Any old school computer users?

[GoldenBear]

I'm looking for a little help in my article detailing the old days of computers since they were a weebit before my time. So basically a couple questions:

Were monochrome graphics cards built onto the mobo or resided on an ISA slot (if so 8-bit or 16-bit)?

What kind of games were there back then (D&D)?

What popular games were around during the dawning of CGA, EGA, and VGA?

What's the difference between VGA & SVGA?

Were early CPUs (8086) interchangable or built onto mobo?

What other ISPs besides AOL were around during early 300/2400 baud days?

Were there any popular games besides Wolfenstien to use the original Sound Blaster?

And anything else that'd be interesting? I really appreciate anyone taking the time to answer ANY of these questions, thanks!

 

[HannibalX]

Heh, not many peeps ha ISP's - you wanna go on-line? dial Telnet or a BBS

 

[Soybomb]

I had an old mono graphics card, I can only assume 8 bit isa, I was really young okay Hmmmmm games, text based games like zork rocked, when cga came about I had fun with swashbuckler and H.E.R.O. My 8088 cpu was soldered to the mobo, my local ISP that I still use to this day was around and available, although i spent a lot of time on BBS's as well. Alot of stuff used the soundblaster, but my 8088 only beeped It was a fun time....I once wondered if I really needed a hard drive *chuckle*

 

[Killbat]

ISP hasn't always been part of the online community's vocabulary. It was all about BBS. Dial up, upload some crud, download a percentage (sorry, "ratio" ), leave some messages, MAYBE chat if the BBS has more than one line. Ah, some of your questions.

Video cards come in all shapes and sizes.

Games? All the arcade classics and then some! This beautiful Tandy 1000 over here is decked out with the likes of Qbert, Pac-Man, and Moonbug!

VGA and SVGA? They're not that old...

This machine over here --> had its 8086 in a socket. It's been removed in order to plug in the 286 board. Every 286 I've seen so far has been in a socket. A lot of 386s were soldered, tho.

BBS/Telnet/modem-to-modem

Humpf. I won't honor that with an answer. Now the Disney Sound Source, THAT was a kool gizmo.

And lastly, just be thankful IDE drives have the controller built on.

 

[Napalm381]

Back in the 2400 days I used Compuserve. Prodigy was also around, those were the two biggies that I remember. They weren't ISPs tho, they were just online services, with all proprietary content. The internet, for all intensive purposes, did not exist for most people. I do remember on Compuserve you could find nudie pics if you knew where to look

 

[GoldenBear]

Thanks for the input so far, and here's a couple more things I'm pondering...

Why were monochrome screens both green and white or orange and white? What made the difference?

 

[Killbat]

The monitor. The video card had NO bearing on the color. It depended on the phosphor color in the monitor.

Actually, if you hook a video signal up to an old composite monitor, you can use it as a TV. It'll be green, but the picture is really crisp.

 

[HannibalX]

I am guilty of doing that! Although prolonged use burns images into the glass.

 

[Killbat]

I played Zelda64 on one for two weeks one time.

 

[teknoid]

Were monochrome graphics cards built onto the mobo or resided on an ISA slot (if so 8-bit or 16-bit)?

The original IBM PC came with a ?monochrome text? card. It was 8-bit and would only display text characters. Hercules came out with their first ?monochrome graphics? card (also 8-bit) pretty soon after the intro of the PC. It was a VERY hot item. Next came CGA, 8-bit, 16 color, generally sucked. Most ?color? monitors at the time had a color/mono switch so they could revert back to green mono because CGA was horrible to work with. Next came EGA. A little better. Still 8-bit but there were a few 16-bit cards that came along about the time of the IBM AT. Finally we got VGA. It was like being let out of prison. Finally? decent color graphics. 640x480 @256 color? WOW!!!

What kind of games were there back then (D&D)?

Didn?t do any gaming in those days (still don?t) so I can?t answer this one.

What popular games were around during the dawning of CGA, EGA, and VGA?

See last answer.

What's the difference between VGA & SVGA?

Resolution and color depth. SVGA introduced 800X600. Trouble was it was tough to find (a) a monitor that would run at 800x600 and (b) any programs that would take advantage of it.

Were early CPUs (8086) interchangable or built onto mobo?

The original PC had its CPU in a socket. One of the HOT ?overclocking? options of the day was a NEC V-20 (?) chip. The AT and XT continued with the CPU in a socket. It really wasn?t until the large scale introduction of ?clones? that we saw soldered-on CPU?s.

What other ISPs besides AOL were around during early 300/2400 baud days?

There really wasn?t any such thing as an ISP. You connected to a BBS like Compuserve, Prodigy, Delphi, etc. It wasn?t long before the advent of ?local? BBS?s

Were there any popular games besides Wolfenstien to use the original Sound Blaster?

Like I said? Not much of a gamer in those days. Too much work to do.

I could go on for hours... I got my first computer in 77 (Tandy Model-1), since then I've lost count of the number of machines I've gone through.

 

[biohazard2]

damn, we just threw out some OLD stuff like you're asking about here at work. 8088s, 8086s, monocrome monitors and the computers that used them, 10mb harddrives, and even a few boxes of sealed double density 5.25" disks.

 

[Redwingsguy]

<< I do remember on Compuserve you could find nudie pics if you knew where to look >>



Napalm, what kind of nuie pics did you look at in 16/256 color modes?

 

[bUnMaNGo]

this should bring back some memories:

slirp -P -B 38400



slip/ppp emulation =)

 

[Jazar]

I can answer the gaming questions. The games that I wasted my life on during the late 80s early 90s were mostly from Origin and Sierra. Any of the &quot;Quest&quot; series from Sierra were bound to give you hours of entertainment and the Ultima series from Origin was unmached during its prime. I think it was Wing Commander that first used my Sound Blaster card. Oh and it was Wing Commander 2 along with Ultima Underworld 1 that first came out with full speech intros. That was some high tech s#$^! for its time.

 

[claw]

I second that, Jazar!

Sierra games were one of the best. Too bad they don't make any more 'Quest' games like that. Final Fantasy has been my substitute recently, though it focuses more heavily on the fighting aspect.

 

[Looney]

I started to use computer back about 12 years ago... bought my first computer called an Amstrad (286, no hdd, 5 1/4 drive).

It was CGA graphics (4 colors i believe.. can't even remember!).

Games on it? REALLY cheesy games, like stick figure downhill skiing. Not even worth mentioning (maybe a couple of text based games, but can't remember).

Next is a 386 and then a 486.
These had EGA and SVGA. EGA is 16 colors, SVGA 16million (VGA is 256 colors)


Games... i actually played a lot of the D&amp;D games like Pool of Radiance (can't remember the others, but i played all of them). Eye of the Beholder, Leisure Suit Larry (i remembered when you had to answer 'mature' questions correctly inorder to play it... such as who the members of the Beetles were, political questions, etc). best game of that time was Wing Commander though!... most of these used the original SB too.

As for ISP, they didn't really exist... BBS was the thing back then.. though when Mosaic came out the internet did start to grow. But I mostly used the local BBS. Commercial BBS (Compuserve, Prodigy, Delphi, GEnie, Rose - local BBS) were extremely expensive back then, charging for not only usage time, but also for downloads... even if they were text!

 

[ltk007]

My oldest experiences date back to an old amiga. Games back in the early days (I think it was EGA) were Quest for Glory, Space quest, Police Quest, Railroad Tycoon, and I even played text based zork.


I took apart my old amiga a few months ago, you can't change the cpu, but we did have an upgrade card and a 386 emulator. The graphics cards on the amiga were the best available back then and this was no exception. With a whopping 2mbs of Vram the card was bigger than the whole processor. The harddrive was ultra scsi and very fast for its time (i think it was a toshiba 200mbs).

 

[Windogg]

My first computer was an Apple II+ and I remember games like Jump Man and Lode Runner. Now those games proved you didn't need fancy graphics. My first flight sim was SubLogic Flight Simulator II.

Then dad got me a good ole IBM XT 8088. 2 full height 5.25&quot; Floppies and a 10MB hard drive. Of course people told him he was an idiot because no one would ever fill 10MB. Believe it or not it still runs. The CMOS battery died years ago but it still runs DOS 2.0. Those full length card still get me. They're HUGE!!! Not only that but they were heavy. I mean the keyboard alone weighs more than my current keyboard, mouse, Wingman Force, USB hub, and cable modem combined.

Anyone else remember test based games? Hitchhiker's Guide and Zork?

As for ISPs, I remember my first 1200 baud external Hayes (RIP) SmartModem. I would spend hours on BBSes. Anyone else remember Gopher?

My first sound card was a SoundBlaster. I remember Wing Commander was the game that kicked off the sound craze. The sound was cheezy but having actual audio besides beeps was unheard off.

ltk007: Quest For Glory: So You Wanna Be a Hero rocked. I remember the original was Hero's Quest but Sierra ran into some copyright problems and changed the name. The origianl King's Quest and Police Quest was the greatest.

Ahh the memories.

Windogg

 

[ltk007]

Ahh yeah Quest for Glory did rock. Especially the Erasmus part that was a parody of monty python and the quest for the holy grail. That was one of the deepest and coolest rpgs ever.

 

[bUnMaNGo]

I third that, Jazar!

Liesure Suit Larry owned =)

 

[ltk007]

Lets all petition sierra for a revival of the Quest games. The last Quest for Glory was pretty good, but I want a return to the text/keypad games!