Do you wish you still had your old computer for Nostalga sake?

[Magnum]

Well, since no one mentioned it....I have fond memories of my Atari 400. A whopping 16K of memory and an old black & white TV for a monitor. I used to stay up till the wee hours of the morning programming games in BASIC and then transferring my program to a cassette drive. Those were the days....anyone here remember Star Raiders?

 

[Rankor]

I still have the old case that came with my 2nd system when I got it back in 92. This case weighs tons.

It originally housed a Cyrix 486 SLC 33 and 4 MB of RAM (32 pin RAM mind you in 4s). It had a 256k VLB vid card, 5.25 and 3.5 fdd and a 100 MB hdd. This system replaced the Gateway 2000 system that had an i486SX-25 that was stolen during my college days.

Finally took the plunge into upgrading after being shafted $1600 for an "upgrade" of an i486 DX2 66, a new system board, an extra 4 MB of RAM, and an 850 MB WD hdd.

Next upgrade was a 2x CD-ROM kit with a proprietary Panasonic 2x with a SB 16 Value sound card. Next was a 2 MB Hercules Graphite Terminator 32 VLB video card. That sped-up my gameplay of X-Wing. Afterwards, I installed a 14.4 modem and a subsequent processor upgrade of an i486 DX4-100.

I can give a detailed upgrade history but that might be too much...

 

[Nack]

My old 386DX 16MHz with a whopping 1 MB of RAM, and its massive 80MB (thats MEGAbyte, NOT GIGAbyte) hard drive served me well. Alas, one day (when I bought enough 486 parts to build a nice 486 at a garage sale for $25 in the early Pentium days), I knew it was time to pull the plug.

Parts of that 386 live on, even in my present computer. The floppy (an early Teac 1.44MB) went to my nephew, and he still uses it daily. The Mouse was still working until last year in a second computer. The keyboard (an original IBM buckling spring clicky keyboard) still lives on in my overclocked AthlonXP 2000+ with 1GB of RAM, and a 100GB hard drive. GIGA may have replaced MEGA, but I have yet to find a keyboard I like better.

Nack

 

[c0rv1d43]

I really do feel a pang when I remember my Apple //e. I loved playing Choplifter on that green screen. I had an 8 MB RAMPage card and two of the old-style floppy drivers, and later on added a 10 MB hard drive and a 3.5 floppy. The old version of Appleworks running on ProDOS was a great application suite for its day. Broderbund made a drawing app called Dazzle Draw that I loved to use, too.

New systems are really powerful, but there was something special about that old Apple //e that I've never felt for a computer before or since. It wasn't my first or last, but it was my favorite for some reason.

- Collin

 

[bluemax]

<< I'd be amused to see my Tandy SX1000 with green screen again. I had to trash it when the hard drive died. >>


You had a hard drive in your Tandy 1000SX???? :Q In those days, a 10MB hard drive cost almost $1000 Canadian! It was a big deal to add an external hard drive for another 10MB!

Then again, I had my 1000SX long enough that 20 and 40MB hard drives were almost bearable prices.
I want to get my hands on the best Tandy 1000 made before they disappeared. A Tandy 1000 TL3 I believe.... RSL RSX, etc all were getting weird...

 

[Ziptar]

I do miss my old Leading Technology 386-16. You never forget your first.... I paid $1100.00 for it and later added an Original SoundBlaster $269.00 and speakers, 1X CD-ROM $400.00 ???, and a whopping 2 Megabytes of Ram $300 ???

Aaaah the hours (and Money!) wasted playing Cyberstrike on GEnie !!!

 

[agentK]

my first pc was a 386. Dang those things were durable! i still have it and its collecting dust somewhere in the store room. so much for nostalgia.

 

[SpecialEd]

i start to think i'll miss it, but then I go over to my friends house and work on his PII 300... I can't believe how much noise his HD.. the thing grinds like a mofo!! Everything is slow... then I come home to my XP 1600, and give it a hug.

 

[Waterskier1]

I still have all my old computers. My first was a Timex (Sinclair) that I built. I had 1K memory, and you connected it to cassette tape recorder for data storage, and a b&w tv for monitor. Then I paid about $250.00 for a 3"wide thermal printer (sliver paper that turned black to make the letters and numbers), and then another $150 for a 16K memory expansion module. Now, at that time, that was alot of memory!! I upgraded to Heathkit (Zeith) H-89 (Z-90) which used the Z-80 CPU (8-bit CPM O/S)and 5-1/4" hard sectored floppies (held 100K). Then, to the Zenith Z-100 dual processor (Z-80 and 8088) for 16-bits. That came with CPM and Z-DOS, which could be called MS-DOS,Ver 1, but wasn't. With all the software I got (Fortan, Cobalt, Basic, Assembly, etc.) and the COLOR monitor, I paid about $8,000!! Then along came IBM. And you know the rest of the story. I still have the Timex, 2+ (for parts) H-89s and 2) Z100s (one color, one B&W) and allthe manuals. If only I knew someone who wanted antique computers! Yes, I'm a pack rat...from long ago!

 

[Strafe]

Old PC's nah. Even my Ti-99 4/A, apple //e and //c I can reminisce with an emulator, but I *must* find a mint condition Commodore Pet 4032. The first computer I ever touched, in fourth grade.

 

[bluemax]

I've found most emulators fall short on sound. Yes, it'll play the tones, but not with the same quality the original machines could.

 

[brinstar117]

I'm a computer newbie it appears

My first computer was an OEM NEC prebuilt piece of junk. It was a P233MMX w/32MB EDO, S3 ViRGE 4MB, 4.3 GB HDD, 15" bubble monitor, 24X CD-ROM drive, and a soundcard/56K modem (that connected only at 28.8K).

That machine was really slow, I think the main culprit was the hard drive. It's rotational speed and transfer rates were diabolically sluggish. It was so slow that I would lag out of Battle.net while playing Diablo because the swap file would be thrashing around

I upgraded that computer like crazy. I put a Voodoo 3 on it, and couldn't believe how good Half-life, Homeworld, Unreal could look. (I used to play them 320x240 in software rendering). I added 15GB and 30 GB Quantum drives to it (placed my swap files on it and lag disappeared from B.net - surprise!) shortly before building my first computer.


The funny thing is, I still play most of the games now that I used to play on that P1. I don't know how I ran windows 95 so long. I remember it crashed at least twice a day. My family was so nieve, they bought an extended warranty... it's still under warranty today! But I took it apart and laid it to rest. I gave them a new computer to use since that old one was too slow for my tastes to even troubleshoot

Oh well, now I'm still playing Starcraft, Half-life (mods), Unreal Tournament on my new computer which flies circles around that old beast.

 

[mcmatty]

I miss my old c64, apple2+, apple2c, 8086, 286 and 386. I don't miss anything after that. There were some great games that will never be made again.

 

[Hittman]

My first was an Atari XEGS. I can remember programming BASIC late into the night. It's hard to believe that was 15 years ago.

If I remember correctly, that PC is still in my grandparent's attic.

 

[grrl]

Bluemax, my SX1000 had a 40 meg HD. I acquired the computer from my sister, it was a company machine and they never asked for it back after she resigned.

To retrieve my data the final time, I had to open the drive and start it spinning by hand.

 

[Don66]

Amiga 2000 Man what a thrill to hear that computer say Hello in that robotic voice, when it booted up.
8MHz 4MB ram 2 3.5 floppies. Now that was Power

 

[borealiss]

no

 

[teddymines]

<< No way would I want that Tandy 1000 around.... >>

I had one of those: Tandy 1000SX with dual floppies. But before that was the VIC-20 with casette and graphics card that let me draw circles and squares! The days of DEC teletypes and acoustic couplers were over. Now I had MY OWN COMPUTER!!!!