for a long time I had tape drive. After, I think 2-3 years, I persuaded my parents to buy me a disk drive..

C64. I had it for around a year until I got an Amiga 500. Which I upgraded to 1mb to play games like Elvira. My favourite computer of all time, so many hours of pure classic gaming and computing. :(

Those were the days.

Atari 2600 ---> C64 ---> Amiga 600 ---> Amiga 1200

Macintosh Performa 475.

Still works beautifully, albeit upgraded to 36 MB RAM (from the original 4 MB) and 4 GB HDD (originally 150 MB), and with an added PDS-slot network card.

Modern websites do give it some trouble as neither iCab 2.99, Netscape navigator 4.0, Internet Explorer 4, nor Cyberdog 2 aren't very well accounted for by web developers today (not that Cyberdog ever was).

C-64 + lots of tapes :D
and later on:
486 DX-4 100MHz - a real rocket back then...

Microbee 64. 4 Mhz of blindingly fast monochrome graphics! And a tape drive.
Thanks to that system, to this day green phosphor looks high tech to me :)

No idea what our parents had back in those days, but I do remember that it cost the equivalent of about 3000 euros and it ran DOS. It has affected my life considerably, since all of my friends freeze completely when a computer program throws a black-and-white screen at them, whereas I do not. Also, it introduced me to computer games in the form of Grand Prix Circuits, Xenon 2, Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of Destiny and, of course, Doom. Never mind that I was about four or five years old back then, I quickly learnt how to boot the thing and start a game and all such necessities. Thanks, mom, for letting your kids play with the very expensive and very delicate thing.

The first one I owned myself was an HP Pavilion DV 9540 or something. It was a 17" laptop which liked cooking its insides every thirteen months and therefore made me lose faith in all HP products.

I don't remember since I was only 5 back them.I remember that my cousin gave it to me with WC3 and 4,Crusader:No Remorse,Ultima 8,SimCity 2000 and System Shock.

This: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/enterprise_prog.html

Cheating a little - but it was programmable (89 steps if I remember correctly). I took the "moon lander" example game that you had to key in each time you wanted to play, converted it onto the schools Apple II and passed my Sixth Year Studies course.

The manuals that came with it were amazing - that moon lander game came with the complete set of mathematical equations (and we're talking imaginary numbers here) it was based on.

The first "real" computer I owned would be the Amiga 500. Ah, them were the days - 1.8MB memory expansion for £200 taking it up to a whopping 2.3MB.

The first computer I owned was an x86 xt with a turbo button that similated a 286 in performance. That computer lasted until my father chunked down the money for a Pentium 100 Mhz computer that came with a cd drive.

My memory's hazy but I think there was a 286 from work he used in between those two. The first actual pc I personally owned was a 386 SX when I was 18. By the time I got it I couldn't use it for much other than the old games I had from when I lived with my father. I killed it by installing Win 95 on it.

I can't remember what it was, but I think mine (well, my older brother's, actually) was XT first for a few years before moving on to AT. I could be remembering incorrectly though.

C64. Still got it, though i need to change one ram chip. Luckily i've got a C64C which works perfectly.
I think this is the third 'first computer' thread i'm posting in. ;P

Apple ][ Plus with tape drive.

First compatible was a 286-16.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum with RAM pack. Followed by an Amiga 500

I played so many Level 9 text adventures and Ultimate games on the speccy. I still have them somewhere.

TRS-80 Color Computer. Then an 80x88 IBM compatible.