Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MechAg94 on November 12, 2020, 01:25:06 PM
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD2fN8YQfFM&feature=youtu.be
It is a reaction video, but the nostalgia is amusing. The cost of some of those computers is outrageous comparing them to today. The show covers PC then MAC in the 2nd half.
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generic clone pc, 386sx cpu, 1MB ram, Windows 3.1, basic color VGA. At the time would come in about a grand. Is my recollection. I'd been in the business for a couple years at that point.
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I sold computers at that time for Sears. Avg total system sold was ~$2,000-$3,000. Made 10% commission off that.
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generic clone pc, 386sx cpu, 1MB ram, Windows 3.1, basic color VGA. At the time would come in about a grand. Is my recollection. I'd been in the business for a couple years at that point.
Sounds about right for my first 386. After that, I was in grad school and doing a lot of modeling, so was on the every 18 months plan on whatever bleeding edge was, and pretty much each new system was around three grand.
I think I went through three iterations of that before a combination of component prices dropping and less than bleeding edge being necessary for higher end computations started lowering the price down to between $1500-$2000.
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Sounds about right for my first 386. After that, I was in grad school and doing a lot of modeling, ...
Vogue? GQ??
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Vogue? GQ??
Playgirl.
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Vogue? GQ??
Think geekier...
Ravel and Airfix.
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I bought my first PC in 1985 for $ 1500 at Ballard Computer in Seattle. The Leading Edge Model D: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_Edge_Model_D Two 5.25" floppies and an amber screen. When I ponied up the cash to buy a 10 Mb hard drive on an ISA card, I thought I was living large. I was using an Apple IIc in chemistry grad school to drive the HP GC/MS. I typed my master's thesis on a Smith Corona electric portable typewriter. The rich kids paid a typist to do their thesis.
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I built my own.
First was a 486dx4 @ 120mhz, it even had PCI slots! Windows 3.1 at first, upgraded to Win95 when that came out.
Changed it out 18 months later for a Cyrix 6x86 166mhz quasi-pentium clone, but that thing had so many problems that I changed it out again for an AMD K6 200mhz.
Since the ATX case was a nice standard format, replacing the mobo and/or CPU was only a couple hundred dollars each time. Sometimes the memory was compatible, sometimes not. HDD and optical drive were always compatible.
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I built my own.
After that first 386, I did too. I recall using a cool primitive website from a supplier that had a gazillion parts for custom builds, and once you put all your parts into a "system" it would analyze everything and make sure you didn't have stuff that was incompatible.
I will say that I fried the MB on my very first build, because I plugged the power supply wiring in backwards, which in those days was really easy to do, and there were no youtube videos where you could doublecheck stuff. I flipped a coin on red or black to the inside, and lost. :laugh:
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The first I bought with my own money was a Gateway around '93 or '94 before that company went to crap. I had to learn to set up custom boot a up file to play X-wing and Tie Fighter.
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I'm a little younger than you guys. The first computer I personally bought was an eMachines.
I do remember when our family bought our first computer in the 90's though. 1995ish? Think it was a Pentium running at 75mhz, 1gb HD. I recall that it was quite expensive, maybe $3500?
I bought my first PC in 1985 for $ 1500 at Ballard Computer in Seattle. The Leading Edge Model D: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_Edge_Model_D Two 5.25" floppies and an amber screen. When I ponied up the cash to buy a 10 Mb hard drive on an ISA card, I thought I was living large. I was using an Apple IIc in chemistry grad school to drive the HP GC/MS. I typed my master's thesis on a Smith Corona electric portable typewriter. The rich kids paid a typist to do their thesis.
No standalone Z80-based HP Integrator (http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=668)? What kind of show were they running? :P
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After that first 386, I did too. I recall using a cool primitive website from a supplier that had a gazillion parts for custom builds, and once you put all your parts into a "system" it would analyze everything and make sure you didn't have stuff that was incompatible.
I will say that I fried the MB on my very first build, because I plugged the power supply wiring in backwards, which in those days was really easy to do, and there were no youtube videos where you could doublecheck stuff. I flipped a coin on red or black to the inside, and lost. :laugh:
Orange-black, black-red, was the order. Easy to do off-by-one as well.
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I'm a little younger than you guys. The first computer I personally bought was an eMachines.
I do remember when our family bought our first computer in the 90's though. 1995ish? Think it was a Pentium running at 75mhz, 1gb HD. I recall that it was quite expensive, maybe $3500?
Timewise, that's about right. First Pentium was a 60MHz, using a different socket than subsequent Pentiums (Pentia?). That's the one with the floating point bug.
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I got a couple of you beat. My first computer was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. It was upgraded as time went on with an expansion module, 64kb or RAM, and aftermarket 5.25 inch floppy drives.
Later on I bought a 386-based IBM clone with 512KB of RAM and two 5.25 inch floppy drives and an amber monitor. It ran a proprietary version of MS-DOS. Added a card-mounted 10MB hard drive and color VGA monitor to it and was really cooking then. I think it's still in the garage at my ex-wife's place in Oregon.
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^^^The Leading Edge was my first IBM clone PC. My actual first computer was a Texas Instruments TI/99 4A. For storage, it used a cassette tape recorder. And you had to find a special adapter plug for it to reverse polarity or something.
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Early '80s Radio Shack was my first. Then played with some windows 3.1. Then took a break and the next one was a Cyrix in about '96. After that thing I started building my own.
Like MillCreek mine had the tape drive.
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Well if we're doing this old codger computer contest again, Timex Sinclair, and I sprung for the external plug-in module that knocked my ram up to 16K.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Foldcomputers.net%2Fpics%2Fts1000.JPG&hash=07109acaa8899204a41b42b289dd8c183d042dd5)
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Oh cool, I remember those Timex computers. I wonder if they had built-in clocks?? [popcorn]
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First PC I ever really worked on was in the mid 1980s in college. DEC Rainbow. Weird assed computer, but man, I could FLY on those keyboards. I could easily hit 120 words a minute typing speed, and maintain it.
First PC we had at home was the Leading Edge Model D. My parents got it through a smoking hot deal also available through my college. It was a quite excellent computer and was a huge hit on the American market.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_Edge_Model_D
We used that thing for years.
Come to think of it, I think I still have my Father's Sanyo 8088 in the basement. It was still working as of a few years ago. I need to see if it still works or if it's finally tin whiskered itself.
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Come to think of it, I think I still have my Father's Sanyo 8088 in the basement. It was still working as of a few years ago. I need to see if it still works or if it's finally tin whiskered itself.
I've still got my old TRS-80 and its associated hardware. It's not been powered up in at least 20 years, and I wonder occasionally if it would still work. I've fiddled with the notion of trying it out. I need to get off my duff and do it.
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When I went on staff at the newspaper in 1989 we used TRS-80 portables... ah! The TRS-80 100 for filing remote stories and the like. It was functional... sort of. :laugh:
Huh. Just found this on its entry on Wikipedia...
"When introduced, the portability and simplicity of the Model 100 made it attractive to journalists,[15][16][17] who could type about 11 pages of text and then transmit it for electronic editing and production using the built-in modem and TELCOM program. "
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I've still got my old TRS-80 and its associated hardware. It's not been powered up in at least 20 years, and I wonder occasionally if it would still work. I've fiddled with the notion of trying it out. I need to get off my duff and do it.
I've still got the very first computer our family had, an IBM PC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer). A neighbor worked for the electric company, and they had a pile of these machines headed to the dumpster in the early 90's. He rescued some and gave them to people he knew that didn't have a computer yet. It still had account information on it from utility customers! :-X
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First PC I ever really worked on was in the mid 1980s in college. DEC Rainbow.
Okay, if we're now doing the old codger "first computer I ever used" thing... :laugh:
I don't know what kind it was, but a terminal in High School that printed to rolled paper stock attached to the terminal. You saved your programs to punch cards. Hunt the Wumpus ruled! We got our first video terminal my senior year. The actual computer(s) were at a school district office somewhere.
On saving computers, I really regret not saving both the Timex and also my Atari ST. There are neat programs for the ST that have never been ported to any of the emulators. As far as my early PCs, I don't mind not having saved any of them since DOSBox seems to have most anything I would want.
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I've still got my old TRS-80 and its associated hardware. It's not been powered up in at least 20 years, and I wonder occasionally if it would still work. I've fiddled with the notion of trying it out. I need to get off my duff and do it.
Had a TRS-80 Model III for a while. Glorious 64x16 text mode screen! It's probably still sitting in my Dad's chickenhouse.
Had a Model I, full kit, briefly. Traded it off to a guy who wanted to tinker, about 1990.
You might remember it coded year dates as a 2 bit offset (or was it 3 bit) offset from 1980, which caused hilarity later in that decade.
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Okay, if we're now doing the old codger "first computer I ever used" thing... :laugh:
I don't know what kind it was, but a terminal in High School that printed to rolled paper stock attached to the terminal. You saved your programs to punch cards. Hunt the Wumpus ruled! We got our first video terminal my senior year. The actual computer(s) were at a school district office somewhere.
On saving computers, I really regret not saving both the Timex and also my Atari ST. There are neat programs for the ST that have never been ported to any of the emulators. As far as my early PCs, I don't mind not having saved any of them since DOSBox seems to have most anything I would want.
Had and ran with an ST for a good while. Still have a monochrome monitor for that in the basement. Bought the ICD scsi host adapter. My first hard disk as a 40MB scsi for that. I might still actually have that disk. I have an image file of that hard disk, somewhere, and have messed a bit with the emulators. But, I have moved on.
I actually hand upgraded the 1040 to 4MB RAM. Had to dig up a simm socket, which was not easy to do.
Lightning took it out, in the classic way (phone line takes out modem takes out pc through serial). Took the payout from that and bought a pc clone.
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I wish I had kept my old acoustic coupler that I used to connect to Unix bulletin boards.
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Bought an "American Semiconductor" 8088 PC Clone with a Hercules graphics card, amber monochrome monitor, 640k RAM, single 5¼" floppy drive and an IBM full height 10meg HD. I forget what we paid but it was a lot for a college student back then!
Eventually it was upgraded with a NEC V20 CPU, Math coprocessor, 1meg RAM, and a seagate ST225 20meg half height hard drive.
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Toyed around with the idea of a Vic-20 or a C64 but my first owned computer was a Franklin PC-8000 512k 2x360k 5.25 floppies.
First harddrive I ever bought, 20mb ST-225R, I installed in a Laser XT. 20mb! Thought I would never run out of space! Got single photos bigger than 20mb now.
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I wish I had kept my old acoustic coupler that I used to connect to Unix bulletin boards.
I think I have a portable coupler around someplace. I used it back in my storm chasing days in the '90s, downloading datasets for forecasting software from the NWS on payphones.
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Had 2 friends back in my 8088 days, one had a Commodore 64 and the other an Amiga. The things they could do with audio and video blew the PCs of the day away!
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Commodore64 with a cassette tape to start. Added a modem, a 5.25" floppy and about 1986. Moved up to an Amiga 500 with the extra 500K memory add on and a modem in late 1987 or early 1988 or so. Also had a Okidata printer of some sort. I was big into the BBS scene in those days.
My first IBM clone came in 1995. I was working at Memorex-Telex and we were allowed to build our own "loaner" machines out of the miscellaneous parts bins on the repair line. Mine was a 486DX2 with as much RAM as I could scrounge up.
When the company was bought out by DecisionOne a few years later all the records about loaners were lost.
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I had a Kaypro. I think there were high hopes among my dad's friends that I would "learn to code." Maybe in some parallel universe I am so rich that Zuckerberg mows my grass. Just never interested me.
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My first was a used Mac Plus in 1992. I struggled along with 128k of RAM and a single floppy drive for months until I could afford to upgrade to its maximum, 4mb. Such a huge increase in RAM, relatively speaking, was astonishing. Then a few months later I bought a 20mb external hard drive, and again, mind blown.
After that was one of the Performa series but I don't remember any of its stats, just that the color monitor was nifty. I finally dumped the Mac thing in 1995 with a 486. I wanted to play Doom with my buddies and that was all that mattered.
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Apple 2E, Oregon Trial and xeon patrol FTW. Carmen San Diego and Number Crunchers for honorable mention.
My first build was a P4/Voodoo5 box. Still in the basement, no idea if it would boot up.
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The Louisiana tech Modem Users Association's first BBS ran on a IIe with 5 floppy drives. :old:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fherohog.com%2Fimages%2Fcomputers%2FIMG_1792.JPG&hash=70d33bfb7006a5bb03d3658a9c960036c722a01b)
PS: I am still friends with and in touch with 3 of my fellow geek friends. :old:
PPS: We had forums and played "Trade Wars" on-line (go {coordinate}, scan area, go planet...)
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First computer I used was in a Fortran II class in 1967 or 1968 in college. It took up several large rooms in the basement of the school. First one I bought was an Atari 800, expanded to its maximum of 48k. I even wrote a business program on it in Basic that worked pretty well.
I bought a Mac in about 1986 for my business. A good late friend wrote a program for it to handle invoices, statements etc. It was such a good program that I used it until about 2010 when my last Mac died. I used a PC in the back of the shop to run my laser engraver and for internet access. A friend from England sent me some software to run a Mac simulator that I was able to access my old invoices. We retrieved the data from my old Mac backup hard drive. I couldn't print from the simulator, so I just used it for reference. I found a canned business program online for the PC and customized it to work for invoicing.
My first computerized engraver was a Dahlgren Wizzard XL in the mid 1980s, that cost around $7000. It was such a capable and fast machine that I bought another used one as a backup. Both of those lasted me until 2008, when they were so obsolete that spare parts were unobtainable, so I bought a state of the art Xenetech912 which I still have. The Xenetech was around $8000 without computer, but it made about $200 an hour when it was running.
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I bought my first around 1998 or so. It had that sweet AMD chip that was capable of 233MHZ.