Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami • Hacker News Board

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#141

Post by pcdoodle » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 3:57 PM UTC

I think I got my 1st custom PC from a vendor in CS. It was a Pentium 1 166Mhz MMX / 8MB RAM and 1.2GB HDD.

This is the box that I wrote a lot of VB6 code on for AOL, pirated my 1st MP3 (Deftones My Own Summer), and found my favorite SNES game (FF4). I didn't even know emulators were a thing!

With windows 98 and with 8MB of ram, i really learned about startup items.

There was a GE capital nearby that had a dumpster full of computer parts. I ended up finding some 8MB EDO sticks in the dumpster and it was the 1st time my computer would idle without trashing the HDD. 32MB was epic.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#142

Post by stewarts » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #116

dhosek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the 90s, my brother actually had a subscription to Computer Shopper (he had a side hustle building PCs for entertainment industry folks). I only ever bought it if I was planning on building something which was rare because computers were expensive back then. The last PC I built literally did not have two components from the same vendor. To be honest, I don’t miss those days. Say what you like about the “Apple…

> Say what you like about the “Apple tax,” it’s very nice to have one company who will take responsibility for things not working Where's the fun in that? Building your own PC is a thrill - budgeting, chosing components, excitedly waiting for each to arrive or picking them from shelf, assembling everything and then pressing the power button to power everything up for the first time. Followed by your heart sinking whe…

Motherboard headers -> Cases have somehow not evolved what feels like at all. Myself and my brother just built from scratch within the past month and both fumbled the Power switch/Reset switch connections.

I honestly had to laugh at the lack of progress in the area.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#143

Post by jhbadger » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

singleshot_ wrote: post #132

jhbadger wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, while the media seemed to be into "hackers" in the sense of people breaking into systems (and either messing them up or just to do it for bragging rights), that wasn't what most of us were into -- instead we were interested in writing software to get the most of the hardware we had (and used "hacker" in the old-school sense of expert coders).

Steven levy, “hackers: heroes of the computer revolution” probably a bit more your tune, maybe.

Yes, I've read that.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#144

Post by rbanffy » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 5:18 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #135

rbanffy wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very brave to mention such heinous crimes in this discussion.

I imagine that at the time they were just as ubiquitous as the phone books.

Fair. I guess historians would also object against destroying phone books, if not right now, in a hundred years.

We recently told our daughter what a phone book was. She was flabbergasted.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#145

Post by EricE » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

I seriously thought about bidding on that ebay auction when it came up - I'm glad it went to a far better place! Good luck to him indeed - growing up in that time Computer Shopper was the logical progression from the Sears Wishbook.

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#146

Post by EricE » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

showerst wrote: post #88

modriano wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been fully spoiled by PCPartPicker [0], which just invisibly filters out parts that aren't compatible with the components already selected for a build. The idea of having to manually keep track of every compatibility check at every component interface sounds like a path to debugging hell. On the other hand, that makes success a far stronger nerdcred signal. [0] https://pcpartpicker.com/list/

The sheer variety of weird and wonderful ways things could be incompatible is really tamed by modern standards. I remember spending days as a kid working out obscure IRQ conflicts blindly flipping plastic jumpers, or editing config files. I don't miss it!

My first use of spreadsheets was to track IRQ, IO Port and memory address conflicts :p

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#147

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 10:19 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#148

Post by JohnFen » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 10:23 PM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #34

shiftpgdn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what a lot of younger people also don’t realize is how gigantic a single issue of computer shopper was. They were as thick as phone books with thin weight pages. I remember multiple issues being well into the thousands of pages.

Once Computer Shopper became huge phone-book-sized things I quit buying them because I just didn't have the room or the time - fortunately our college library subscribed and I could peruse it there, but generally I'd read Byte, Creative Computing or Dr. Dobb's Journal instead. I recall when CS was kind of a newspaper prior to being a bound magazine format.

Computer Shopper, Dr. Dobb's, and Byte were all incredible and indispensable. I miss them all sorely and often wish that there was anything comparable in existence (online or not).

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#149

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 10:24 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #148

UncleOxidant wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once Computer Shopper became huge phone-book-sized things I quit buying them because I just didn't have the room or the time - fortunately our college library subscribed and I could peruse it there, but generally I'd read Byte, Creative Computing or Dr. Dobb's Journal instead. I recall when CS was kind of a newspaper prior to being a bound magazine format.

Computer Shopper, Dr. Dobb's, and Byte were all incredible and indispensable. I miss them all sorely and often wish that there was anything comparable in existence (online or not).

[deleted]

Re: Preparing for the Incoming Computer Shopper Tsunami

#150

Post by JohnFen » Wed, Jun 07, 2023, 10:29 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #27

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and "beige box" off a COCOT... I think you mean red box. Red boxing was when you generated, or just recorded/played back the tones for different coins. The idea was to trick the phone into thinking you put in money. We only had one customer owned payphone we knew about that it worked on, but it was glorious.(even though we had noone to call) A beige box is a telephone cable with alligator clips on the one end. You…

I definitely mean "beige box." Red boxes were (mainly?) for telephone company phones that would recognize the coin tones. Those phones had a different line "class of service" at the switch end and the critical point is that red-boxing was the only way (post blue-box era anyway) to get free calls off of them. Well, at least that I knew of. But a COCOT had all the "pay phone magic" embedded in the phone itself - the li…

> But a COCOT had all the "pay phone magic" embedded in the phone itself - the line was a normal line

There is one still operating in the parking lot of a general store in a tiny, tiny town near me. I keep wanting to put an old-school modem on my laptop, paying it a visit, and dial up a BBS (a few of those still exist, too), just for old time's sake and maybe a nostalgia overdose.