CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

When I started with computers we had to enter each byte, bit by bit, on a circuit board. The Commodore 64 was an amazing advance and the Epson printer used 8 little pins to tap out letters in black ink on the paper.
When our modems went from 300 baud to 1200 baud we thought we were really something.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Was the IBM maybe an OS-360?
That's what I started learning on.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

And 2400 baud was the cat's meow!

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

My first computer was an Osborne-1 that had two floppy drives and a five-inch non-graphic screen. The operating system was CP/M2 and I paid a staggering $1,800 when I bought it in 1981.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

The Apple IIe was expensive, too. $1,400?

JoeBiker Loc: homebase: Houston, TX

In the 80's, NASA was still using telemetry computers that had to be booted by entering the boot code by hand. 8 (or 16... I don't remember) dip switches and an enter button for each word. I was allowed to boot the computers for testing, but I wasn't fast or accurate enough (and didn't have the boot code memorized) to reboot the computer during an actual mission.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I programmed two test systems that needed a manual load, in Octal, of the bootstrap (on the maintenance panel) to get a the OS loaded. Onr from paper tape, one from a tape cartridge. Luckily they were not too long.
Both systems were run by DEC PDP computers.

Gort55 Loc: Northern Colorado

TRS-80

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Our first PC was a Gateway 2000 66MHz i80486 (I forget the precise configuration and CPU, there were several) & 420MB HDD, 3.5" 1.44MB Diskette Drive. This was around 1993. Looked similar to you illustration. Later around 1995 we added a CD-ROM Drive via a computer store. Dorks tossed the installation Disk so every time it acted up I would have headaches and have to play with the BIOS. Seems back then the ROM Drive was treated like a peripheral like a printer.

In 1994 we added a HP LaserJet 4P.

(I am not going to list all the various PCs I and my wife have shared or have had our own as this post seemed to be about OSs.)

DOS 6.21+Windows 3.11 (used happily for several years).

I tried the MS Demo Windows 95 program (ROM or Diskettes don't remember), it sucked.

Windows 98

Was sent immediately (free) from Gateway or Microsoft Windows 98 SE (used that happily for many years).

I was given three PCs with a lot of software from a friend to play with. These were never our working computers at home. They were off-brand Pentium 2 Towers. Any way, there was a Windows N.T. (version 4) with this stuff. I could never configure it correctly so it was just a toy.

Used Windows 2000 at work (schools), a POS! Some people in the school district business offices had a mystery O/S called Windows CE. I think I may know what it was for.

Windows XP, used it a little, seemed stable.

Windows VISTA (on a LopTop), suffered with it for many years, too many, would crash nearly daily, POS!!!

Windows 7 Pro, probably MS's finest to date.

Windows 10 Pro on Wife's PC, still using the free upgrade from 7 to 10, runs fine on either.

Now we have two Dell Towers

Windows 10 Home on My PC, love it, customized it to run and look a lot like Windows 7.

Passed on 8 & 8.1, seen used and did not liked what I saw. Though I have Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 OS ROMs that I got from Dell with my PC.

I may have missed something with all the PCs I have had over the years, seven(?), not counting the three gifted to play with PCs.

Indi Loc: L. I., NY, Palm Beach Cty when it's cold.

I seem to remember a Microsoft OS just before or after; more likely after Win 98, called Windows for Workgroups or WFW. I thought that was a pretty good OS.

grcolts

My first computer was the Commodore 64, then the Commodore 128 and then went to the Commodore Amiga. Years later I purchased my first Mac. Today, I use both a PC and a Mac. There will never be another computer though like the Amiga. It was a special computer for sure.

Papa Joe Loc: Midwest U.S.

Yep, and even before that all the way back to, forget the name but I think it was Windows 3.1, but not sure. I thought Dos was fun and rewarding. I even enjoyed using the little Radio Shack"M-1", very small 'computer' with the combo keys... and cassette tape recorder instead of disk drive.
Then there were the 'tom toms' that we used, before computers...(sorry.. getting a bit carried away!:o)
God Bless,
Papa Joe

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

I remember them... boy are you old!

I hardwired my first 8088 and my first purchased PC was an AST 286... great machine.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

My first system was DOS 2.1 (?). It included Microsoft Word, Multiplan, and something else, all version 1.0. And less I forget, thick manuals were provided for the OS and programs. Prior to that screaming 8088 system, my other “tool” was a Radio Shack Model 100 with a whopping 32k of memory and a dazzling 8x40 lcd display.

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

Do you remember Visicalc?