My first computer experience (aside from the Atari 2600) was with a Macintosh Classic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Classic) in elementary school. It had a GUI and I remember being amused with the mouse pointer and opening things. I guess manipulating anything on a screen was interesting to me, so just being able to type and print stuff was pretty cool in 1st grade. Of course we played some educational games like Math Blaster and Number Munchers, but the one I recall the most was this math drag racing game called Turbo Math Facts. You had to solve math problems to earn cash to beat "Turbo Tom", to the worried screams of the computer:
I bring up the Mac Classic because there is a MiSTer core for it. In fact there are MiSTer cores for every computer up to the 486. I missed out on the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Tandy, and most DOS games and the MiSTer has become sanctuary for those old machines I don't have the space for.
BUT since this is a real hardware post, we eventually got a Packard Bell Legend Pentium 1 PC in the house in late '94 with it's share of, well, shareware and I've been playing PC games ever since. It came with this terrible educational dinosaur software I find myself thinking about too much. Mostly just played alot of DOOM on it. (Also I did make a virtual version of our Packard Bell in 86box which a great pre-Pentium 3 virtual PC Builder).
My first personal computer I could keep in my room was a budget PC that had an Athlon in it with a generic AGP graphics card we got at one of those big computer shows like this:
I remember playing basic 3D accelerated games like Motocross Madness, Midtown Madness, Half-Life, and Quake 3 Arena (plus that Bid For Power DBZ mod). Though these games felt more like objectiveless goof-off things than the "real" games on my N64 and PS1. I also was hesitant to buy PC games because I wasn't sure they would work on my computer. I still have fond memories of listening to my first MP3s in Winamp while cruising around in Midtown Madness though.
I guy I worked with put a Pentium 4 machine and a 9800 Pro into the case, and I still have it as an XP machine. I then had connections to get a bunch of media so I actually watched and listened to more stuff than played games (plus we didn't have the internet yet). I wasn't a mouse and keyboard person until about 2009, preferring the old Sidewinder or 360 controller. I did use a OG Xbox breakaway cable a friend converted to USB for a while too.
I also still have a Windows 7 machine where I first really got into PC gaming, around the time when the shader enabled GTX cards and Quad core CPUs started destroying the 360 and PS3 in terms of performance. I still think it feels pretty modern though with a 560ti and a Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition.
I do like watching videos of YouTube of all that old tech that I remember seeing but never owning. I didn't really know much about computers in the 90s, so it's interesting to see all that in a different context. I just knew the expensive ones were faster and the games took effort to run and play. Now getting the game to run practically is more fun the game itself.
