Digicomp 1
A mechanical computer, programmed in binary with short and long soda straws.
1977
Apple ][
I did not own one, or even use it. I just remember seeing one proudly
demonstrated at the rival prep school. It had color, and
high-resolution graphics, and a simulation game named "Hammurabi"
1980
TRS-80
I used to ride my bike down to the nearest Radio Shack and program the
demo model in BASIC, which I taught myself from a book I bought at the
Radio Shack. Later, I used the TRS-80 at WBS Post-Production to write
an adventure game called "The Dating Zone." Come on. I was a
teenager.
1981
IBM 7271
Mainframe
My first quarter at UCLA. I used xedit, an arcane IBM line editor, to
write term papers.
1983
Pokey
Pokey was a TOPS-20 system at USC. I used emacs on my roommate's 300
baud HeathKit terminal, and sometimes the much faster 9600 baud
terminals in the computer lab across the street. I wrote screenplays
and, of course, term papers. More importantly, I lost a great deal of
productive time playing the incredibly detailed adventure game
"Haunt"
1984
Kaypro II
Finally! My very own computer. A 2.2mhz Z-80 CP/M suitcase-sized
machine with a real 80-column screen and not one but TWO 144K floppy
drives. Lots of WordStar on this one, more screenplays, and several
BASIC programs that did things like produce silly movie titles. My
favorite was "Fury of the Undead Nuns"
1985
Atari 520ST
Whoa. A GUI, and a 3D package, and color (if I plugged it into a TV),
and a Macintosh emulator. I should have lumped it all and gone to work
for Bill Gates then and there.
1987
Atari
MegaST
4mb, baby. And a very strange 47mb hard drive jammed into an old PC/XT
clone enclosure. And a 286-based PC emulator.
1991
386SX
My first PC. I had others I could use, but this one ran Windows 3.1
acceptably, and the Atari had reached a point of near
uselessness. Meanwhile, I had been using Macs where I worked and
totally found them superior to the PCs of the time.
1992
Mac IIci
I had this machine for about two months shortly after Spencer was
born. I rented a PowerBook for a Christmas trip and was so productive
that I promptly sold the IIci at a painful loss and bought...
1993
Powerbook
160
My main machine for 1993, when I was doing a lot of 4th Dimension
development. The next year I would have custody of a Quadra 800 which
I used as much as I could, but which actually belonged to Beau L'Amour.
1994
Power Mac
7200
First generation PowerPC Macintosh. Coincided with a disasterous death
spiral in Mac OS development and horrible instability. I ended up
running MkLinux on it the next year.1996
Pentium 133
Fast enough for Windows 95, which by now I was using regularly at
Enfish. Also powerful enough to run the Smalltalk VM we were
using.
1999
Dual Celeron
350
A twin-CPU ABIT PC with an MGA 400 graphics card. The machine that
served my Everquest addiction the next year. It's still in my computer
closet, running Debian quite happily.
2001
Dell 8100
Laptop
Originally acquired to use as a personal/Windows machine at ArsDigita,
it ended up being my primary machine until this year. I wrote most of
my Picasa code on it, in fact.
2002
P400
My work machine from ArsDigita. Notable in that its still my main
Linux computer at home.
2002
P4 2.2Ghz
A generic "fast" games and graphics machine. Now my primary windows
system at home, though it dual-boots into Gentoo.
Also kicking around the house are an iMac 400 that the kids have
adopted, several other PCs with Linux, Jill's sphere base iMac, and
off in storage an original Mac Plus and an Epson Geneva laptop. Whew!