Hardware Nostalgia

[Ipno]

I finally got a cable modem.

Not for lack of wanting, but lack of availibility, living in rural areas has advantages and disadvantages, but oh well.

So it comes down to it that I finally take my old US Robotics 28.8 modem offline. This modem was one of the first 28.8s ever availible, and even though supposedly faster modems were sold since, none were able to handle my crappy phone lines as well as the old US Robotics (This is before 3com bought them).

So I just sit there, holding my old modem, no more bytes will pass through its chips, and I wonder how much data this thing has brought me. In 1994 when I got it, it was text stuff mostly, BBSes, dialing into the schools unix system, etc. Not much web as it really wasn't my thing, in fact I used to detest anything with a GUI back then, I did everything in text mode. Then when PPP became availible to me it was put into my linux system which at the time was a 386sx25 with 4 megs of ram, and it served as the IPMasquerading (thats what we used to call it) server for my home network. There it stayed till about 2 years ago when the 386 finally died and was upgraded to a 486dx4/100 but its function remained the same. That is, until the cable modem arrived.

I didn't pull it out of its home until last night, and I sat looking at the thing, it's not passed any data for a few weeks now. It looked rather sad. I mean, as modems go, this thing has had a long lifespan. Its weathered a lot of storms (Left my system on pretty much 24/7) probably downloaded terrybytes worth of data.

It saddens me, really it does, to let this piece of hardware go. Its usefullness has left, but oh the memories.

Does anyone else get sentimental about hardware like I do? Or am I just goofy? hehe

 

[DT4K]

You now qualify as a true "geek". Welcome to the club.

 

[EdipisReks]

i was sentimental when i replaced my voodoo2. that sucker played an awful lot of games, and really showed me the true appeal of 3d. before that, i had an S3 ViRGE. i was not sentimental about that card.

 

[DT4K]

I was actually sentimental about my PCI Voodoo 3. That card rocked. I put that card in a K6-2 380 system and spent many many hours of my life enjoying Quake 2 and Rogue Spear with the awesome 3D power of that card. I built myself a new system, so the Voodoo is only used by my kids now for their games, but I think I will keep it forever. Maybe frame it when it finally dies.

 

[Workin']

Hell, why abandon it? I have cable and I still use my USR modem to send and receive faxes.

 

[Sunner]

Man, pretty much the opposite of what I felt when I replaced my modem(went from 2400->9600->14.400->28.000->56.000) with ISDN.
Then once I got ADSL...man that was heaven compared to what I was used to.

Though I will admit I miss the days of ASCII BBS's...

 

[Texun]

I think I understand. I felt sort of the same way when I hurled my 286 in the dumpster. It was my first (do we ever really forget out "first" anything?).

It was used and I paid $600 for it and a new VGA monitor. Didn't even know how to turn it on. It came with 4 megs of RAM and a 40meg hard drive, was loaded with DOS 4.1 and I still remember seeing that bright DOS shell and not having any idea what it did or what to do with it. I quickly became a "power" user when I added a second 40Meg hard drive. It felt like I had breathed life into it when I added sound. Then came my USR 14.4 Sportster and eventually a 28.8 USR that I bought for $189 at Egghead.

With that system I learned how to DL and post to FIDONET and get shareware from local BBS's. I would download all the PC groups that I could find on FIDONET and stare at that Goldstar 14" VGA until my eyes burned. I got really brave one time and even dialed out LD with Telex to a BBS across the US to get a file.

I also learned how to write BATCH files for copying, deleting, and who can forget PKZip in DOS? Wrote a BATCH file for that too. I also learned how to build own personal desktop with a colored background using EDIT.

I had a friend build a 486-33 when the old 286 went TU. From there I learned Win3.1 and finally Win95 when I upgraded to a "smokin'" DX4-120 with 16 megs of 72 pin SIMMS and a Diamond 8meg video card. Anyone remember when ANSI graphics were hot?

The learning curve back then was steep, considering I knew nothing at all. But the memories of late nights waiting to see what was in that 750k file I was downloading have not been forgotten.

 

[vegetation]

I wonder if BBSs are indeed extinct these days? And I mean real bbs systems, not just lame telnet based bbs's which are not at all interesting to use.

Though I will admit I miss the days of ASCII BBS's...

 

[kadajawi]

keep it. If you really don't need it any more, build a small glass box and hang it on the wall. And when you want you can look at it and get sentimental
I still have my SB 16 (been in use for 7 years). My old 15" thing is still in use (8 years now). Not been sentimental about tossing my ISDN card tho That thing was quite troublesome and I love my ADSL-connection But unfortunately I gave my old Schneider CPC464 to my cousin... just so that his sister stacks so much clothings on it that it spoilt :| Why have I ever given that thing away? *sick* *sniff*

 

[numark]

I still miss my old Commodore 128. We had a house fire a few years back and it burned up in it. It was still working just before the fire, too. They just don't make computers like that anymore

 

[Boobers]

I still have my Commodore 64. I even rigged up a serial cable so I could hook the 5 1/4" drives to my PC. The old programs can be run on a PC with the proper C64 Emulator.

I still use the old Commodore Model 1702 color monitor to watch TV. Still works great after all these years...

But the Auto-dialing 300 Baud (FASTEST at the time! ) modem was lost years ago.

 

[arcenite]

I get like that often :-(

Bill

 

[stranger707]

OK, my first system was a Kaypro 4. Get these specs!!! Two 5 1/4 floppy drives, 64K memory and a small 9" monochrome screen. No graphics. Man those floppies used to churn. And it still works, but I know eventually the CP/M operating sytsem floppy will become unreadable and it will become useless. But it was a good first computer. I don't get real nostalgic about it though. Working on a computer without a hard drive is not much fun.

My current rig - AMD 2600+ on an ASUS A7N8X mobo with a GeForce4 Ti4600. Twin IBM SCSI160 hard drives (15,000 rpm) with an Adaptec 29160.

 

[sharkeeper]

I bought a mouse with a twist--it was called a Felix made by Altra out in Rawlings, Wyoming. Besides being a royal pain to install in Windows (version 3.1) the accuracy of that thing was second to none. It was an absolute pointing device like a tablet, but unlike a tablet you could use it everyday like a mouse. It worked really well with Doom, Corridor 7, Sam and Max, (whack a rat high score here!) and a laser disc game known as "Who Shot Johnny Rock?".

I broke the damn thing when I moved (fell in a barrel of brine--no chance!) and since then they made one called a super pointer which was nowhere near as good. (although it didn't need an external power supply)

Those were the days. I still have a lot of odds and ends like ISA based Diamond Speedstar cards, a Diamond Stealth Video VRAM with a whopping 4MB of VRAM--cost the same as a R9700 today. Promise DC4030VL VLB caching IDE hard drive controller--actually has a 20MHz CPU on it! I have a 4MB Diamond Monster 3D card which I believe was a Voodoo Graphics controller. It wasn't used hardly at all because the passthrough cable KILLED my 2D! I found a Plextor 4Plex SCSI reader that takes caddies. That beast cost $650 in 1994! :Q

I can't go on! Thinking about what I paid for stuff that's basically waste is depressing!

Cheers!

 

[Jeff7]

A 386 was the first PC in the house here - everyone shared it. Now everyone in the house has their own PC; I've got 2. I still have the 386 motherboard, 33MHz DX processor, and 4MB RAM - it still works too. I also have the ISA Trident videocard - an impressive 1MB of RAM, and 256 color support. The 2400 modem was replaced early on, first a 14.4K modem, then I think we went right to 56k. When I got my own PC (P2 300, 64MB RAM), it had a Phoebemicro 56k hardware modem; it was probably the best modem I've ever used. Low CPU usage, fast, stable connections - when downloading Linux ISO's, I would somehow manage to get 12KB/sec; no idea how it managed that, but it would hold that speed for over an hour sometimes. I had to take it out though - no support for WinNT/2k/XP. Of course, I've got a cable modem too, so I don't need a modem often anymore; I just have a cheap PCI 56k in there right now.