Page 1 of 1

Your computer history timeline

Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 4:54 pm
by Burrito
What is the history of the computers you've owned:

here's mine:

1st: a 'deck' I think it was called (circa 1980). Didn't do much really, the thing I remember the most about it was a matching game.
2nd: IBM XT Clone (8086 with 256K of ram and a 20MB hard drive).
-Upgrades: added 3 1/2 floppy, mouse, bumped it to 640K ram (w00t!) and went from a Monochrome monitor, to a CGA monitor and finally to an EGA monitor (16 sweet colors baby!)
3rd: 80286 with 1 MB of ram and an 80 MB Hard Drive, VGA Monitor. This one lasted me for quite some time w/o ANY upgrades :P
4th: 486 66 MHz 4 MB of ram (forgot the HDD size), SVGA Monitor
5th: Pentium 133 MHz 32 MB ram (forgot the HDD size) All monitors from here on out are all pretty recent and good unless otherwise noteworthy :)
6th: Pentium II 400 MHz 128 MB ram, 1 GB HDD (I still have this one laying around)
7th: Pentium III 1 GHz 512 MB ram, 30 GB HDD (still got this one too)
-Upgrades: upgraded video card several times and added more ram (to 1 GB)
8th: Pentium IV 2 GHz 1GB ram, Radeon 9700 Pro video
9th: Pentium IV 3 GHz 1GB ram, Radeon 9800 Pro video
10th: AMD dual core 4600, 2GB ram, nVidia 7800 gtx (256 mb version :( ) dual 24" dell flat screen monitors.

not sure why but I feel like I'm missing one in there somewhere...If I am and I've left you out, I'm deeply sorry, it doesn't mean that I don't luv you any more :P

Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 5:10 pm
by onion2k
1st - ZX Spectrum (Timex Spectrum if you're American), not mine really, it was the family computer.
2nd - 486DX2 66 PC, not mine really, it was the family computer.
3rd - 486DX4 100, my first computer owned by me.
4th - Celeron 333
5th - Duron something.. forgotten.
6th - Athlon 2800
7th - Very soon, the day Apple release them, MacBook.

Plus a Sega Master System, Nintendo SNES, Sega Megadrive, Playstation, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, GBA SP, PSP, Xbox 360 scattered amoung that lot.

Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 5:12 pm
by Chris Corbyn
~1992: Commodore 64 for gaming mainly. I remember following a tutorial from the manual with my dad which allowed us to program a screensaver of a balloon that floats across the screen :)

-----snip----- Never owned a computer again until 2000 and even then I never really knew much about how it worked (Honest!)

2001 - Got an old Pentium 166 to use Microsoft Office on my first year at Uni. Had a mate who did comp sci and built PC's for people which fascinated me so I bought all the parts online and learned how to build my own

Later 2001 - Built my own AMD Duron 1GHz - only used it for playing music and doing uni work but learned a bit about the hardware side of things for fun

Kept upgrading that thing until 2004 (incidentally 2004 is when I got into programming)

2004 - Got my laptop from Dell that I still use now (it's knackered and I'm ready to buy a new machine - most likely an apple intel that I can dual boot with a linux distro).

Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 5:14 pm
by Roja
Egads, to be honest, I think I've gone past the hundred computer mark recently. Seriously!

I have 7 computers running at my house right now, and thats not counting my work laptop that comes home with me on occasion.

Now, if we wanna go historic, I started with the Commodore 64. I even had a 300 baud modem, and connected to Q-Link (later to become part of AOL). I moved on to a Tandy Color Computer (With "XGA", which was their proprietary version of something between CGA and EGA, but worse) with a 1200 baud modem, where I surfed the BBS's like a madman.

After that, I made a progression from a 286 to a 386, back to a 286 (dont ask), up to a 486 (FEEL THE POWER!). I did both the SX and DX, and I can remember when a 1-gig drive was more space than anyone could conceivably need. And I bought it six months later. :)

I ran multi-line BBS's for a number of years (King Tut's Tomb!), and even ran a number of doorgames that still inspire me to this day.

I've had graphics cards that lasted for years of active use (3d Banshee RULED!), and some that lasted mere months (ATI All-in-wonder, best at nothing, not even cost).

My current rigs for my desktop are "The twins". Both AMD 2200's, with a gig of ram, and 40+ gigs of local HD space. One runs windows, with a highend ATI card, for gaming. The other runs linux, with a pitiful video card that works just fine in anything but games. The twins drive two 21" CRT monitors, which allow me to see clearly despite my visual deficiencies.

Its been a long and crazy ride, and I suspect its not even close to being done yet. I haven't yet had a dual-processor system, despite my huge love for them, so I suspect thats next on the list. Of course, I really want a MacBookPro, so...

Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 5:15 pm
by feyd
I believe Burr's first is referring to a DEC, or Digital Electronics Corporation machine. Mmmm, Alpha processors. The company was sold to Compac a few years back. Another tidbit of useless information for ya™.
  1. IBM PC/jr, upgraded RAM (128K 8O, I was 5 :D)
  2. IBM AT (felt like it weighed about 1000 pounds)
  3. 80286 16Mhz, I believe.
  4. 80386 SX 33Mhz, eventually upgraded to 32MB of SIMM RAM. :roll:
  5. 486 66Mhz
  6. 486 DX4/100
  7. Pentium 166Mhz, I think
  8. Pentium II 233Mhz
  9. Pentium II 300Mhz
  10. Pentium III 600Mhz
  11. dual Pentium III 600Mhz, 512MB DIMM,
  12. Pentium 4 2.4Ghz, 512MB RIMM, Nvidia 5600 128MB I think, same 19" Nokia CRT
  13. (Laptop) Athlon 64 3200, 1GB SODIMM, Radeon 200M 128MB, 15.4" (1280 x 800 native)
  14. Athlon X2 4600, 4GB DDR 500Mhz, 2x Nvidia 7800GTX 256MB, same 24" monitors as Burr.
I've owned various other bits in between several of those, but those are the highlights in my memory.

Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 5:19 pm
by RobertGonzalez
1st - 486DX2 66Mhz, 120MB HD, 16MB RAM, 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives, 14" monitor, DOS 5, Windows 3.1 - 1992
2nd - Compaq Presario Celeron 633Mhz, 4GB HD, 64MB Ram, 4X CD-ROM, 3.5" Floppy drive, 15" Monitor, Windows ME - 1999
3rd - Compaq Armada (Used Laptop) Pentium 2 733Mhx, 12GB HD, 192MB Ram, CD-ROM/Floppy Hot Swap drive, Windows 2000 - 2002
4th - HP Pavillion Laptop, Athlon 3400, 100GB HD, 512MB Ram, DVD RW, WiFi card, multi card reader, Multi USB ports, Windows XP PRo SP2 - 2006

Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 5:20 pm
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
1st: Commodore 128 (It still worked as of last year though one joystick is a bit dodgy)
2nd: Amiga A500 around 1989~
3rd: Cyrix x86, 8MB RAM, 512MB HDD (the HDD is still in operation via a PCI ATA adaptor ;) My Backup drive.), 8MB onboard grpahics, 14inch SVGA Monitor. My first IBM compatible PC...
4th-9th: Took the self-upgrading route thereafter... Currently at AMD Athlon XP 2800+, 1GB RAM, 140GB HDDs, GeForce 6600GT 128MB video. Upgrading this Summer again.

I wish I could remember the first selfbuilt system after the x86 Cyrix... As I recall it was the first system that crept above the gaming curve (a Cyrix x86 back in 1995 stumbled on anything outside Duke Nukem 3d or Hexen...

Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 5:21 pm
by alvinphp
Commodire 64
Tandy (from Radio shack)
Intel 386
AMD 486
Pentium something
AMD Opteron (with two 19" LCD monitors)

Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 10:22 pm
by alex.barylski
1) Radio Shack pong - what it's a computer...it beeped and showed some kind of image...
2) Commodore Vic 20 - http://oldcomputers.net/vic20.html
3) 286/386 not sure
4) 266Mhz
5) 800Mhz
6) 950Mhz AMD finally my own
7) 2.5Ghz - fried back to 950Mhz...

950Mhz...and still going strong :P

I have in the last 15-20 years had countless other computers....mostly donations from neighbours, family, etc...

But those are my most memorable... :P

Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 8:59 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
Yeah, I notice for some people they all run together after the first few mainstream PCs... I think computers lost a bit of uniqueness once they became affordable and a six year old with a matchstick could assemble them...;).

Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 10:48 am
by RobertGonzalez
And bubble gum. Don't forget the bubble gum. A matchstick and bubble gum... yeah, that's the sweetest PC...

I am so technologically passive. I would have never upgraded my current machine if not for that stupid hard drive failure thing on my old laptop. Although that little experience has given me an opportunity to upgrade to Linux. So I guess it was worth it.

Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 11:41 am
by Grim...
I started with a Texas Instruments TI-99 4A. Then I got an Amstrad CPC 464, the a CPC 6128, then an Amiga 500, then an Amiga 1200, then a P2 400mhz Dell (with 200MB of RAM, which was insane at the time), then I've gone through about 7 PC's until today, with a Athlon 3000+ 'media server', and Athlon 3000+ Media Center (spot the difference), and an Athlon64 super-badass gaming rig.
And a Dell laptop.

Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 11:59 am
by sheila
A few Amigas listed :)

1. 1986 - Amiga 500 - brought in England and sold when we moved
2. 1988 - Amiga 500 - still ran last year but sadly no more
3. 1991 - 486DX?? - from Gateway, came with Win 3.0 but I had it dual booting to OS/2 for a while
4. !99? - 486DX??
5. 199? - Pentium II 350 MHz - still running, currently Fedora Core 5
6. 199? - Pentium II 200 MHz - parts machine
7. 2003 - Pentium IV 2.4 GHz - Linux, my main machine
8. 2005 - Pentium III - used Dell laptop, Win2K (replaced #5 as my Windows machine)

Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 12:45 pm
by Nathaniel
I've been through a few 'puters that belonged to the family, but I've only owned one: my Dell Inspiron 5100 Notebook (512 megs of ram) :D

She's getting older though. I might need to upgrade in a year or so.

Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 5:30 pm
by shiznatix
1) some horrible old gateway from like '96
2) some horrible old dell from like '99
since then: same cpu has been kickin but the rest switches so often that it is never anything static.

oh and some horrible new HP laptop that is on it's last life