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Building my childhood dream PC

fabiensanglard.net

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Re: Building my childhood dream PC

#81

Post by ghthor »

tecleandor wrote: post #44
adamcharnock wrote: post #42

The very moment I saw the letters ‘MMX’, a long forgotten part of my brain woke up and said, “I know what that smells like!” Which is bizarre. But to me it is (apparently) the small of new electronics, plus perhaps the ‘hot dusty things’ smell. It also comes with the memory of playing Pod (a racing game), by Ubisoft (I think). Good teenage memories!

Oh, that was nice. I think it was one of the first "high fps" games and it looked super smooth...

Pod is a great game, I think I bought a copy from GoG and it worked great.

Played this a lot on my families Gateway computer in early 90s.

Re: Building my childhood dream PC

#82

Post by geocrasher »

fabiensanglard wrote: post #67
geocrasher wrote: post #60

The 286/12, with its 1MB memory, 60MB RLL Hard drive, and 5.25" floppy... oh and the VGA card and 14" 256 color VGA monitor, and the Panasonic KXP-1180i. It was October 1988. My Dad's boss financed it through the company, and brought it over and set it up for us. And offered 13 year old me the opportunity to call him any time I needed help. And that I did. Between the computer purchase, the endless phone calls, and t…

> a man who could barely read, worked 12-14 hour days, and came home covered in mud and grease regularly- to buy a $3300 computer in 1988. That's about $8000 in today's money. The best way to celebrate that kindness is to pass it down to people around you.

I agree. And I do my best to do exactly that.

Re: Building my childhood dream PC

#83

Post by geocrasher »

rubitxxx6 wrote: post #79
geocrasher wrote: post #60

The 286/12, with its 1MB memory, 60MB RLL Hard drive, and 5.25" floppy... oh and the VGA card and 14" 256 color VGA monitor, and the Panasonic KXP-1180i. It was October 1988. My Dad's boss financed it through the company, and brought it over and set it up for us. And offered 13 year old me the opportunity to call him any time I needed help. And that I did. Between the computer purchase, the endless phone calls, and t…

Your dad was awesome. I tried to get my kids into computers, but it didn’t stick. It’s not the same today as it was then.

He was a good man, no doubt. Troubled, which is why he died before he hit 60. That was almost 25 yeas ago, and I still miss him all the time.

Re: Building my childhood dream PC

#85

Post by ErigmolCt »

sthuck wrote: post #52

The part about buying a misleading CPU really hit home with me. Man all those small retailers in the 90s were living the dream with their unaware customers. My parents bought an AMD 486 100mhz at the end of 1995, it was still a viable low end machine for that time but they paid as if it was a Pentuim. Had to somehow make it work up until 2001 with that machine. Don't know if I had a career in tech if I wasn't forced…

When you can make DOOM run on a potato, everything else feels doable

Re: Building my childhood dream PC

#87

Post by criddell »

empressplay wrote: post #64
criddell wrote: post #7

More than once I’ve had a TI-99/4a and fully loaded peripheral expansion box and an Atari 800XL on my eBay watch list. I’ve come so close to pulling the trigger but I know it would give me a weekend of fun and that would be about it. Back to eBay it would go for the next impulsive dinosaur.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that! We used to rent consoles from Blockbuster; buying an old computer off eBay for a lark and then reselling it is totally fine.

If selling stuff on eBay were easier, I might.

Re: Building my childhood dream PC

#88

Post by AStonesThrow »

II2II wrote: post #62
AStonesThrow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA is a great read, although the PS/1 being a turnkey system, the author didn't need to piece together a lot of compatible accessories to make a great system. "LEGO for Adults" is a very apt analogy I began to hear recently, about PCs in those days. It was an exhilirating feeling of self-determination and control for aficionados, that you could walk into a huge Fry's Electronics and there may be an entire wide aisle…

> However this sort of self-assembly of PCs has long passed us by. How so? From my recollections, building a Pentium-era PC was very similar to building a PC today: case, PSU, motherboard, CPU, RAM, video card, and storage. Most components could be upgraded independently. Granted, any meaningful upgrade of the CPU is probably going to involve the motherboard and RAM as well. That is pretty much the same as today. The…

Here's our perspective. The hobbyists and enthusiasts my age (mid-50s) have reached consensus that it's not worth building a system from components anymore, for these reasons:

- More turnkey systems are available from integrators. You can now configure fully prebuilt systems direct from the vendor, or pull them off a shelf at any retail outlet. In the past, prebuilt systems were sold to grandmas and busy parents. Now integrators serve all markets from gamers, to small business, to power users as well. No user of Apple Computers is building one from scratch, and this mindset is now shared by PC users as well.

- Less tinkering. As mature power users, we prefer to "Plug and Play" rather than spending our days with the case pulled off. If we're not selecting parts and worrying about compatibility, then we can get down to using the system we have. We've learned all we need to know about the internals and earned our A+.

- Still a niche market. If you want to build from components, then you need to go into the geek's catalog market. The best/most components go directly to integrators anyway.

- Fewer distinguished components. Standard integrated Ethernet and sound and storage are "good enough" on your motherboard. At this end of Moore's Law, the buyer can load enough RAM and storage in a base system.

- More people are going mobile. We've conceded that a desktop system is overkill for our "daily driver" needs, and a notebook is really convenient when on-the-go. Notebook computers now have the power and resources to completely replace a desktop system, and every 3-5 years, you just get to replace the whole thing!

And of course, these are personal justifications and reasoning for why I don't build systems anymore. I wouldn't want to rain on others' parade. If you're a teenager and you love "LEGO For Adults" then build a system. Nobody's going to stop you. If you love PC internals and tinkering with your hardware every day, nobody's going to stop you. But as a power user with things to do every day, I need a computer that works, and a computer whose case I'm not removing every other day!

Re: Building my childhood dream PC

#89

Post by BirAdam »

p_ing wrote: post #77
BirAdam wrote: post #74

My teen dream machine was a Pentium 3 with a Voodoo 3. Luckily, this is a machine I now own.

TNT2 had made the Voodoo3 irrelevant; the Voodoo3 lacked 32bit color output. But I loved my Voodoo2, there was nothing like it at the time. 3Dfx had a couple more years to run on the Glide API.

Yeah, it was Glide that made the Voodoo3 my target at the time. Now that I do have one, I love it :-)
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