk, but would be in the nearby forests building tree forts, climbing trees to ridiculous heights, playing in a homemade quinzee or spending countless days on the golf course. I look forward to hearing the computer experiences of others.
1980 – Commodore PET
Many years before I was born, my family entered the world of computing with the Commodore PET. This was not a family-owned system, but one that my father, a grade eight teacher, would bring home on weekends and in the summer. The PET was largely used by my father who was taking a course on computers in the classroom and would write programs to do complex calculations – you know, like the circumference of a circle. Interestingly, I have been told that this was the only computer in the entire school. Quite the all-in-one system for 1980 if you ask me.
Late 1982 – Commodore 64
A system that has been near and dear to my heart, but I recently found out that I did not really experience it as a child. My parents, along with another family, came together to purchase the recently released wonder that was the Commodore 64 . The system was purchased for around $600 along with a tape drive that looks like a cassette recorder (well, that is basically what it is, I suppose).
Soon after, the Commodore 1541 floppy drive was purchased at tremendous cost, but expanding the capabilities of the system substantially. The C64 meticulously switched between the two families every couple of weeks, but, after a while, interest in the system was lost – perhaps due to the loading times or television hookup requirement.
Funny enough, the system now lives in my closet in its original box with three 1541 floppy drives, hundreds of floppy disks and a box full of accessories. It has been about five years since I gave the system a run, but it is always interesting to pull out the box to show visitors this piece of computer history. One of these days I will have to boot the system up.
1984 – Various Systems
This period of seven years is where I began my love for computers. While we did not have a permanent computer at home (although I swear I used that C64 as a wee lad), my father did bring home various systems from school for use in the summer. I recall playing games like Dig Dug, Frogger, and Pitfall on the systems, some of which may have been game systems borrowed from friends rather than full-out computers. While this period is somewhat a blur, I do remember playing games like Cross Country Canada, Midnight Rescue and What’s My Angle at school as well as at home in the summer.
December 1991 – 286
A family Christmas present in 1991, this is the first system I remember using on my own and where my passion for computing began. From navigating DOS Shell to create banners in Banner Mania, to playing Links: The Challenge of Golf and the original Duke Nukem – this system was a beast with the upgraded 90 megabyte hard drive, an extra 1 megabyte of RAM and the before-its-time 1.44 inch floppy drive. Be sure to check out the original receipt.
The 286 was upgraded a fair number of times before the next major purchase. Such upgrades include the move to Windows 3.1, the addition of more storage and other upgrades that have since been forgotten.
December 1995 – 486 DX4
The next major system bypassed the 386 era and went right to the ultra-high-end 486 DX4. I recall, although I may be wrong, that this was a Windows 3.1 system from the start, but was relatively quickly converted to the awe-inspiring Windows 95. The biggest changes between this system and the 286 was how 
multimedia was handled. I would spend hours researching and watching videos that were included on the Groliers Encyclopedia CD-ROM, listening to music CD’s and recording sounds that I could then assign to system actions.
The 486 period presented us with an opportunity to use free Internet that could be accessed by Ontario teachers. We purchased a used external 14.4k modem that after a short period of time burnt out so we upgraded to a 28.8k modem, again external. The Internet access we had blocked all images to save bandwidth, but this text-only network provided us with plenty of information, news, and most importantly, email.
On the games side of things, I rocked Rise of the Triads (often with the God mode cheat), Links LS golf, NASCAR Racing, and the bane of my early computing existence, NHL 1996. Our computer was capable of playing the game, but it took boot disks and tweaks to get it to work as it should. Overall, a great system that really expanded our ability to gather information thanks to Groliers and the Internet. Again, the original receipt has been salvaged.
Late 1997 – Pentium 166
A system that I remember quite well, but have not found any paperwork regarding the specifications. This was a Windows 95 system from the beginning and was largely used by me for school work, music and the Internet, notably ICQ and Napster. Countless fights with my sister, whose phone line was used for Internet access, and replacing modem after modem as they died off made this system a joy to use. Downloading music at terribly slow speeds and playing it back in Winamp while chatting with high school friends on ICQ (#30788392) and Microsoft Comic Chat was what filled my nights. Having a computer with Internet acess at this time allowed me to take advantage of the growing number of applications that used the baud to connect individuals world-wide.
That concludes the first part of this series and the history of computing within my family. The next part will go further into my personal development with computers and should be out in a couple of days. In the meantime, I encourage you to comment on your experiences with early computing.
