My first computer I got for my own money was the Dell Inspiron  XPS:

TRS80 Model 4

or does the HP 97 count?

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/personalsystems/0041/0041sixviews.html

Counts very well.

I wish I still had the old TI I loved so much.

http://www.historycorner.de/CoCo4/Apple/macse30.html

Edit: Still have it at home, still working and also found the diskettes lately

Mine was an Apple IIe, wish I still had it, it would probably be worth a lot of money today to a collector.

we only had two choices at that time, this and some IBM computer.

Sinclair ZX80 developed by Sir Clive Sinclair 

CPU: NEC 780C-1 (copy of Z80) 3.25 MHz

1K static RAM, expandable to 16K

Use own TV as monitor!

Use domestic audio cassette recorder for magnetic storage!

4K ROM containing BASIC, Editor and Operating System

Those were the days!  

GMC2.... I now have that exact same computer....the only 'Apple' I ever had....was ripped off....paid $5 for it....;p

Intel 8088 processor @ 4.77 MHz, 128kb ram and 10mb hard drive(Canon 5d mkII camera file size 22mb for comparison), monochrome monitor

Pentium 1 @ 90 MHZ with Windows 95

My first computer was a unit called the Mattel Electronics Aquarius.

TI-99 then later I got an Atari 1200XL.

@esorah:

ernie leo .....that's the exact same XT I had....and the last one I saw of them was outside the room that houses CSIRAC....at the Museum....;)

I am with Dr JBHL  The slide rule

Commordore 64 with a tape drive - whoop.

Then I had a the Compaq PI dont recall the model but the one with the faullty floating point calculations.  lol

You were in high cotton!!  All I could get my hands on was a Commodore VIC-20. 

mine I paid $50 for second hand  and mostly just to keep my recipes and family tree on, and play games hehehe. it was similar to this one, it was an early apple mac, b&w

I am old school. Back in my day computers didn't have screens. THey had teletypewriters... or a single line LCD! Ahem. First computer I worked on was a MITS Altair 8800. Yeah. I went there.

The first "computer" I bought was technically a calculator, but you could do a lot of programming with it. And I did. Nerd cred. The HP-41c, back when HP knew how to make good products.

My first "real" computer was the Kaypro II, a Z-80 based SUPER computer with a real color (all green) screen and two, count them two, single sided floppy disks and a whopping 64K of RAM. Smokin.

Sure, I did use a slide rule before that, and my hands before that. I even used an abacus, go figure. But, those are really mechanical aides not electronic computers. So, I'll stick with above list. I think this list makes me old...

Yeah, and that Hannah creature [read bitch] ripped you off severely.

That POC [read, mechanical turd] was worth no more than a couple of bucks at best.

Frankly, it was the sort of thing you'd tie around a banker's neck before throwing him off the pier.

My first computer was a TRS80 Color Computer with a stunning 16k of memory and cartirdges and a tape drive.  My first gaming system was a microvision.  I still remember those lcd blocks.

IBM 386... the one with the "Turbo" button! We had Windows 3.1 and mainly used it for Wolfenstein 3D, Commander Keen & Tank Wars.

...and the graphics was amazing! I remember when I overclocked it! Smoke was coming out of BOTH ends!!!

The first that I purchased was an Amstrad PC-6400, I believe it was in 1987.

Specifications:

• 8086 at 8MHz
• 640k RAM
• One or two 360k 5.25" floppy drives; optional hard drive
• MDA, Hercules, CGA, Plantronics or EGA display compatibility
• MDA, CGA or EGA monitor (power supply is in the monitor)
• Four full sized 8-bit ISA slots (one hidden inside the case; the other three in the expansion bay)
• Battery-backed real time clock
• 75-key keyboard (XT-style, function keys on the left)
• Amstrad CPC-compatible joystick interface
• Software: MS-DOS 3.2, GEM 2.0, BASIC2 1.21