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Author Topic: My First PC  (Read 27563 times)

oldfogy

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My First PC
« on: June 22, 2006, 02:08:08 PM »

When I got my first PC it came with a 96MB HDD (now being used as a door stop along with the 5.25 inch floppy drive)
and 4 strips of 1MB Ram,  Word Perfect and windows 3.1.

Shortly after I upgrading to Windows 97, Office 97Pro, Works v4, various other programs including a audio editing program along with both Adaptec and Nero Burning with a 2 speed CD burner and also Firewall and AV (Norton of course).

Ok, it was not the fastest but it did everything I needed it to do and didn't keep falling over.
All of this on a 96MB HDD.

Now as time goes by with running programs that do the same or similar job,
I need Windows XP with a minimum of 256MB Ram, ?? GB HDD.
And, from time to time we have problems, not to mention the huge number of so called security fix's.


I wonder, if I reverted back to my old programs on my current system and processor if I could fly. :lol:
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feliscatusx2

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My First PC
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2006, 09:15:53 PM »

My first home PC was built by an acquaintance who was just setting up in business for himself.  He was an IT person for Marks & Sparks and previously an electronics techie in the navy.

I specified the main components, he made a few suggestions and delivered it.

As built it had an AMD K6-2 500 processor, a 13.5 GB Fujitsu HD, 128Mb RAM, cheapo sound card, HP CD 9200 writer, an ATI Rage Pro graphics card and a very nice ADI 17" Trinitron screen.

I'm still using it, but the RAM is now 384Mb Crucial 133Mhz, the HD is a Samsung Spinpoint 80Gb, the CD Writer is now an new LG (an unfortunate accident there) and it has also acquired a Network card and a USB2 card.

The ADI screen suffered a failed transformer and I now have an IBM 17" which I was given.

The only failure has been a noisy fan on the CPU heat sink.  When I noticed this I went into the local Chinese takeaway and asked for a Lemon Chicken, Egg Fried Rice, Sesame prawn toast starter and a heat sink & fan assembly.

He reached under the counter and produced the very thing.  I was flabbergasted, but grateful.  I should explain that I know the bloke and know he is deeply into PCs.

The Fujitsu HD went to Tankerton and was fitted into No 1 Daughter's old P2 system.  It finally failed about 2 months ago.


I have no current plans to replace this system.
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kitz

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My First PC
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2006, 09:47:15 PM »

I couldnt even tell you the specs of my first PC.  All I know it was an IBM Aptiva running windows 3.1.
Basically it was a glorified word processer with a few games on - and I outgrew it in about a year or so. (wasnt high enough spec for win 95)

Work also gave me a laptop at about the same time I bought the Aptiva which I quickly had to equate myself with - complete with a USR Sportster modem which would have been around Feb/March 95.

Previous experience with computers had always been *nix systems at work, although this was always from a data processing viewpoint to becoming ICDP (In Charge of Data Processing), and I was always curious when the Boroughs/Phillips/Olivetti engineers used to visit.
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exo

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My First PC
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2006, 11:22:17 PM »

Early 1980?s, friends had purchased the (Acorn) BBC Micro (about ?400). This was very popular along with the BBC series that started the home computing phase in the UK.  My finances were a bit limited at that time and the alternatives seemed to be the Commodore 5.

Acorn then brought out a cut down version of the BBC Micro, the Acorn Electron, so I jumped at the opportunity and it was my first computer. No monitor in those days, it was just hooked up to the TV set.

Memories of programming in Basic, oh what fun. No hard disc, everything was saved or loaded by cassette tape. How times have changed.

exo
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kitz

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My First PC
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2006, 12:17:05 AM »

Hi exo and welcome :)

>> Early 1980?s

eke..  I was a late adaptor on the home PC front - although I can remember my bro spending hours with a commodore 64 and a text book thingy, spending hours copying code to *make games*.
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roseway

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My First PC
« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2006, 08:34:43 AM »

Dear me, you youngsters! I built my first computer in the 1970s (it was a soldering iron and wire cutters job). In its basic form it had just 1kB of RAM (yes, that's 1024 bytes) of which half was used for the screen memory, giving a text display of 16 lines by 32 characters. Another 40-odd bytes were used for system purposes, leaving 470 bytes for user programs and data. The only way to get programs in the machine was to type them in machine code, using a hexadecimal keypad.

Despite the primitive hardware, those were probably my happiest computing days.

Eric
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  Eric

ellington

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My First PC
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2006, 08:00:32 AM »

Hi,
That one beats me Eric. I was feeling bad until I read yours. After getting bored with all the different function keys on My Sinclair spectrum and spending ages with the tape recorder to load a program only for it to fail in the last few seconds, I moved onto an Amstrad 8086 processor with 40 MB hard drive, can't remember the ram but it had Dos 3.3 and Microsoft works and 712 kb floppy drive.
Thought it was the "bees knees" but it taught me a lot. Have to say that the way computing is today I would happily never go back to those days.


ellington
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soms

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My First PC
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2006, 09:43:29 AM »

Being a younger person, i never had a personal computer until 1999. Dell Dimension P90, with 8Mb RAM and 540Mb HDD, Win95osr2. I have come along way since, getting better PC in 2000 and since then i have built and upgraded my own home built ones. The Dell survived until mid 2001 doing great guns, when a freak accident destroyed the PSU. It wasnt worth replacing, given the full extent of the damage was unknown.
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roseway

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My First PC
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2006, 12:44:24 PM »

It's a bit frightening, isn't it? Just a few years ago that P90 would have been the bees knees, but a couple of years later it wasn't worth repairing and now it sounds like something that was probably around when Noah was a lad.

Eric
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  Eric

yoyo920

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Re: My First PC
« Reply #9 on: September 02, 2006, 11:46:27 AM »

my first pc was a packard bell windows 95 haha, but it was useful cos it got me interested in it as a career
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EVIL-SCOTSMAN

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Re: My First PC
« Reply #10 on: October 16, 2006, 09:34:08 AM »

first pc was, rubber keyed spectrum 48k, magic for typing on   :lol:  >:D

then speccy 128k+ with built in tape deck  w00t, then umm commodore 64, then amiga 500, bought a half meg upgrade of ram for the amiga, the ram was the size of a house, then onto another amiga 500 after i sold the first one, then onto intel 66mhz pc, then a 133mhz one, then a jump from that to a 2600 amd with 6800gt, then a amd 64 2800 with another 6800gt, and finally onto my amd 4800 x2 with sli 7800gtx with all teh other goodies.

my, how over the space of a few years pc's have become uber powerful compared to the year 2000.

the specs of my latest baby are, as mentioned above amd 4800 x2, 2 gig ram sli 7800gtxs 256mb versions, ageia physics card, x-fi sound card, and umm an uber load of harddrives for all my pr0n, well i lie about the pr0n, but just change pr0n for crap and you will roughly get what i have on my drives, nearly 18 months old and planning on another pc purchase just after crimbo time when amd come out with there new cpu's, whichever is better at the time, amd or intel, then i will go for whichever one.
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kitz

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Re: My First PC
« Reply #11 on: October 16, 2006, 12:03:40 PM »

>>> my, how over the space of a few years pc's have become uber powerful compared to the year 2000

Indeed..  funny enough I was talking about something similar last week.
One of the things mentioned though, was I dont think Ive ever seen an increase in specs as fast as what occured in about 2001.

For a long time (well ok several months/year), things seemed to stay pretty static..  up until the processors reached just over 700 Mhz at least..  Then they seemed to crash through the 1Ghz barrier and evey other week the spec seemed to go up and up and up.

In the very late 90s and early 00's it seemed like if you didnt buy/build/respec every 18-24 months then your PC was *old hat*.
My last PC was a P4 3Ghz which I bought  2.5 years ago (it was cheaper to buy than build the spec).  Yet 2.5 yrs on its still a pretty good spec and more than powerful enough for what I need.
I think the only thing Ive added was another 250GB drive (network storage).
Its certainly the longest Ive ever had a PC as *the main*, but its still got everything else pretty bang up to date.
I think the graphics card is possibly the thing thats dated the most..  but its a radeon 9800 xxl which was practically the dogs doodahs back then.. its still pretty respectable considering I aint a gamer.


Maybe its me that I dont care as much now about keeping up with the latest and greatest these days.. 
or probably that I use lappies more. ?
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EVIL-SCOTSMAN

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Re: My First PC
« Reply #12 on: October 16, 2006, 07:32:52 PM »

Yea, I hear ya, around 200-2002 as you say every other week there was a new speed of cpu coming out, it was crazy times, and still is to a certain extent.

Your ati 9800, a couple years ago they were teh bomb, I never had one myself, i had its weak competitor, the fx5900ultra, I went threw 3 of them before I got my first 6800gt, and I would never ever recommend a fx5900 to anyone, those things just loved to die, and the jump in power from the 5900ultra to the 6800gt was just too much to take in, but the 9800 was the king of its day and nothing can take that away from it, if you have the AIW type of 9800 then you still have a good card, not soo much for gaming, but the all in wonders were leet, tv tuners etc loads of connections, I always did fancy a AIW, but I bought a stupid hauppage usb 2 digital tv tuner cuz I ran out of pci ports for an internal model, only to find out that I could of bought a freeview tv set top box and got better overall quality and hooked it upto my pc via video in input, as I can get freeview on my pc with an indoor aerial, once i knew that i was uber peed, as i first thought i needed outdoor aerial, so i then bought freeview boxes for all the bedrooms and bought small but hi gain aerials that get a real good signal for the size of em. so basically, i didnt need to shell out a 100 squid for a 3-4 month old usb 2 tv tuner that i never ever use :(

we live and learn the hardway, but i agree that your 9800 was a magic card, and as mentioned above, if it is of the aiw type, then it is still a decent card, as it will last for years doing normal graphics and tv tuner stuff if capable.

never had a lappy tho, but seriously looking at the mac pro, all intel with ati x1600 vid card, capable of installing windows onto it since its all intel inside, really am thinking bout getting one of them, but I have no real need for a laptop, the only kind i would maybe buy is a desktop replacement, with anything from a 24-30 inch screen, but I dunno, i like to upgrade and OC, and your kinda limited with doing things to a lappy, but they now have sli in lappys so they are becoming real powerful.

This was my pc before the one I have now, it was an Alienware  aurora 7500 with amd 4400 sli 78s and audigy 2zs, i took it apart and took some pics while i was putting it together and seeing once i added more fan wires if everything was working, the wires look messy in the pic, but that was just to see if everything worked as expected, they were tidied up a day or 2 after that pics.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/readersrig/311/

I still have the same case, but everything inside it now is diferent to the specs i list on the website, the specs are the ones i listed earlier in another post, and its all purrty looking compared to those pics u see.
« Last Edit: October 16, 2006, 07:42:32 PM by EVIL-SCOTSMAN »
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kitz

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Re: My First PC
« Reply #13 on: October 16, 2006, 10:43:53 PM »

>> if you have the AIW type of 9800

Not sure if its AIW - its the 9800XT.
It does have DVI cause I run it dual monitor and the iiyama is DVI where the other is normal.  Yeah I think it does do all the TV stuff.. must do since I have a remote but for it, but Ive never used it.

Problem with it is I burnt the first one out within about 6 months, but it was replaced under warranty.  It still had a horrible habit of overheating.
mr_chris got me some stonking graphics cooler thingy and fitted that on it for me.



Yeah I hear what youre saying - cant mess with lappies much, but they are a lot more powerful these days - tend to work off this one more and more.. although I need a bit more RAM - cause I find 512MB struggles if Im using dreamweaver and photoshop.
Got 1GB due soon.


OMG... look at that machine of yours...  its purrrrrrrrrrple...  its friggin purple!!!. 

drool...  droooooooooooool   :-*
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EVIL-SCOTSMAN

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Re: My First PC
« Reply #14 on: October 17, 2006, 09:44:29 AM »

I looking at your 9800, to be honest, I am not sure if its an AIW, as there is no tv tuner built on the card and no tv co-ax in, i could be wrong but since you have a remote for it I really dunno what to think ?

The aiw's i have seen have a huge metal box where the blue vga output is, just behind that is, the huge metal box is built onto the circuit board, but since you have remote, i am stumped what to think, so i cant say it is or it isnt an aiw.

BTW meh lubs teh zalman, that puppy will keep your 9800 real cool, and they look the sweetess:)  every video card should come with a zalman by default if you ask me, they do the job sooooo much better than normal stock coolers.

But, your 9800 does indeedy look nice ;)

As for the purple, well i had a choice of green, blue red black or purple, i chose purple with terra green lights, and it night it does look pretty cool, but am looking for something new now, thing is huge and kinda is tooooo big for my needs or maybe not big but looks out of place, I would like a silver all metal case that would look good basically anywhere and wont draw attention to its self, like this thing does.

EDIT:

I looked at your link, and it does indeed say tv as an ouput for your card, so it may very well be that its an aiw, just in that pic i couldnt see any tv output, probably the angle that the pic was taking.....

Nice card nonetheless, tho, i always wanted one of them, but the pro version back when i had my fx59s,  but never got round to getting one, mainly due to the fact that i am more a nskidia man than anything else, but that wouldnt stop me buying ati if when i went to get a new vid card and ati was the best at the time, it just so happened that the majority of times i buy vid cards, nvidia is always the best one to pick, even if it is only for that week that i buy the card, then it gets trounced by ati and i kick myslef for not waiting 1 week :)
« Last Edit: October 17, 2006, 09:51:38 AM by EVIL-SCOTSMAN »
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