Mudbuggus Loc: Acadiana

Your list seems to be mine also. DOS was my favorite, because you actually had to KNOW computing. If you missed a period, TRON would tell you. umm...missing a period was and is always tramatic...

pp

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Hahaha.... I've used languages where the program would just barf. The nice languages told you.

Kinda like a misplaced single quote in PHP or HTML.

wloftonphotography Loc: Eastanollee Georgia

Had a 386, all I can remember

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I can't remember if my first was an 8086 or 80286.... Too long ago.

petrochemist Loc: UK

My first computers used processors that predate the 8086 (being based on the Z80 & 6502 processors both released 3-4 years before the 8086)
I've used computers that were based on the 8086 but I don't think I've actually owned one. My first PC being a weird 80186 model...

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Sorry, I meant "real" computer, with disks.
My first computer was the TRS Color Computer, 6809E based.
I did a lot of "guts" work in that box,

BebuLamar

There were very few PC with an 8086 CPU but I did have one. The IBM PS/2 Model 30 circa 1987. It's much newer than the IBM PC which like most early PC's were based on the 8088 instead. The original IBM PC has only 8 bit bus and thus the 8088 is more suited to the task although it's a 16 bit CPU.
My first PC had an 80386SX. It had a large SCSI HDD at the time of 120MB (1989).

petrochemist Loc: UK

One of my 6502 based computers had both twin floppy disks and a 10MB hard drive before I passed it on - despite having many programmes (word processor/spreadsheet etc) in switchable ROMs.

The HP 2113B mini computer I used at work would be classed as a pretty serious computer of it's time (our's was brought in 1979) but never used disks & needed the registers directly programmed (using the switches on the front of the main CPU box) to get it to boot from tape drives. Due to a period of frequent power cuts I got very familiar with entering the necessary binary numbers into the registers, eventually doing it from memory. see https://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=109

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

When I was at Tektronix, sometime in tune late 70s-early 80s, there was a corporate edict that everyone in the field (SEs and Sales Engineers alike) would become microprocessor literate since we were selling microprocessor development systems and logic analyzers. It was a 2 year structured program and a condition of employment, even for managers. Some of us were computer literate (I started on the 360 at IBM in ‘65), but we also had many that while EEs, we’re focused on RF and instrumentation.

It started with a breadboard 8080 machine that we had to construct using TTL Devices and LED readouts and drivers. We had to learn 6800, 8080 and Z80 assembly language. That was followed with everyone being presented with an IBM “Luggable” (8086, and dual 5-1/4 floppies), a modem and copies of various SW including an early windows-like Ap called Frameworks. Programming in Basic was also required and there was a monthly progress test. Many of the managers found themselves coming to the people they managed to pass and keep their jobs

Shortly that was followed with a 286 AT and then a 386 which we had to demo instrumentation. My SE also had a DEC PDP 11 -23 for more demanding applications that were custom written, often using FFTs, and we had a VAX 11-780 at our office as well as TEK graphics (Tek was an early player in graphics when images were stored on the CRT). Of course many of us were building machines at home and giving our children Commodore 64s to get them started.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Wow, I remember all of those processors.....