My first version of Mathematica was an alpha test on a 1/4 inch tape to run on a Sun Workstation in my office at NCSA in Illinois in the 80s. Given to me by Stephen to test long before it was called Mathematica. I may have been the first user outside of his actual developers, not sure. I used it mainly on SunOS, but later I had it on a NeXT machine, also in alpha test, I got from Jobs if memory serves. I had to hide the NeXT machine at home as no one was supposed to see it yet. I think I may have the tape somewhere in storage.

First version used was on an Apple (??) in college for a physics class ~1988. That professor went on to write a few Physics Lab books using Mathematica. Could not afford Apple machines let alone NeXT; so for home use I later purchased Mathematica 1.2 for 386 MS-DOS (1989?). Shorly after that I got a math co-processor and updated to 386/387 version of Mathematica. I could not find those boxes but it came with Stephen Wolfram's Mathematica Book "A System for..." and a few other manuals. I have upgraded and kept my license current since.

My first experience with Mathematica was with whatever version was included in my purchase of a neXt computer in late 1990. I no longer have it or any documentation included. It might be 1.n or 2. Does anybody know what vsn. that would have been?

version 2.2

A 3-ring conference binder, from back when we collected paper copies!

My first look to Mathematica 4.0 in college lab was as an advanced calculator. I learned first at calculus handouts written by two professors: Iara Braz and Cleide Rizzatto.

We basically solved limits, derivatives and integrals. The good part is that in the standard calculus classes with pen and paper we just solve didactic books exercises without context, and with Mathematica we were able to look at more real problems and give the dirty work to Mathematica, and focus on problem-solving as an engineer really works, modeling problems as differential and integral equations, and checking graphically the solutions.

Latter I read some Mathematica books and lots of tutorials and documentations on the WEB. Mathematica online documentation is a good place to learn too, since the beginning.

Nowadays, I look at Mathematica and Wolfram Language as a mature platform, not just for calculus but to do all kinds of advanced computation and application.

Wolfram Language makes me lazy!!! :-) When I need to do something in Java, Python or JavaScript. Those other languages require a lot of boilerplate to get to the real problem-solving, most in data science!

I appreciate the responses! They are all very interesting perspectives!!

Wow @George Woodrow III, that is interesting. Would be very nice if you post here a photo of the box of Mathematica V1.1, but I understand if you don't have the time.

Thank you George. Looks elegant, and the box is in great condition.