When I went to college we programed with punchcards in WATFIV Fortran on an old Burroughs mainframe. As computer science was not my major I hated that class with a passion. As I was leaving school they upgraded to a DEC system with the green monochrome monitors. Wow, you could program without the blasted punchcards and not have to wait hours/days to find how many syntax errors you had. Those were the days!
Computer nostalgia - Post your relics!
- Thread starter OVERKILL
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Ditto. Mid late 1970's, right? I had the same in 1977. Oh I hated that, big time. I could figure out the equation, but typing the punch cards? I learned NOTHING.
Typing practice at best
It was about 1978 give or take a few years.I'm nostalgic for general computer technology and hardware from the 90's/00's, but not for any specific computers I used to own... except one.
I built a really nice dual-CPU computer over 20 years ago when consumer-grade multi-CPU computing started becoming a thing. It had an Intel 440BX-based Tyan Tiger 100 with dual slot-1 500Mhz Pentium III's, later upgraded to 800Mhz Coppermine PIII's, probably 512 gigs of RAM, Antec case, PC Power & Cooling power supply, some flavor of early GeForce GPU, a Sound Blaster of some type, DVD drive, CD burner, and of course a floppy. Running my favorite OS, Windows 2000.
It really didn't do anything my other single CPU PC didn't do, but it had two CPU graphs under Task Manger and not just one.
I built a really nice dual-CPU computer over 20 years ago when consumer-grade multi-CPU computing started becoming a thing. It had an Intel 440BX-based Tyan Tiger 100 with dual slot-1 500Mhz Pentium III's, later upgraded to 800Mhz Coppermine PIII's, probably 512 gigs of RAM, Antec case, PC Power & Cooling power supply, some flavor of early GeForce GPU, a Sound Blaster of some type, DVD drive, CD burner, and of course a floppy. Running my favorite OS, Windows 2000.
It really didn't do anything my other single CPU PC didn't do, but it had two CPU graphs under Task Manger and not just one.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
I think you mean 512MB of RAMI'm nostalgic for general computer technology and hardware from the 90's/00's, but not for any specific computers I used to own... except one.
I built a really nice dual-CPU computer over 20 years ago when consumer-grade multi-CPU computing started becoming a thing. It had an Intel 440BX-based Tyan Tiger 100 with dual slot-1 500Mhz Pentium III's, later upgraded to 800Mhz Coppermine PIII's, probably 512 gigs of RAM, Antec case, PC Power & Cooling power supply, some flavor of early GeForce GPU, a Sound Blaster of some type, DVD drive, CD burner, and of course a floppy. Running my favorite OS, Windows 2000.
It really didn't do anything my other single CPU PC didn't do, but it had two CPU graphs under Task Manger and not just one.
Sounds like a great system! I built one for a buddy of mine using an ABIT BP6 (440BX), which was popular for the dual socket 370 Celeron 300A setup, because they overclocked so well, and then later a VP6 system, with dual Coppermine Socket 370 P3's, think it had 256MB of RAM, which was a lot at the time. Also running Windows 2000 Pro.
Eh, megs, gigs, close enough.
Strange thing is that I have no idea what I did with it. I used to build computers out of new and used parts and eventually give them away to people who could use them once I was bored with them, but that one I spent a lot of money on so I wouldn't have just given it to anyone, and I know I didn't sell it. The two 800Mhz Coppermine CPUs alone were like $450 each which was a LOT 20 years ago.
I know multi-core CPUs and 64-bit instructions made something like this a dinosaur very soon thereafter but it was a very nice piece of gear at the time.
Strange thing is that I have no idea what I did with it. I used to build computers out of new and used parts and eventually give them away to people who could use them once I was bored with them, but that one I spent a lot of money on so I wouldn't have just given it to anyone, and I know I didn't sell it. The two 800Mhz Coppermine CPUs alone were like $450 each which was a LOT 20 years ago.
I know multi-core CPUs and 64-bit instructions made something like this a dinosaur very soon thereafter but it was a very nice piece of gear at the time.
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Interesting thread...
My oldest computer in regular use is a 1996 Micron Millennia Pro2, currently configured with a single 200 MHz Pentium Pro CPU with 256K L2 cache and 256MB of ECC EDO RAM. Motherboard can handle a second CPU; I've got another CPU and fan but not the required voltage regulator. I also have the RAM to boost it to 512MB, but it takes forever to get through POST with it installed.
It also has a WiFi card, USB 2.0 card, nVidia GeForce 4 MX video, and a 256GB 7200 RPM hard drive.
It currently runs Windows XP SP3, and serves as:
Also have a 1998-vintage Micron TransPort 2 AGP laptop with a 300 MHz Pentium II-M CPU, 384MB RAM, PCMCIA WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet cards, and a 32GB SSD. It won't run XP, but runs Windows 2000 Professional and will run the current version of debian-based Q4OS Linux. Incredibly, the OEM battery is still good and will power it for about two hours.
My first microcomputer was a Commodore VIC-20. I still have one, with a Datassette drive and 16KB RAM card. One of these days, I'll find a diskette drive for it and put it to work as a weather forecaster.
My oldest computer in regular use is a 1996 Micron Millennia Pro2, currently configured with a single 200 MHz Pentium Pro CPU with 256K L2 cache and 256MB of ECC EDO RAM. Motherboard can handle a second CPU; I've got another CPU and fan but not the required voltage regulator. I also have the RAM to boost it to 512MB, but it takes forever to get through POST with it installed.
It also has a WiFi card, USB 2.0 card, nVidia GeForce 4 MX video, and a 256GB 7200 RPM hard drive.
It currently runs Windows XP SP3, and serves as:
- A print server for my parallel-port dot-matrix invoice printer
- A scanning station with an old parallel-port scanner
- Programming station for RS-232-equipped radio transceivers
- Workstation for legacy Windows applications that won't run on Windows 10
Also have a 1998-vintage Micron TransPort 2 AGP laptop with a 300 MHz Pentium II-M CPU, 384MB RAM, PCMCIA WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet cards, and a 32GB SSD. It won't run XP, but runs Windows 2000 Professional and will run the current version of debian-based Q4OS Linux. Incredibly, the OEM battery is still good and will power it for about two hours.
My first microcomputer was a Commodore VIC-20. I still have one, with a Datassette drive and 16KB RAM card. One of these days, I'll find a diskette drive for it and put it to work as a weather forecaster.
Was going through some old stuff and found these:
I.have a working Gateway Astro that's at least 22 years old.
Looking at some YouTube videos and discovering people's apparent love for old ThinkPads...
I took a six-month IT training course back in 2001 and part of the deal was receiving a pretty decent new ThinkPad, an A21m if memory serves. It was a huge brick of a laptop computer but it was fast and I had fun with it. But thinking about it now, like with the dual-CPU computer I mentioned above, I have absolutely no idea what I did with it. I wouldn't have sold it or given it away but I know I haven't had it for over 20 years now. Weird.
I took a six-month IT training course back in 2001 and part of the deal was receiving a pretty decent new ThinkPad, an A21m if memory serves. It was a huge brick of a laptop computer but it was fast and I had fun with it. But thinking about it now, like with the dual-CPU computer I mentioned above, I have absolutely no idea what I did with it. I wouldn't have sold it or given it away but I know I haven't had it for over 20 years now. Weird.
The W-series was/is(?) built like tanks and had components that worked well w/ Linux. I would make a habit of buying used off-lease machines, replacing the HDD and using those for friends, family and neighbours that I'd support Linux installations for.
They're really not doing much in the way of Legacy BIOS support anymore. Honestly, many of the people who were working on that got out of the game years ago. The last systems that shipped in either that or CSM-locked (BIOS interface to UEFI and there was nothing you could do to change it because they didn't know how Windows would get along with it) were shipped out in 2011 or so I think.
CSM support was dropped some time ago.
I had some Windows XP systems I reverted to Windows 98 SE. I kept it around a long time because I used RoM II SE on it. (Removes Internet Explorer and other crap. Description. Download. You'll also need three shell files from Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2.1, which are Explorer.exe, shell32.dll, and comdlg32.dll if memory serves correctly.)
Backports would be the typical new releases of Windows Media Player, DirectX 9.0c (March 2006, iirc).
KernelEx would extend it with many Windows NT/XP/Vista APIs but not all, so it kept more modern versions of Firefox, VLC, OpenOffice.org, etc working. This got abandoned some time ago though so I don't think you're going to want to browse the Web with it.
My Dad is much cheaper than I am. He was still emailing me as recently as 2013 because he knew I knew tons about Windows 98 and his wife was still using it.
Most of my odd operating systems are in nested virtualization now. Many of them wouldn't run on a modern computer as the host OS anyway, probably. Like ReactOS, Haiku, FreeDOS. I also use VICE for the Commodore stuff.
Since Borealis Steam works on the Chromebook, I was able to get Gold Box D&D working on there. It pretty much opens dosbox and runs them in there. The DOS versions are mostly better than the Commodore in that the Commodore ones came on a series of 5 1/4" floppies and when you emulate that it still asks you to remove the disk and swap it.
Mom was horrified that when I was 5 years old I knew how to use the Commodore and was playing D&D games on it. One day when I was at daycare she took the whole thing down to the pawn shop and got rid of it because the people at the church told her to.
Wolfenstein 3d and doom stuff still gets played a lot. I like gzdoom. Accelerated with VirGL it works great in Crostini.
Actually, a lot of my current computing is just stuff from decades ago in an emulator or general purpose computing in a VM. I didn't move to the Web or "cloud", I moved to largely lightweight virtualization and emulators.
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There is no W series now, but the W series was spun out of the T series, a T series style chasis with workstation components, previously they had sold them as T series but with a p on the end (ie. T60p was a T60 with FireGL V5200 or V5250 graphics instead of a Radeon X1300/1400 found on the T60,) Now they have the P series as their mobile workstations.
It's amazing the stuff that's available out there nowadays.
How about rolling your own Commodore 64? I wish I had the talent and patience to do something like this.
How about rolling your own Commodore 64? I wish I had the talent and patience to do something like this.
Someone out there sourced several VSA-100 and recreated the proto-type Voodoo 5 6000
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
I scored a Pentium III 450 Slot 1 on an ASUS P3B-F motherboard yesterday:
I'm sorry....
Nice! Long live the 440BX!
I remember how scorchingly fast they ran Linux.Nice! Long live the 440BX!
