I have been interested in computers since roughly the age of 8, when my parents bought a green-screen Amstrad PCW 8256, with 256k of RAM and 2 3" floppy drives. It ran CP/M, and gave me my first taste of computing (well, I also used BBCs/Acorns of various sorts at school)
On this, and later a PCW 9512, I tried out a bit of programming, and generally learnt the fundamentals of a computer.
Next up, in 1993, came a 386 SX-25 with 1 meg RAM, with a monochrome monitor. God was I frustrated by trying to play games on that! It did have a modem though - 2400 bps :) It also eventually had a soundcard and game gard. That machine, with the 9512, died a few years ago (however, as of 1999 the 8256 is still in operation!)
Next up, in late 1994, was a 486 DX/2, 8 megs of RAM, and *wow* a colour monitor. It came with Windows 3.11, which eventually got "upgraded" to Windows 95, with the addition of another 8 megs of RAM.
Although I joke about the upgrade to Windows 95, this did get me involved in many new computer things, and my first extensive access to the Internet was with this: first Compuserve, then when I saw sense, Netcom UK. Nowadays my internet access is provided by JANet (via Oxford University) and at home, with a cable modem [I'd link to Ntl's site, but it's horrible, so I won't]
Well, the 486 steadily became more and more annoyingly slow, so I eventually bit the bullet and in January 1999 bought a nice new Pentium II computer, named Callisto (see below for its specifications). After a month or two of annoying problems with the machine (the whole unit eventually had to be replaced) callisto became a dream to use. I intermittently played with Linux, and installed 98lite which vastly improved Windows performance. I now almost exclusively use Linux on callisto, apart from the occasional boot into Windows for gaming and a few other things. (At the time of update, July 2002, I haven't booted Windows for a year or so). Several upgrades have been made to what was a fairly budget machine, and callisto now resembles the Ship of Theseus.
I used to have quite a few computers, but that collecting obsession has died down in recent years.
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