1988 vs 2008

[SpeedEng66]

Originally posted by: pm

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy

Originally posted by: brassbin
back in the days, could people buy parts and put together a system by themselves or you pretty much had to buy a prebuild?

No, It would be like building your own iPhone today, your only source of parts would be through the manufacturer. The few replacement parts that were available through RadioShack were hard to get and took weeks to deliver. Upgrading was the game, as larger ram and hardrives and CDrom came along pretty fast relatively speaking

I don't remember that to be true. I built my own 286 computer and then my own 386 later on. As I remember it, there were several smaller computer stores in my small town who sold all kinds of components. I bought my 286 from Rappaport Computers in Napa, California - I even remember exactly where the store was... and bought the motherboard, CPU (Intel for the 286, IBM for the 386 as I recall) and memory (which came as a series of DIP IC's in a tube as I remember... hard little things to swap... tough to take out). As I remember neither the 286 nor the 386 required heatsinks. They were in these gray ceramic packages...

There were fewer choices for components like motherboards, but there were more "mom & pop" stores selling home-brew computers, and computer components... at least in Napa. As I recall there were three small stores when I was growing up... There was Radio Shack too - but it was more much expensive compared to some of the smaller computer stores in town.

8088 I bought prebuilt
i never saw any pc shop until 386 were out
and at the time my choice was cyrix or intel cpu I picked cyrix (I thought they were all the same back then heh)

 

[thegisguy]

I remember going to into a local computer store in around 1991 or so wanting a 486 with a math co processor. The sales guy said "No way do you need that kind of power in a home computer, that would be over kill tens year from now".

Not exactly a visionary!

 

[Mondoman]

Originally posted by: cubeless...
we paid $5500 for first gen ibm pc's with 2 5.25 floppies - no hd at all......

Yep, had one of those and actually wore out floppy diskettes within 7-10 days by running compiles. It turned out Verbatim diskettes lasted the longest...
The engineers at my summer job were impressed that my PC had 576K of RAM!

 

[sgrinavi]

1983 We bought an original IBM XT, 640k RAM, 10 MB FDD, CGA graphics.. $7200! About $15k that in todays dollars.

We used it to run estimates for a large construction project that were we developing ($333M) using Lotus 123 and Dbase

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: pm

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy

Originally posted by: brassbin
back in the days, could people buy parts and put together a system by themselves or you pretty much had to buy a prebuild?

No, It would be like building your own iPhone today, your only source of parts would be through the manufacturer. The few replacement parts that were available through RadioShack were hard to get and took weeks to deliver. Upgrading was the game, as larger ram and hardrives and CDrom came along pretty fast relatively speaking

I don't remember that to be true. I built my own 286 computer and then my own 386 later on. As I remember it, there were several smaller computer stores in my small town who sold all kinds of components. I bought my 286 from Rappaport Computers in Napa, California - I even remember exactly where the store was... and bought the motherboard, CPU (Intel for the 286, IBM for the 386 as I recall) and memory (which came as a series of DIP IC's in a tube as I remember... hard little things to swap... tough to take out). As I remember neither the 286 nor the 386 required heatsinks. They were in these gray ceramic packages...

There were fewer choices for components like motherboards, but there were more "mom & pop" stores selling home-brew computers, and computer components... at least in Napa. As I recall there were three small stores when I was growing up... There was Radio Shack too - but it was more much expensive compared to some of the smaller computer stores in town.

Oh hellz yeah! Who doesn't remember getting giddy excited over receiving their newest mondo sized Computer Shopper magazine in the mail and drooling over the 100's of pages of mom & pop shops advertising computer parts?

Computer shopper got started in the early 80's, like 1982. I remember ordering parts for 386 computers out of it. Gosh that was an experience, truly the last time I remember feeling like a kid before Christmas. Of course the internet killed the main point of Computer Shopper, but I prefer Newegg to the days of yore.

 

[Markfw]

I forgot about computer shopper ! And after that was newegg, the store (or at the same time) I used to go with two friends, it was like being in a candy store !

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I forgot about computer shopper ! And after that was newegg, the store (or at the same time) I used to go with two friends, it was like being in a candy store !

Newegg actually operated a storefront? Color me jealous, I never got to experience such a dream. I have been inside a Fry's a few times, that was pretty sweet. Now that I live back north again I live vicariously thru internet storefronts only.

 

[Markfw]

Well, I was told (not positive) that the newegg store in Beaverton, OR (and possibly others) that they decided to go "internet only" when the store closed, actually the store was called "Egghead", and they told me it was newegg on the internet.

Can Anybody confirm that ? I only heard all rumors. And the name was funny and made sense if that was true.

Edit: From wikipedia:
Egghead Software was founded in 1984 as a computer software retail company. It grew into a chain with over 200 stores in the United States, and a few in Canada, primarily located in shopping malls. Faced with declining revenues, in 1998, the company shifted its focus to online business, closing its retail locations and selling entirely through its egghead.com website. Egghead.com was purchased by OnSale.com in 1999 and assumed the name Egghead.com.

Then I found this:<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.epinions.com/content_137432108676/show_~allcom">
'Dear Jason,

You are not the first person to question the connection between our two companies. There is no connection between NewEgg.com and the old EggHead Software. You wouldn't believe the volume of customers who write us emails declaring "EggHead is my favorite store!" or "I've been shopping with you since the old EggHead Software days." Huh? But seriously, there isn't any relation other than the fact that our names sound similar and may look so in writing, and that we both cater to computer users. It is evident though that they must have made some of their customers happy because they appear pleased to be shopping with them again, even though we must politely inform them that we are our own entity entirely.

Regards,

William Lazaro'
</a>

But I can say the feeling was the same as going to Fry's on black Friday, or newegg.com right after my tax rebate, or bonus check !

 

[myocardia]

You guys are forgetting about TigerDirect. They were around in the 80's, also. I think it was the late 80's, though, like '87 or '88. They would mail you a catalog, and when you were ready to order, you'd just call the 800 number. They were actually much better back then than they are now, since going online.

 

[Idontcare]

My recollection of TigerDirect (yeah I bought from them >10yrs ago) was that back in the day they were revered much as Newegg is today.

Then something happened. They got new management or something, and quickly they stopped being good deals (for my tastes anyways) and faded away from my radar screen.

Insight was pretty good for a while too. And atacom was good right around 2000. But now its just the egg for me. Nothing beat the rush of that Computer Shopper though.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Yeah, parts and building started durring the 286/386 era best I remember, definately not in the Tandy or early IBM 8088 days.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I forgot about computer shopper ! And after that was newegg, the store (or at the same time) I used to go with two friends, it was like being in a candy store !

HA!

Computer Shopper.

It was big enough to qualify for s ship's anchor. It would take a week to thumb through it and drool all over the pages

 

[imported_wired247]

10 @echo off
20 print "hello world"
30 goto 10
end


ftw.



I've had quite a few rigs over the years....

IBM XT 640kB RAM
custom built 80386
custom built 80486
Pentium II
Some POS Dell Pentium III
Etc etc etc

 

[sonoran]

To give another example of how far things have come, Intel now makes a chip (an Itanium) with a 12MB cache - larger than the original IBM PC's 10MB hard drive.

 

[sonoran]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
the store was called "Egghead", and they told me it was newegg on the internet.

I used to shop at the Egghead store in Virginia, just west of DC - back before anyone had an internet presence (and before anyone much had ever heard of that internet thing). I remember feeling it was a portent of things to come when they decided to close the retail stores and go internet-only.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
My recollection of TigerDirect (yeah I bought from them >10yrs ago) was that back in the day they were revered much as Newegg is today.

Then something happened. They got new management or something, and quickly they stopped being good deals (for my tastes anyways) and faded away from my radar screen.

Yeah, I'm not sure what happened to them, but they're absolutely nothing like they started out.

Nothing beat the rush of that Computer Shopper though.

I remember meeting the mailman at the mailbox, hoping my Computer Shopper wouldn't be late. I'd always be up half of the night it came (and sometimes for many nights after), because I couldn't put it down. Some people were hooked on one drug or another in the 80's and 90's, I was hooked on Computer Shopper.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: AmberClad
Heh, that was a fun read. Pretty crazy that just one of the little memory chips on a RAM stick these days holds more than that massive hard drive. And costs about 1/1000th to boot.

*looking at my 8gig usb flash drive*

this would of made a lot of people cry back then.

20 years ago I had my tricked-out Amiga, along with a rapidly obscolescent but still way cool CP/M machine, and built my first 286 box. I remember the biggest expense was the freakin' monitors. As in, EGA for $600-700. VGA was utterly new and commanded big bux. The nice thing was, I used the same 4 MB of RAM for four successive builds - 286-10, 286-12, 286-20 and then 386-33 (I remember that as a BIG jump). And no re-installing OSes either. Just slap it together, plug in the HD and off you went. A 200MB Maxtor cost $600 and I was thrilled to have it. Good times. Good times.

There were 8088 boards but 286 was when the homebrew PCs really started coming into their own. All my friends and I were freakin' nuts for the things. I spent every spare dollar I had. Someone else upthread was right - that was the golden age of mom-and-pop PCompatible stores. (I vaguely recall my fabulous 286-20 board with CPU costing me about $400. Man, that thing was sweet. Kinda wish I'd hung onto some of that stuff for nostalgia)

When I went to 386-land (I think that was 1990?), the motherboards were over $700 by themselves. I reviewed a 17-inch Super-VGA monitor for a computer pub once, a ViewSonic. It cost $1000. Huge farking thing, too. I remember how deep that CRT was sitting on my desk, but how I drooled at 1024x768 in Windows 3.0.

 

[Germonicus]

Cost me a darned fortune (£750) to buy my first PC....an Elonex 486 sx 20 (25?) with 256k RAM and a huge 125 MB HDD and a floppy drive and a 14" monitor!! Then I spent almost £200 on a 2x CD reader. Next was upgrading the CPU to a 486 DX2 100mhz .................I just binned that system last year and sat and wondered how much it had actually cost me,decided I really didn't want to know

I was actually put off PC's for around 10 years after my experiences back then,especially after coming from (possibly/probably) my favourite computer the Commodore Amiga.