) and a daisywheel printer because those dot matrix things did not produce "professional" output. All running DOS2.1. At work we had just started down the computer trail too and I developed an interest in dBase writing programs to track telephone orders and electronic log books. I was writing stuff on my 8086 machine that I could not even run on that machine. I'd spend hours coding and then taking the disks to work to test and prove my code, Eventually migrating to Clipper (Summer 87), still writing on the XT and compiling on the 80286's that work had just upgraded to. My XT served me well for about 10 years. I even ended up building a power supply for it because the original died. No switched mode for me, pure Analogue, I had to move the case to the floor because the monitor would wobble with the stray magnetic fields from the transformer. I never did leave a disk in the drive for obvious reasons. My first "upgrade" was an an additional 256kb of RAM in about 1985.
My next computer was an 80386 machine running Windows 3.1 and a 40mB HDD. That served me well until the mid 90s when I was actually selling computers. I worked for an IBM dealership but had an Apple LCII on my desk (we were owned by an Apple Centre and their inventory management software was Apple based). At the time Windows 95 was king and a new OS called OS/2 was being bundled with IBMs and it held great promise. My subscriptions to BYTE magazine and PC User also came with attached CD's at the time which included a copy of RedHat Linux. I purchased my first IBM computer at that time, that was running W95 which I loved. Never did load RedHat, OS/2 and its replacement OS/2 Warp could not gain ground against the Windows/Mac onslaught, so I did not give it any serious time.
Over the subsequent years, that machine saw some upgrades to W98 (but went back to95 as it gave no real advantage, Windows Missed Edition has the dubious honour of lasting only 15 minutes on my computer before I went back to W95. I eventually migrated to W2000 and there I stayed until XP was released. My IBM machine went through various metamorphoses in the time I owned it from a 2Gb HDD up to 40Gb, adding a modem, better sound card and adding a DVD drive.
My next machine was built from parts ordered online and is still in service today running as my media server in the lounge room. I've had laptops over the years, too, mainly second hand (my first new one was loaded with W7 and I literally wore the keys out on that one). My main work device is a Toshiba Lappie that was new when Windows 10 was first released though it only came with Windows 8 on it. I also acquired numerous other computers and bits, over the years and have several ex govt desktops in various states of dismemberment and re-animation (like Frankenstein) all now running Mint.
I know I've missed a lot, can't remember how, or where I got lots from, have purchased new, at auction, or "inherited" from all and sundry. I've just had a clean up of my computer "spares", realistically, what is the need to keep a dozen dial up modems? even 40GB hard drives are small by today's standards. How would some of the kids today survive with a Z80 and a keyboard.
