Back In The Day....

In a different thread someone asked me what I planned to do with a laptop I have with Vista 64 bit almost running on it. I laughed and mentioned that I still have every computer I ever had. It's like my computer version of Leno's Garage only with computers that most people just throw away.

Gave me the idea to ask if there are any other PC hoarders out there and if you would willing to confess what they are and maybe why you keep them.

I apologize to anyone I may have offended in the other post when I made a joke about people who owned Packard Bell computers. Back in the day most people who owned PC's joked about Packard Bell Computers as being the cheapest least reliable computer that money could buy. Maybe we'll even find some defenders of the brand's reputation.

I'll start with what actually was my second computer which was the first MAC purchased in April of 1986 for almost $2700.00 with 2 programs and a 3.5 floppy as the hard drive. My first was one advertised in the pages of Omni magazine. It cost between $49 and $65 dollars. It said: all you need is a cassette recorder which IT used as a hard drive. Maybe someone knows the name of this thing. It had no screen. You needed to use a B&W TV and the cassette recorder to be fully operational. There were two companies offering the same exact " computer " with different company name. I'll do my own search and see if I can figure it out. I once typed my name with it but after that I had no idea: " what a computer was used for ".

 

You probably had either a Sinclair ZX-81 or a Timex TS1000. Initially it was developed and released by Clive Sinclair, but later marketed by
Timex. The 1000 had some minor mods over the 81. Sales were overrun by TRS-8os and Vic 20s. I had a ZX-81 and did a little Basic and object code programming. It was slow going, but a fun novelty, finally retiring it to running a ham radio beacon function.

 

Wow StuldBrug, You hit the nail on the head. You must have understood DOS or knew how to use one of those early computer language codes ( programs? ) I just wanted to get in and get my feet wet but for a guy who was living in Silicon Valley it was amazing how difficult it was to get my question answered: " What does want " a computer for " " what do they do "? It seemed to me that a calculator made more sense to me. That's why when the Mac came out I jumped on it. It was much easier to use a GUI and just point at objects and click.
Made I'm just a hoarder at heart since no one answered this post.
I have 3 Mac's one with the ability to run window's 3.1 with some suggestions that they would offer an upgrade to Win 95. What I didn't know was how slowly the side of the computer ran because the RAM I added could not be accessed when in Windows.
So the were the original Mac, a Performa 630 and a Performa 6130
My 3.1 was an AT&T
Then my Dad who was a PC guy got a Quantex with an intell Pentium 1.66 ghz chip. A few months later he got a Quantex with the Pentium Pro 2.0GZ with a new type of RAM ( escapes me in the moment but it was about 3 times more expensive than traditional RAM. The 1.66 had a 2 Gig HDD and the Pentium pro had a 6GIG HDD. each time he moved on he gave the old one to me. Usually they were screwed up in some way and I joined a PC Club to learn PC's because by that time Jobs had been booted out and the new CEO sub-contracted making Mac's to several companies. One company for sure maintained quality control but others drove down the price of MAC's and schools stopped buying them and it looked the end of Apple. Then the employee's ( if I am not mistaking ) got Jobs to come back and the rest is history.
The desktops didn't end there. My Dad was an amazing man in many ways but when it came to computers he sure knew how to mess them up. So I became the PC medic and fixed all of his screwed up PC's then inherited them when he read about a new processor or technology. They all run now although not all of them are up and running.


The Timex TS1000

 

Can you post a picture of the Commodore ( before or after Lionel Richie ;-) )

 

Our first computer was an Apple IIe, because my mom was an educator, and got a massive discount. I believe with two disk drives, we got it for just under $1500.

 

I still have all my old game consoles back to the Atari 2600. All stored neatly in cardboard boxes.

Also, my current PC case is now sixteen years old, but I refuse to let it drive...

 

I still have my first computer - it was built at a local PC store. It's based on a Cyrix 133mhz processor (overclocked to 166 it was alleged). Had a 2gb hard drive and came with 32mbs of RAM which I upgraded to 64. A "Full Duplex" soundcard, a 4X CD rom drive. and a Motorola modem, I think? Onboard video with 4mb of dedicated RAM (woo hoo!). Was running Windows 95 but I upgraded it to Win98 not long after I got it. Loved the thing. As far as I know it would still work, but it's been holding my furnace room door open for a good many years, lol.

Used it until I could afford a P4 1.5ghz eMachines computer (I ended up giving that one to my goddaughter), and I built a computer for my sons (my first build) based around a PIII 733mhz processor on a D815EEA board. I think that one is still at my dad's house.

I still have the first computer I built for myself in 2004/5 - a P4 3.0E hyper threaded processor on a P4P800SE Asus board, 2gb RAM, Radeon AIW 9800 Pro video card, and two optical DVD drives. I used it up untill 2012 when I built myself a computer around an i5 processor . . . it was still working up untill a bad storm a while back, and I haven't gotten around to looking at it. I figure the board finally died. I had upgraded it up to Win7 32 bit and a Radeon HD3850 video card and it worked a treat. I think the most advanced game I played with it was the online Star Trek when it first came out, at modest settings.