Ooh, storm, you had the dual-clocked 486 didn't you? Excellent I remember those were the beasts of their day.
I think my dad's work computer was dc'd to 55mhz if I remember correctly. And indeed, the math coprocessor that came with the DX made for an awesome system. Well, at least way back then.
Ahh... so VESA is a card format too? Hmm, now I'm confused. I'm going to have to see if I can dig up that card and figure out if it's a VESA or an ISA. I'm still pretty sure it's an ISA, but it was a 16 bit one. I remember it was wide enough that it almost didn't fit in the first tower computer case I owned. (that tower was a Pentium 166 (Not MMX, we bought it about 6 months before MMX came out... bummer)
Ooh, storm, you had the dual-clocked 486 didn't you? Excellent I remember those were the beasts of their day.
Indeed they were. I briefly got my hands on one of the DX4/100's, which was a fucking monster. The guy that ran the local BBS had come across it and was selling it, but because the heat sink said it was a DX/33 he assumed that's what it was (rather than checking).
Yeah, no.
The problem is that the heat sink on it was made for a DX/33 (obviously)...so it didn't dissipate nearly enough heat to keep that DX4/100 happy. It would run for like 10 minutes then crash from overheating. Then I had a brilliant idea. Left the case open, and I set a shot glass with an ice cube on top of it...just sitting right on top of the heat sink. I'd have to swap out the shot glass every hour or so, but it made Tie Fighter my bitch.
Then I ended up giving it back to the guy because I was an honest person. But damn, that was a fun week.
I basically skipped straight from that DX/33 (which I eventually got a "real" one) to a Duron 733. And from the Duron to a Athlon X2 4000...though I had a PowerBook (G4, not an Intel) for the last year or so before the upgrade.
I scoff at the upgrade treadmill. I have consoles to keep me warm. Though this Athlon is still serving me well at the moment.
EDIT: Also, it was probably double-clocked to 50, as I think most of the 486's were either at 25MHz or 33MHz or multiples thereof. Though I think towards the end there were also straight 50's (rather than DX2/50's).
I think the 386/486 era was where I was most intimately familiar with the range of hardware, though it's been so long I have largely forgotten about most of it (like forgetting about VLB).
I got one for Christmas when I was 13, and I never looked back. It was a whole world of wonder to me, even though I only had a 17" black and white tv to play it on. And then, when I got the disc drive, it really flew...
Rohan on
...and I thought of how all those people died, and what a good death that is. That nobody can blame you for it, because everyone else died along with you, and it is the fault of none, save those who did the killing.
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
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Also VESA conflicts when installing or running just about anything on early VGA systems. Loved that one.
Dear lord the nightmares...
If anyone nowadays thinks that they have trouble installing anything in their computers, try installing one of these. They sometimes took enough force that was likely to snap the board (alot of times due to shitty PCB fabbing). Couple that with some of the worst-designed, standards-less, sharp-cornered cases. I'm lucky to still have fingers now that I think about it.
Ah yes, I remember it well. Oh, the horrible old days. I think I still have a couple VESA cards sitting in a box somewhere.
EDIT: No, wait, they were ISA. I think VESA was before my time. ISA was pretty aweful too though.
Yeah I still have ISA cards lying around. Some machines at my last job actually still required them, that was a bitch to install. Now everything today is plug n play this, USB that, I tell you what you kids got it easy these days.
VESA was a video standards committee that basically fucked up everything they touched. This was back when Win3.1 was just becoming mainstream and programs had to be written to meet their (crappy) standards.
Ooh, storm, you had the dual-clocked 486 didn't you? Excellent I remember those were the beasts of their day.
Indeed they were. I briefly got my hands on one of the DX4/100's, which was a fucking monster. The guy that ran the local BBS had come across it and was selling it, but because the heat sink said it was a DX/33 he assumed that's what it was (rather than checking).
Yeah, no.
The problem is that the heat sink on it was made for a DX/33 (obviously)...so it didn't dissipate nearly enough heat to keep that DX4/100 happy. It would run for like 10 minutes then crash from overheating. Then I had a brilliant idea. Left the case open, and I set a shot glass with an ice cube on top of it...just sitting right on top of the heat sink. I'd have to swap out the shot glass every hour or so, but it made Tie Fighter my bitch.
Then I ended up giving it back to the guy because I was an honest person. But damn, that was a fun week.
I basically skipped straight from that DX/33 (which I eventually got a "real" one) to a Duron 733. And from the Duron to a Athlon X2 4000...though I had a PowerBook (G4, not an Intel) for the last year or so before the upgrade.
I scoff at the upgrade treadmill. I have consoles to keep me warm. Though this Athlon is still serving me well at the moment.
EDIT: Also, it was probably double-clocked to 50, as I think most of the 486's were either at 25MHz or 33MHz or multiples thereof. Though I think towards the end there were also straight 50's (rather than DX2/50's).
I think the 386/486 era was where I was most intimately familiar with the range of hardware, though it's been so long I have largely forgotten about most of it (like forgetting about VLB).
lol, that's awesome! Oh, and mentioning BBS' reminds me of some good times. That broken 486 laptop I had spent many a day playing Legend of the Red Dragon on its 9600 baud modem (which apparently was the God of modems at the time ). Maybe it was 4800... I can't remember. But I think it was 9600.
Also, that laptop I had? Epson. Back when Epson used to make laptops... I had forgotten about that. I remember years later I wanted to see if I could resurrect it, and the Epson website had removed all evidence that they'd ever made laptops. There was some parts on E-Bay, but I've yet to see a working one ever again.
EDIT: WHOA! Last time I searched was years ago... but this time I searched I hit money... apparently either I didn't search the net well when I was a kid, or Epson found their old information and re-posted it:
I'm 90% sure that's the one. One thing I didn't realize though (which may mean it's actually a different model), is that it was actually an SX and not a DX processor inside... unless my memory was mistaken (as it's been several times in this thread ), and it was SX. No math coprocessor for me.
I'm even more sure it's my old model now... the manual has a picture of the annoying trackball you could connect to the side of the machine. I hated that thing.
Yeah, the DX2 66 was awesome. At least until those god damned pentiums showed up. Hummm.... Pentium 90's...
And yeah, there was a card standard called VESA Local Bus. It was like AGP, graphics only, and was an extension of the ISA bus. I had a VLB card, and it was required by some games in order to enable the highest graphic configs. They were long. I still have my ISA SB16, and it probably still works. I also still have my old 486 on my living room, waiting to be taken to a place the refurbishes old machines and use give them to poor communities. I remember when the little fan broke on the heat sink, and I just pointed a normal, 30cm fan at the open case. I had a lot of fun with that 486, played lots of Wing Commander and Ultima games on it.
IBM Personal System/2
I played such games such as the one where the babies would jump out of the window and the fireman had to bounce them to safety and Hardball. All in EGA baby!. I was a whiz back in the day with Lotus123.
My first computer was a TI-99/4A - the family computer:
Hey, mine too. With a couple of one-button joysticks for all the game cartriges. Plus some off-brand cassette tape recorder to save/load any custom programs you wrote. Nothing like having to listen to five minutes of screeching tape just to play a simple game.
4x CD-ROM drive (that plugged into the sound card)
They still do that, although I'm not sure why they bother anymore.
I bet his was like my first CD-Rom drive though - where the controller for the drive was actually on the sound card too. IIRC the ribbon cable that controlled the drive and the little CD sound wire thing both plugged right into the Sound Blaster cards.
Does anyone else remember when sound cards added wave table instruments for midi music? I recall it being a huge deal playing Doom on a friend's machine that had the Wave Blaster addon card and the music was insanely better than my old Sound Blaster.
The first computer my family had was a Packard Bell that had a 386sx Intel CPU. I couldn't find it on that website you linked, but this is what my dad said we had. We got it around 1990 and I guess it ran DOS 4.01. Dad said the processor ran at a blistering 16 MHz.
I was three at the time, so sorry I am not remembering all that well.
About what I had, first PC I bought for myself with my own cash. USAF just out of basic, bought from a Sears. Boy was I stupid.
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I think my dad's work computer was dc'd to 55mhz if I remember correctly. And indeed, the math coprocessor that came with the DX made for an awesome system. Well, at least way back then.
Ahh... so VESA is a card format too? Hmm, now I'm confused. I'm going to have to see if I can dig up that card and figure out if it's a VESA or an ISA. I'm still pretty sure it's an ISA, but it was a 16 bit one. I remember it was wide enough that it almost didn't fit in the first tower computer case I owned. (that tower was a Pentium 166 (Not MMX, we bought it about 6 months before MMX came out... bummer)
Indeed they were. I briefly got my hands on one of the DX4/100's, which was a fucking monster. The guy that ran the local BBS had come across it and was selling it, but because the heat sink said it was a DX/33 he assumed that's what it was (rather than checking).
Yeah, no.
The problem is that the heat sink on it was made for a DX/33 (obviously)...so it didn't dissipate nearly enough heat to keep that DX4/100 happy. It would run for like 10 minutes then crash from overheating. Then I had a brilliant idea. Left the case open, and I set a shot glass with an ice cube on top of it...just sitting right on top of the heat sink. I'd have to swap out the shot glass every hour or so, but it made Tie Fighter my bitch.
Then I ended up giving it back to the guy because I was an honest person. But damn, that was a fun week.
I basically skipped straight from that DX/33 (which I eventually got a "real" one) to a Duron 733. And from the Duron to a Athlon X2 4000...though I had a PowerBook (G4, not an Intel) for the last year or so before the upgrade.
I scoff at the upgrade treadmill. I have consoles to keep me warm. Though this Athlon is still serving me well at the moment.
EDIT: Also, it was probably double-clocked to 50, as I think most of the 486's were either at 25MHz or 33MHz or multiples thereof. Though I think towards the end there were also straight 50's (rather than DX2/50's).
I think the 386/486 era was where I was most intimately familiar with the range of hardware, though it's been so long I have largely forgotten about most of it (like forgetting about VLB).
I got one for Christmas when I was 13, and I never looked back. It was a whole world of wonder to me, even though I only had a 17" black and white tv to play it on. And then, when I got the disc drive, it really flew...
Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
They still do that, although I'm not sure why they bother anymore.
Yeah I still have ISA cards lying around. Some machines at my last job actually still required them, that was a bitch to install. Now everything today is plug n play this, USB that, I tell you what you kids got it easy these days.
VESA was a video standards committee that basically fucked up everything they touched. This was back when Win3.1 was just becoming mainstream and programs had to be written to meet their (crappy) standards.
lol, that's awesome!
Also, that laptop I had? Epson. Back when Epson used to make laptops... I had forgotten about that. I remember years later I wanted to see if I could resurrect it, and the Epson website had removed all evidence that they'd ever made laptops. There was some parts on E-Bay, but I've yet to see a working one ever again.
EDIT: WHOA! Last time I searched was years ago... but this time I searched I hit money... apparently either I didn't search the net well when I was a kid, or Epson found their old information and re-posted it:
This was my very old laptop
I'm 90% sure that's the one. One thing I didn't realize though (which may mean it's actually a different model), is that it was actually an SX and not a DX processor inside... unless my memory was mistaken (as it's been several times in this thread
I'm even more sure it's my old model now... the manual has a picture of the annoying trackball you could connect to the side of the machine. I hated that thing.
(Picture for those that don't feel like messing with a PDF)
And yeah, there was a card standard called VESA Local Bus. It was like AGP, graphics only, and was an extension of the ISA bus. I had a VLB card, and it was required by some games in order to enable the highest graphic configs. They were long. I still have my ISA SB16, and it probably still works. I also still have my old 486 on my living room, waiting to be taken to a place the refurbishes old machines and use give them to poor communities. I remember when the little fan broke on the heat sink, and I just pointed a normal, 30cm fan at the open case. I had a lot of fun with that 486, played lots of Wing Commander and Ultima games on it.
This was my first. 8K of RAM, full keyboard, productivity software, the ability to write to tape via a proprietary SIO... it was glorious.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I played such games such as the one where the babies would jump out of the window and the fireman had to bounce them to safety and Hardball. All in EGA baby!. I was a whiz back in the day with Lotus123.
Followed a few years later by a Digital Rainbow 100 - also a family computer:
This later had an expansion card installed called an RBG Link -- which was a fully functional IBM 286 PC.
The first machine I bought and built for myself was an IBM 286, 16Mhz with 640K RAM, CGA graphics card and an Ad-Lib Sound card.
I played asteroids on it for hours.
It had so much character
Woo, what fun.
Hey, mine too. With a couple of one-button joysticks for all the game cartriges. Plus some off-brand cassette tape recorder to save/load any custom programs you wrote. Nothing like having to listen to five minutes of screeching tape just to play a simple game.
You plan on hacking the Gibson with that?
I bet his was like my first CD-Rom drive though - where the controller for the drive was actually on the sound card too. IIRC the ribbon cable that controlled the drive and the little CD sound wire thing both plugged right into the Sound Blaster cards.
Does anyone else remember when sound cards added wave table instruments for midi music? I recall it being a huge deal playing Doom on a friend's machine that had the Wave Blaster addon card and the music was insanely better than my old Sound Blaster.
About what I had, first PC I bought for myself with my own cash. USAF just out of basic, bought from a Sears. Boy was I stupid.