When 30MB just won't do .... - Page 2

**Professor Farnsworth** · 07-05-2010, 04:40 AM

yeah turbo was the shiz for playing games like SWOTL, the TMNT game, yeager's air combat, LHX, street fighter

doing absolutely everything possible to free up base and extended memory using mem maker.. having to make boot disks for games

oh and then the SOUND BLASTER came out! that was the best. pretty sure dad paid about $700 for it in some pack. Monophonic excitement!

/GEEK

HLC · 07-05-2010, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDfutura25

I remember my dad getting a 486DX with all the fruit, he got it wholesale through Ipex and it still cost $4,500. I remember playing Where in the World is carmen Sandiego, Return to Zork, Doom 1 and 2, Wolfenstein 3D and Wing Commander.

hell yeah!!!

my family got a 486 wayy back around 95 posibly earlier!!

it had a 200mBHDD then we got an additionl 700mB

8mB of Ram which was HUGEEEE

sound blaster card, and like a 14" monitor,

scanner and printer

and

encarta (dont know which year)
windows 3.1.1
doom
doom II
wolfentein 3d
where in the world is carmen san diego (maddest game)
and a whole heap of other games!

it was legendary and lasted us all the way up to 2000 or 2001 lol

Spudz27 · 07-05-2010, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HLC

hell yeah!!!

my family got a 486 wayy back around 95 posibly earlier!!

it had a 200mBHDD then we got an additionl 700mB

8mB of Ram which was HUGEEEE

sound blaster card, and like a 14" monitor,

scanner and printer

and

encarta (dont know which year)
windows 3.1.1
doom
doom II
wolfentein 3d
where in the world is carmen san diego (maddest game)
and a whole heap of other games!

it was legendary and lasted us all the way up to 2000 or 2001 lol

Encarta was great. I am sure there was a thing on it where you could draw the path of the moon and watch it make pretty patterns as it bounced off earth.

ubute · 07-05-2010, 09:52 AM

Haha, memories. Our first computer back in 87 was an Amstrad PC-1512. It didn't even have a hard drive!! Just two 5.25" floppy drives. Had to boot DOS 3.2 off a floppy disk. Had 512K RAM mouse, CGA monitor which also housed the power supply for the whole computer, and ran at 8MHz. I think there was a version which had a single floppy drive and a 10MB HDD. Dunno why we didn't get that one :( Also had a 9-pin Dot Matrix tractor feed printer. None of the other fancy 25-pin stuff that came later. I remember playing Double Dragon, Test Drive and Carmen Sandiego on that bad boy, among other awesome DOS based games.

Looked like this:

Was a whole new world when we finally upgraded about 6 years later to a 486SX with 25MHz (turbo) and a whopping 124MB HDD. Also got to play with this fancy software that you used the mouse with called "Windows 3.1" instead of command line only with MS-DOS like we were used to.

arm79 · 07-05-2010, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubute

Haha, memories. Our first computer back in 87 was an Amstrad PC-1512.

Wow.. I didn't think I'd ever see a picture of one of those things again...

Parents got us a PC-1640 for christmas about the same time, in the otherwise same config as yours.

Served us well for many many years. Playing Carmen Sandiego, Test Drive, Kings Quest, Digger... The list goes on.

**Bundy** · 07-05-2010, 10:44 AM

man all I had growing up was an ATARI 2600 ....

DJL351 · 07-05-2010, 10:45 AM

Oh please stop, you've managed to start a 'nerd fest' here at work... remember when..... oh god, did you ever play..... nerdgasim!

My machines (From the beginning):

C64 (loved it so much)
Amiga 500 (great fun, completely under-rated)
386 dx2 66 (the Beast)
233 MMX (the first one I bought with my own $$$)
First gen Athlon (had to keep up with my mates)

From there, I've had a couple more AMD based machines.

Right now, I have 3 machines at home;
The misses machine Athlon x3, 4GB Ram
The 'media' server Athlon x3, 4GB RAM, 5x 1TB drives (full)
plus my machine Athlon II x4, 8GB RAM 2x GT9500 in SLi

HLC · 07-05-2010, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bundy

man all I had growing up was an ATARI 2600 ....

ive still got one

mint condition. just cant get it to work with all these fancy new tv's!!!

**redxm** · 07-05-2010, 12:06 PM

heres a bargain

my67xr · 07-05-2010, 12:11 PM

heres 5MB ram from 1956...
would like to know the cost back then.

SB076 · 07-05-2010, 12:26 PM

The joys of editing config.sys and autoexec.bat - setting up a sound card and video card with (different I/O's)

I still remember when I bought a 20Mb hard drive and the person who sold it too me advised me that I wouldn't be able to fill it in a lifetime....

Riksta · 07-05-2010, 01:18 PM

Alright, how many of you out there remember this, or had a computer running it?

Windows 2.0!!!!

Oh, and I STILL have one of these laying round, should still be working to, all I gotta do is plug it in, and find my disks for it. It had no hard drive so you had to boot the OS from a floppy, then take that floppy out to run whatever program it was you wanted to run. Got so tedious I ended up copying each game I liked onto a new disk with the OS, so I would just boot the OS with the game already ready to go!

Pity I didn't get the Mac Classic, that had a HDD you could keep the OS installed on. Might go on the hunt for a Mac Classic this weekend.... ahhh the memories!

DBourne · 07-05-2010, 01:54 PM

Funny thing is, that even since windows 2.0 the mouse cursour hasn't changed

(not that it needs to)

**DJM83** · 07-05-2010, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SgtBourne

Funny thing is, that even since windows 2.0 the mouse cursour hasn't changed

(not that it needs to)

Well bugger me it hasnt, my cursor fits on the top of the Windows 2.0 screenshot.

gtxb67 · 07-05-2010, 02:35 PM

i remember back in 97 when my old boss was getting all excited about our new server. it was 1 gigabyte. he was explaining that an a drive floppy disc was 1 megabyte - well this thing is "1000" of those

it did seem alot back then. it still seems alot for a memory card in a camera but that is about all nowadays

Martyvan · 07-05-2010, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pauljh74

If you go to the MSY store in Malvern - last time I was there he still had the poster up for the Voodoo2 graphics card - which would be 1997 vintage. You'd think he'd update the posters more often.

I still have a Voodoo Graphics card... in tandem with another video card... was/is in a working P1 machine.... havnt used it in a while... but... it was good

MITCHAY · 07-05-2010, 04:27 PM

We have a 16mb HDD here. It's bigger than my phone which has 32gb. Love technology

:

Riksta · 07-05-2010, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJM83

Well bugger me it hasnt, my cursor fits on the top of the Windows 2.0 screenshot.

The "Head" of my arrow seems a little bigger, with a shorter "Stem".

Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit here.

I will admit the general shape & appearance is pretty well the same though!

flappist · 07-05-2010, 04:49 PM

The first business PC I ever installed was a SHARP MZ-3500. It was a dual Z-80 with 64Kb RAM and dual 400kb floppies running CPM and sold for about $6k in October 1984.

The first system with fixed storage was a Sperry PC with 256Kb RAM Intel 8088 CPU @ 7.16Mhz, 360Kb floppy, 10Mb HDD and a green screen with Hercules graphics running MS-DOS 2.11. It sold for $12,000 including an EPSON FX 100 15 inch dot matrix printer in July 1985 and ran an entire RSL Club for several years.

Mr Hardware · 07-05-2010, 05:35 PM

I had one of the 30MB drives they refer to in the ad

a seagate ST-238R

I still remember having to plug in the head, cylinders, precomp, & landing zone parameters into BIOS manually.

Scott · 07-05-2010, 06:10 PM

I recall Dad bringing home his work computer around 1983. He was so cranky at Mum for parking over the road from the train station car park and he had to lug it over in bits, just about blowing a valve on each trip. My sister and I had to nurse it on our laps as the boot in his ZJ Fairlane was too shallow to close over it lol.

Fond memories of him pouring over it, fighting with it, teaching me about it and then finally getting a copy of DigDug for the whole family to play with.

Some time in the mid 80's I remember him showing me Qantas flight information - I thought he must have been some "master hacker" or something..... what the hell was an Internet anyway?

madmelon · 07-05-2010, 08:03 PM

...I clearly remember our first computer though I'm not sure when we got it. Dad got it as a second from work- the FilmLab Group.

286, no turbo button. Massive red master switch on the front. Monochrome Graphics with 5 1/4 floppy, NO RAM, 20MB HDD, PC speaker sound. Two button mouse. Had HEAPS of games on it- most had really good game play too. SimCity, Battle of Britain 1940, Red Storm Rising, F15 Strike Eagle, MS Flight Simulator 3.0, DigDug, Pacman 3D, Tetris, etc.

I remember when we got the Colour monitor and graphics card- it was an amazing change. Being poor meant that change came when most other people had already moved up to much superior machines. It slowly got upgraded to 486, 486DX2, then a new case and a P200MMX.

Good times

Franco Cozzo · 07-05-2010, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flappist

The first business PC I ever installed was a SHARP MZ-3500. It was a dual Z-80 with 64Kb RAM and dual 400kb floppies running CPM and sold for about $6k in October 1984.

The first system with fixed storage was a Sperry PC with 256Kb RAM Intel 8088 CPU @ 7.16Mhz, 360Kb floppy, 10Mb HDD and a green screen with Hercules graphics running MS-DOS 2.11. It sold for $12,000 including an EPSON FX 100 15 inch dot matrix printer in July 1985 and ran an entire RSL Club for several years.

Funny how you mention the Z80, its used in Graphics Calculators, like the Texas Instruments Ti84 which is used by many a year 11/12 students to this day.

Also, used in the game console, Sega Master System and also the original Gameboy!

MexicanBatman · 07-05-2010, 08:38 PM

LOL

i remember my uncle (not that old) telling me he was the first person way back when... to get a pocket calculator when he was in high school... LOL

my 1st computer cost me shedloads and i remember paying $500 for 8mb ram upgrade from 4mb or something crazy like that

my imac has 16gb LOL

but it was way more awesome than the computers we have now, they used to be fun!

FGX335 · 07-05-2010, 09:00 PM

I remember my Dad paid $3500 for an Apple Macintosh LC575. It had 5MB of RAM, a 160MB HDD and a single speed CD drive. They like to rust too!

Played F/A-18 Hornet and Sim City for years!

flappist · 07-05-2010, 09:34 PM

My first personal computer was a Microbee. It was a Z80 with 16k of 2112 static RAM and came in bits.
Not bits like the current kit computers but discrete components that had to be soldered to a circuit board. It took me about 12 hours to build and test it.
The monitor was an old black and white portable TV I bought at a pawn broker for $35 modified to have the signal injected at the video rectifier diode and storage was a portable cassette modified to run and about 3 times normal speed to allow for error free (almost) recording at 1200 baud (4 times faster than the standard 300 baud).
I upgraded it to 32k of RAM and wrote a modified 2716 EPROM to contain a native assembler and disassembler as well as BASIC instead of the color subroutines.

I really wish I had kept it.

Scott · 07-05-2010, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flappist

Not bits like the current kit computers but discrete components that had to be soldered to a circuit board. It took me about 12 hours to build and test it.
The monitor was an old black and white portable TV I bought at a pawn broker for $35 modified to have the signal injected at the video rectifier diode and storage was a portable cassette modified to run and about 3 times normal speed to allow for error free (almost) recording at 1200 baud (4 times faster than the standard 300 baud).

Geebus, was sort of wood was it made from?

Riksta · 08-05-2010, 01:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big Damo

Also, used in the game console, Sega Master System and also the original Gameboy!

Old consoles and games on them were awesome. Got emulators for most systems, NES, SNES, Master System, MegaDrive, GameBoy etc and of course as mentioned earlier, C64.

I think us "older" ones appreciated the older systems we used to have more than we do our current ones because they DID used to cost a fortune and they were more "special" to us. Plus, there was an art form to using most of them. There was no double clicking to run a program. Who remembers LOAD"*",8,1 LOL. And if you forgot the ,8 you'd get "Press Play On Tape" and have to reset the computer because you were lucky enough to have a disk drive (usually a 1541 or 1541-II) and not a tape drive!!!

I'm kind of spewing I don't have space to set up my Mac Plus and play with it now. Had a killer RTS on it called "Galactic Empire" (back when you could buy games for it at Pt Adelaide Market!). I did find a Mac Plus emulator and a ROM of the game, but could never really get the whole thing to work properly :( Maybe I should give that another shot while I'm sitting here bored!

Here's one from yesteryear, who remembers these floppy disks and who can name what computer commonly used them?

asusdragon · 08-05-2010, 01:34 AM

Damn that is so good to read all this. I still remember when we brought our 2nd computer first being a 386 2nd being an AMD 266MHz (cost $2500) and I was giving my friend so much crap because he only had a 200mhz computer. Wow now I have a AMD X4 9550 imgine what it will be like in another 10-20years

Spudz27 · 08-05-2010, 10:06 AM

I remember setting up my C64 a few months ago, put the floppy in and then couldn't remember the command to load the game.