Post your old computers here!

[Scenic]

Re: Post your old computers here!

the oldest pc thats still in use would be my laptop...

Toshiba Satellite Pro 4320

PIII 600 (with SpeedStep)
256MB SD-RAM
20GB IBM HDD
Panasonic Combo drive (CDRW + DVD-ROM)
8MB S3 Savage IX << really sucks.. drivers are crap and if u get them working theres still no "power"... -.-
14" TFT
4 batteries ()
10/100 LAN (Xircom)
11MBit/s WLAN/WiFi (AMD AM1772)

well....

the oldest i have ..hmm...

not talking about the commodore C64 (who doesnt own one of them?!) this would be:

Amstrad / Schneider PC1640SD

i8086 8MHz
640KB RAM
20MB MFM HDD
integrated ("onboard") CGA graphics
8Bit ISA VGA Card (256KB)
8Bit Soundblaster

my old gaming rig would fit somewhere between my laptop and the (at least) 15 other PCs i've got ..

copied from another thread..

my first self-built PC has a Chaintech 6ESA2 mainboard (Slot1, intel EX chipset) with unknown caps ("G-Cap" ?! probably G-Luxon?!) but its still going strong without any issues at all.

running a 433MHz Celeron (S370 ; Mendocino) on a Slotket adapter overclocked to 541MHz (83MHz FSB)
it's my Win98SE retro gaming system (with a GeForce 2 GTS (32MB DDR) and 2 Voodo II 12MB in SLI + a classic Soundblaster 16 ISA (non-PnP)

has the same DVD Drive as newbie2s old rig.. the horribly slow (zZz) Hitachi GD-2500..
at least its quiet... no wonder at max 4x for DVDs lol
other drives i bought over time for lots of money...:
Teac CD-540E (40x CD-ROM .. best error correction ever)
Teac CD-W54E (4x4x24 CDRW)

yeah.. 3 optical drives..
plus...:
Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI Controller
2x IBM Ultrastar 9ES (DDRS-39130) 9.1GB 7200rpm SCSI HDD (68pin LVD)

[zandrax]

Re: Post your old computers here!

My first computer was the old Olivetti M240 my father had replaced for a 486: an XT compatible with an Intel 8086 clocked at 10 MHz, 640 KB of memory, 20 MB Connor hard disk, 5 1/4" SD floppy driver, 3.5" SD floppy driver, monochrome adapter with a 12" green phosphor monitor (later replaced with an EGA graphic card and a Philips 14" color monitor), a set of manuals about the computer, Dos and GWBasic and a ESC/P code 9 dots matrix printer, an Olivetti PR15B.
It was my workbench: I studied those manuals, knew ASCII tables, learned a bit of Basic and Pascal, configured autoexec.bat and config.sys to free a few kbit more of ram, tried unsuccessfully to install Windows 3.0 (no way without extended memory), played a lot of CGA and EGA games I still enjoy (anyone knows Alley Cat?). Both pc and printer are still working, sometimes I run a few programs.

To be continued ...

Zandrax

[Scenic]

Re: Post your old computers here!

i loved Jill of the Jungle back then

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_of_the_Jungle

oh... and Jazz Jackrabbit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Jackrabbit_%28game%29

[mjjohanson]

Re: Post your old computers here!

I built my first system in 1991 using a 486 motherboard with 16 memory slots. Filled them all up with 1MB 30 pin RAM. Ran a 1024 x 768 video card and a 17" monitor. Hot, hot stuff. Ran that machine until 2001 (no kidding) when I built my next system using dual 1GHZ PIIIs on a VP6 with 1G of RAM. Had a dualhead 1600 x 1200 video card with a pair of 21" monitors that weigh 80lbs each. Even through the board had been recapped, two failed and fried a VRM a couple of weeks back so I am now upgrading once again. This time to a dual tualatin on a GigaByte board from the prodigious kc8adu. Lots of life left in too many of the old parts. Maybe in three years I will look into something new.

[370forlife]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Lets see....

IBM PCjr, 8086 4.77mhz, original ibm monitor and keyboard + 300bps modem Cassette basic

DSI Intel 80386DX 25mhz, 8mb ram, 210mb WD ATA hard drive, 2x cd rom, 5 1/4 1.2mb floppy, 3.5" 1.44mb floppy. Windows 3.11 for workgroups (has a ISA network card, and is set up on ATT uverse high speed.)

"xbox" made by KAMSC students, Abit BP6, 266mhz (oc'd to 450mhz no sweat,) celeron slot 1, 256mb ram (upgraded from 64mb,) Viper V330 4mb AGP 2x card, 3gb WDC (upgraded to xp, so its only for windows,) 15gb Quantum as the hard drive to install things on. Sound blaster 16 ISA sound card, 10/100 3com "flash" network card, 32x Mitsumi cd-rom, AOpen beige case.

(first computer,) Compaq presario 4712, 166mhz p1, 64mb ram (48mb EDO ram, 16mb on board,) 2.5gb quanum bigfoot, S3 Trio 64 2mb integraded video card, sound blaster 16 integraded sound card, 2x cd-rom drive, 56K dial up modem (blazing fast in the day when we use to have AOL.)

[pentium]

Re: Post your old computers here!

You had a PCjr? You still got it?
Did it have the horrible keyboard or the updated typewriter keyboard?
I have heard that the PCjr was a complete joke.

[370forlife]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Still got it, got it for free (I'm not that old to where I bought it when it was new ,) idk what keyboard it is, its the original one, all I know is that the keys feel like they weigh 60 pounds, and the space bar 60 tons.

Ohh ya, I also have a apple IIgs signed by Steve Wozniac.

[pentium]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Still got it, got it for free (I'm not that old to where I bought it when it was new ,) idk what keyboard it is, its the original one, all I know is that the keys feel like they weigh 60 pounds, and the space bar 60 tons.

Ohh ya, I also have a apple IIgs signed by Steve Wozniac.

The Original one looked like this:

Ugh!

I git a signature Woz IIgs here as well. It's got (among other things) a 20Mb vulcan drive installed.

[370forlife]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Must be the typewriter one then, its big, and white. They keys are a light brown

[dood]

Re: Post your old computers here!

I had a Woz IIgs for a while. Went to the recyclers like all my other Apple stuff.

[gdement]

Re: Post your old computers here!

I built my first system in 1991 using a 486 motherboard with 16 memory slots. Filled them all up with 1MB 30 pin RAM. Ran a 1024 x 768 video card and a 17" monitor. Hot, hot stuff.

Damn, I would have drooled over that!
Did you fill the memory when you built it, or do you mean later on? I remember 30-pin simms costing about $50/megabyte back when we upgraded our 386, and that was in 1992 I think. That ram is still used on a couple AWE32 sound cards now.

[mjjohanson]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Filled it when I built it. I was running AutoCAD a lot at the time and it made a huge difference in performance.

[zandrax]

Re: Post your old computers here!

[continue]

In late 1998 my father bought two computers: a Pentium II replacing its aging 486 (early 1993) as an office workstation and a K6-II as an home computer.
The 486 used a sturdy big tower of the era, a Soyo mobo (UMC chipset) with 256 KB cache, an Intel 486 DX 33, 8 MB of ram (quite expensive at the time), a Trident vga card (cheap side here), a 100 MB IDE hard disk and a 15" MAG monitor. The monitor was replaced with another one, but even the second one showed blurry images and sometimes the screen was dizzy: it was the most unreliable part of the pc; my father replaced the 100 MB disk with an infamous Seagate ST3660A (545 MB) due to low capacity and the Seagate was replaced later with a 1.2GB Maxtor due to broken heads, the design defect of the model [learnt the importance of a backup the hard way].
When I got it as my personal pc, I added first a Sony 24x cd player, then a cheap SB compatible card; started customizing Win 3.1, tweaking the bios (lowering ram latencies, I brought ram bandwith from 17 to a whopping 40 MB/s ...), programming in VB (bad habit, I agree) and Turbo Pascal for Windows (before Borland called it Delphi), overclocking the cpu at 40 MHz (failed, it was unstable) and installed Windows 95 in dual booting. Then the soldered NiCd battery went nuts so I replaced the motherboard and changed other hardware pieces overtime as they died or were uncompatible with the newer parts: now the case hosts my retrogaming config [mobo LS P55CE, Pentium 100S, 32 MB Edo, 6 GB Samsung hdd, 5 1/4" and 3.5" HD floppies, Creative 36x cd player (spring based tray), Ati Mach64 2 MB + 3dfx Voodoo 2 12 MB (upper cards), Creative SB Pro Value (the lowest one), Ati Lance Ethernet card]. Sturdy keyboard anyway, I still enjoy it.


[To be continued ]

Zandrax

[370forlife]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Oh my god, that thing is 6 feet tall! Too bad the 486 cpu went away. Those batteries can be replaced. If it was the Dallas clock chip, there are certain pins that you can solder leads to for a external battery, if it was one of those batteries comprised of 3 or 4 batteries soldered onto two leads sticking up out of the motherboard, you simply take a flat head screw driver and pry away the leads as much as possible, then take a pair of tweezers and pull! Then solder on wires to the existing leads to a external battery. A lot of those systems also had a external battery connector, too. Also, correct me if i'm wrong, but you have it running a ATI Mach 64 and a 3dfx Voodoo 2 12mb, are they like sli'd in a way? How do you do that?

I, too like the old 486/pent 1 era huge gaming machines. I have a old quantex QP5 pentium, it was kind of the baseline version. 75mhz socket 5 p1, 16mb EDO ram, (originally) 832mb WD hard drive, now a 3gb Western digital, 2x Lite-on cd rom, Biostar motherboard, Biostar Creative sound blaster compatable sound card, S3 64 Trio 2mb pci (very fast, allows this to actually run videos, I have a episode of family guy I watch on it.) Runs windows 95.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Someone brought me a Dual CPU 386 server to fix once. - That was pretty unusual.
Don't remember much other than it was a Compaq tower and about everything looked to be proprietary.
Only needed a PSU. At least that wasn't proprietary.
.

[pentium]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Dual 386?
I was always told that according to they way the 386 and 486 were designed, it was impossible to use more than one processor in a system.

[gdement]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Dual 386?
I was always told that according to they way the 386 and 486 were designed, it was impossible to use more than one processor in a system.

Could be, but that doesn't really make it impossible. Just means Intel didn't support it natively. It probably had some glue logic in the board design to make it work.

I'm pretty sure similar things were done with later processors also. Pentium Pro for example I think maxes out at 4 CPUs natively, but there are 8-way systems out there.

Taking it to a bigger extreme, every once in a while a supercomputer gets designed with an insane number of x86 chips in it.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Read under Multiprocessing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Systempro

[Hondaman]

Re: Post your old computers here!

My first system? Tower case with VEGA 386 motherboard, yes, with SIXTEEN (16) 30-pin RAM sockets. Symphony 360 chipset. 386DX-40. 120-meg Maxtor that had 4 different jumper settings for geometry. I think one of the jumper settings gave 130 megs, I guess I could have reformatted if I wanted. Don't know if clock would work after 1999, but I still have the system. One meg ISA Diamond SpeedStar, 256 colors max, 14" color monitor.

Later I added a 387DX-40 math-co, CD-ROM, SB32 (not AWE32, but SB32) and more memory. $43/meg or $499 for 16 megs. Had to send the 16 MB back -- Packard Bell developed "fake parity" RAM and many people used it. But it wouldn't work with my existing true-parity RAM. And some combinations (16 one-meg SIMMS) weren't recognized, even if all were true-parity.

Panasonic KX-P 2124 dot matrix (24-pin), I overspent there.

Oh, yeah. Paid extra for the Northgate Omni-Key 101, the "tactile" keyboard that I still use every day, even right now. *_Worth_* *_every_* *_penny_*, I did NOT overspend there.

Since then, a number of systems. But you never forget your first one, right?

[370forlife]

Re: Post your old computers here!

Someone brought me a Dual CPU 386 server to fix once. - That was pretty unusual.
Don't remember much other than it was a Compaq tower and about everything looked to be proprietary.
Only needed a PSU. At least that wasn't proprietary.
.

Are you sure it wasen't a 386 with a 387 math co? Sometimes there are even motherboards that have a socket for a intel 386, then theres a socket for a 386 clone, so you could run a intel 386, or remove it and run a clone 386.