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What's your spec (old-school version)?
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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by satchmo on Wed Jun 29th at 12:03am 2005

Inspired by MoneyShot's "What's this" thread, I want to know whether you can remember the specs of your first PC.

For me, it goes back to 1986, when hairs were big and ties were thin (and Michael Jackson was a well-respected pop superstar).

It was a 80286, an IBM clone. I can't even remember the speed, but it could be 8 MHz. I think it had a huge 128k of RAM, and an enormous HDD (6 MB). I ran programs at a stunning resolution of 640x480, with 16 colors! I was so thrilled that it could display colors like cyan and magenta. Come on, it's magenta we're talking about.

I was going to keep it forever, but it stopped booting up ten years later. Now it's probably sitting around at a Chinese landfill in Shanghai, cold and hungry.

Hold on, I need a break....I can't continue anymore.




"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by Spartan on Wed Jun 29th at 12:14am 2005

My first comp was a 200mhz Packard Bell with I think around 32mb of ram. This was in 1996.




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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by Foxpup on Wed Jun 29th at 12:23am 2005

1994

Intel 486DX2 (66 MHz - is that fast, or what?)
Local Bus VESA (640x480x8 - that's a whopping 256 colours)
32Mb XMS (a lot of RAM back in those days)
1Gb Hard Disc (yes, a whole gigabyte)
1.44Mb 3.5" Floppy Disk (cool, right?)
4x CD-ROM (an amazing four times the speed of a normal CD player)
Creative Labs AWE 32-bit Stereo Sound (yes, 32 bit)
Roland Sound Canvas GM-GS Capital Tones MPU-401 (neat, eh?)

The last two items comprise a sound system that's fairly advanced even by today's standards (and it cost a helluvalotta money, btw)

I still use this machine for playing old DOS classics.


Better to be in denial than to be human.

Bill Gates understands binary: his company is number one, and his customers are all zeros.



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by satchmo on Wed Jun 29th at 12:41am 2005

Man, Foxpup, that was an uber machine back in 1994. You musta ownd all your neighborhood.


"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by wil5on on Wed Jun 29th at 1:11am 2005

My first computer, that actually belonged to me, was a compaq 486/66. It wouldve been 1996 or 97... it was an evil machine that rejected anything not-compaq you put in it. I bought a sound card and cdrom for it, the sound card only worked when you turned the computer on, exited win 3.1 then started it again. The cdrom never worked. Not long after I got that computer, I got given a 386, and so the collection began. My next computer was a 686/100, it could play the half-life demo (well, you could run through the first map, but when you went through a level change it crashed <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/sad.gif"> ). Then in early 2001, a 1ghz duron. It was so cool that I suddenly had 10x the cpu speed.

I still have *all* of these computers, plus a few 486s, ranging from separate parts to built machines.




&quot;If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?&quot;
- My yr11 Economics teacher



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by satchmo on Wed Jun 29th at 1:26am 2005

I never kept any of my old computers. I usually gut them, taking out whatever I can salvage, and dump them. Sounds cruel, but I don't have a lot of storage space to spare.

My last computer is still at my parents' place. It can run Half-Life 2, but not well. It cannot run Far Cry. It was a Celeron 1.1 GHz with 512 MB of PC330 and Radeon 9200.




"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by Forceflow on Wed Jun 29th at 8:31am 2005

1994

386 SX
2 mb RAM
MS-Dos



:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by NameWithHeld on Wed Jun 29th at 8:46am 2005

my first computer is still my current computer.
i am so poor, what am i to do?





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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by pepper on Wed Jun 29th at 9:40am 2005

Commedore 64, cant recall the year.



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by Andrei on Wed Jun 29th at 10:56am 2005

My first computer was a pentium 90 with 4mb/ram, a 8mb video card (a virge i think)and a 760 mb HDD .I used to play 3d blocks on my dad's spectrum before getting this machine though.




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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by ReNo on Wed Jun 29th at 12:52pm 2005

My first was also a Commodore 64, and as I don't recall life before it, I figure I had it since I was really young. I then went on to an Amiga 500+, which lasted me a long long time and I loved to bits. After getting a Playstation I took a bit of a break from "computers", until I got my first proper PC just a few months before HL1 came out. It was a Pentium2 400mhz, with 64mb (I think) or RAM, a 4Gb hard drive, an ATI xpert@play graphics card with 8mb of VRAM, some yamaha sound card, and a 17" monitor that has served me well to this day <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">




Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by Dred_furst on Wed Jun 29th at 1:42pm 2005

My first pc was in 1992 and that was a bbc micro model B



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by gimpinthesink on Wed Jun 29th at 3:19pm 2005

My first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2 128K and it was the model that had the built in tape drive it came out in around 1986/7 and I still had it untill the other year when my mum threw it out just cos it wouldnt load any games but I could program in basic on it.

Here's its specs

an after that I had a Acorn Archimedes A3010 or A3020 I carnt remember which one it was now I think it was the A3010 cos I think it had green F keys. I got that in about 1992/3/4 it was one of those years


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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by rs6 on Wed Jun 29th at 4:27pm 2005

My first computer was a 286 and thats all I remeber. I had when it was VERY outdated. I always got hand-me downs from my dad.



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by habboi on Wed Jun 29th at 4:36pm 2005

Pentium 3, broken sound card so games crashed...
2mb ram, crappy Gateway make.

TBH it was rubbish and now this new Dell with Radeon 9800, 3MB Ram, 2.5ghz processor is great.




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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by rs6 on Wed Jun 29th at 4:39pm 2005

? quote:
Pentium 3, broken sound card so games crashed...

2mb ram, crappy Gateway make.


TBH it was rubbish and now this new Dell with Radeon 9800, 3MB Ram, 2.5ghz processor is great.


2mb of RAM and 3mb of RAM.....are you sure?



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by satchmo on Wed Jun 29th at 4:44pm 2005

I can't believe my parents spent over $2000 for my first PC. It was that 286 I mentioned earlier. I've never spent so much on a computer ever since.

And that's not even with inflation figured in. It was probably more like $3000, considering it was 1986.




"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by Crono on Wed Jun 29th at 6:05pm 2005

First computer ever, was around 1985, wasn't mine until 1990 or so. Machintosh Plus. Oh yeah, that's right, 32Mhz ... 1 whole meg of ram, upgradable to 4. No HDD, No color, fun ass games, and a printer that never left a repair shop. (Same with our first VCR, seems my parents weren't very smart when it came to fixing stuff, since it'd be cheaper to buy a new whatever then to take it to sleezebag electronics repair men) The Mac was $1500. *Jaw drops*

Then, we had a 286 something or other, IBM monitor, if I remember properly. I remember, I bought a Micro Star release of Duke Nukem 2, which I could never play, ever, because the FDD was low density and the disc was high density.

After that (many years later) got a 486 and used Windows for the first time, probably around 1996 or so. Had some sort of other computer I can't remember at the same time.

Then, I got the first non-hand-me-down (this is about three years before the Mac blows the video, lasted a good 12 years though) it was a 233 Mhz Pentium, stocked up to about 300Mb of ram (1998 or so) and I think I finally got a 3D card: VooDoo Banshee, which still works fine (Had a Diamond Stealth lying around, sadly, by the time I got an AGP port it was severly out dated)

Then I had another computer, I built, didn't choose the parts though, 533Mhz Celeron, FIC motherboard (disgusting), 512 Mb ram PC133, and I finally got a GeForce 2 (MX440 <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/sad.gif">), all it needs now is a fan and it'd work.

Then, I made a HUGE upgrade some years later to a XP 1700+ and 512Mb PC2700, 60 GB IBM HDD, something else ... oh GeForce 4 Ti4200. And one more minor upgrade a couple years later to 512Mb PC3200, blah blah blah.

I say it's time for another upgrade, but I don't have money.

But pretty much all the computers that have ever been in my house have been custom made. It's just half the time, my dad jacked some of the parts from work and we had a pain in the ass time using them because he got some obscure board that had some weird socket that we couldn't find for a decent price. He brought home the Diamond card in like 1997 too, the year it came out. Would have been sweet to use at the time.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by satchmo on Wed Jun 29th at 10:03pm 2005

Have any of you used Windows 2.0? I remember the first time I saw it, and I was just blown away. The GUI looked amazing compared to any DOS program.

Just think...Windows blowing me away with its graphics.




"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge



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 Re: What's your spec (old-school version)?
Posted by Andrei on Wed Jun 29th at 10:10pm 2005

I have. After an entire life of using something that resembled norton commander via dos, it was enchanted by how user-friendly this mystical OS was.





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