Five years ago...

[Steve]

Here's a trip down memory lane for you. OK, so it's not a very long trip, but I'm sure given the speed at which technology develops, it'll be nostalgic!

So, what am I asking here? You've probably guessed already... what PC spec were you running a whole five years ago?

Just think... so few megahertz, such a small hard drive and you didn't even care about the output of your PSU. What miraculous programs could your system rip through; what games?

Even if you can't afford that lovely SLI/dual core system you've got your eyes on, looking back on what you used to put up with should cheer you up.

[Howard]

WOw.... Erm...

I think it was something like this:

400MHz AMD K6-3 (shudder)
about 192MB of PC100 RAM (urghh)
Creative Voodoo2 Banshee PCI (yuck)
SB Live 5.1 (mmmhmmm)
Two incredibly slow 3.2GB Hard Drives (eek)
Sony DVDROM drive

I upgraded this in 2002. Went up to a 1.2GHz Duron system with 256MB of RAM! What a jump.

Edit: This system is still pretty much intact as my dad's PC now. Damn, it's slow.

I remember fiddling around with Win98Se and 2000 in Christmas 2001, trying to get some device drivers to work, then I thought sod it and installed Windows XP on Christmas eve. I remember doing that, and it was such a jump in operating system technology!
Got my shiny new TDK CDRW drive for Christmas the next day! Poor thing only died recently.

[Steve]

OK, here's mine:

February of 2000, I think it was, when I did my first proper self build. What components did I have?

- AMD Athlon Thunderbird 850MHz
- 256MiB PC133 RAM
- Jetway 663AS PRO Motherboard
- 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 PCI
- Seagate 13GB Hard Drive

Things weren't too smooth to start with. I had one of Thermaltake's crazy super-orbs on top of the CPU, but only after I'd filed away enough of it for it to fit next to the capacitors on the motherboard. Then I had issues with the motherboard, which subsequently died, resulting a free upgrade to the 663AS Ultra model (133MHz FSB support... not that I could use it.)

I remember running Windows 2000 Pro on it and I remember it making my 233MHz Cyrix look poor. Half-Life played absolutely superbly. In fact, if I still had that system all together instead of dispersed around family computers and what-not, I'd probably prefer to play HL on it, even now... there was something about that rig that made it special.

Good times.

edit: Oh my word, I've missed out two critical items!

Sound Blaster Live! 1024 - EAX in Half-Life... we're waiting for you Gordon!
Yamaha CRW8824S - Internal SCSI CD writer. I still have this thing and it still works. This drive made me fall in love with SCSI, leading me to buy SCSI hard drives in the future. Alas, those days have passed.

[iMc]

hmmm I think I would have been using a:

Pentium II 350MHz
128Mb RAM
7.5Gb HDD
Intel Onboard Gfx (absolutely shocking)

Also had a:

Pentium 200MMX
64Mb RAM
Matrox Millenium 2D Card
10Gb HDD
Soundblaster Live!

That's all I can remember of those PC's. The Pentium II is still running... slowly. Does the job for my sister though. I remember using the P2 for the 1st time and thinking WOW! lol

How things change.

[piggeh]

Hmmm.... I have the same PC Now as I did back then!

PIII 800
128MB Ram
TNT 2 graphics card (32MB)

I really need to upgrade at some point.

[iMc]

Hmmm.... I have the same PC Now as I did back then!

PIII 800
128MB Ram
TNT 2 graphics card (32MB)

I really need to upgrade at some point.

That PC was a beast back then! Must have cost a bit.

I remember our Pentium II was about £1300

[JimmyBoy]

ermm.. musta been the good ol' p3

it was a family pressie at christmas

p3 450mhz
64mb ram
12gb hdd
intel 810 gfx
on board sound

still running now just with an extra 256 of ram and a gefore 4 pci card

[uniquekamal]

I had a....dang let me remember HP Pavilion 8370!
Link to HP Specs: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...cname=bph04404

PII 350 Mhz
128MB PC100 RAM
8GB Hardrive
DVD ROM
Serial Port for Digital Camera <---- lol it was so slow
USB Port <-- One whole USB port! Hurray!
ATI Integrated Graphics <-- don't know what though
This was when the damn motherboards would say like AGP X2! Then you look in side the case and see a blank spot for where the AGP was supposed to be, HP are jerks. I was confused for a while.

Later I beefed it up to
384MB PC100 RAM
HP CDwriter <--- Super slow, but was great then.
New Motherboard with an real AGP Slot!
Added ATI Radeon 7000 64MB

Games I played on that machine:
Duke Nukem: Its time to kick ass and chew bubble gum.....and im all out of gum
Duke Nukem 3D <--- I played the hell out of that game at home and school, Duke had some great one liners

Rise of the Trinadad
Monkey Island 1 through 3 <-- if you missed these game you missed a classic
Unreal Tournament
Quake 1,2,3 <-- Quake 3 was pushing the limits of the card (Radeon 7000)
Half-Life
Doom <-- Of Course
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold <-- weird ass game
Link: http://www.apogee1.com/blake/index.html

Tried to get countless emulators to run most of them worked well. My computer was a beast! My friends use to think that I had like at least a 733Mhz processor cause it ran so smooth. But that was just because I kept it clean and made sure I reformatted the PC once I got it to get all that crappy HP useless stuff off on there.

I still have to play Monkey Island 4!

- Kamal

[sawyen]

Gee... 5 years.. Thats a long way back.
Brings back the days when Voodoo2 SLI still had some grunt..

1999:
Pentium II 233MHz
3.2GB Seagate Bigfoot
64MB RAM (which module? lets not even go there..)
2x Creative 3D Blaster Voodoo2 12MB in 3DFX SLI
24x CD-ROM (it rocked back then okay...)
14'' Phillips CRT Monitor

2000:
Athlon Thunderbird 1.2GHz
256MB PC133 SDRAM
10GB HDD
64MB Geforce2 MX400
50x CD-ROM (again.. it was good that time)
17'' ACER CRT Monitor

2003:
Athlon XP Barton Core 2500+ (stock speed 1.8GHz)
1GB Kingston PC2700 DDR SDRAM
Geforce FX 5600 ULTRA (no grunt at all.. £100 down the drain)
40GB MAXTOR HDD (died in 6 months)
16x ASUS DVD-ROM
52x48x52 Samsung CR-RW
17'' Viewsonic Flat CRT

Present:
OC Athlon XP Barton 2500+ at 2.3GHz, 200MHz FSB
1GB Kingston PC3200 DDR SDRAM
Leadtek A400GT Geforce 6800GT 256MB
120GB Western Digital
16x ASUS DVD-ROM
52x48x52 LiteON CDRW
19'' Samsung LCD

[Taz]

CPU: PIII 750Mhz overclocked to 915MHZ. (No stability issues unlike todays CPU's!)
HDD: 5GB + 12GB HDD's (I think these were Maxtor DiamondMax's)
RAM: 256MB RAM (increased to 512MB around 3 years ago)
GPU: Matrox Millenium (original 2D version)
Sound: Original SoundBlaster Live!
M/B: Not sure!
Optical: CD-ROM drive (CD-RW was installed around 3 years ago, original CD-ROM was replaced with a DVD-ROM around 2 years ago)

[absolute512]

PII@450 MHz Slot1
256MB PC100 Ram
Asus P3B-F (440BX)
nVidia TNT2 w/16MB
Turtle Beach Montego II (snd-card)
12 GB IBM HDD (5400rpm)
Creative DVD-Rom (Gen2)
Yamaha CD-R/RW (2-4x)
17'' Triniton
Windows 98

Warcraft I, Civilisation, Quake (i think)

And it rocked, I was the first one in my school to have a CD-R/RW

[YorkieBen]

5 years ago, I had just bought my first pc from Mesh replacing my Amiga 1200...

Pentium 3 550MHZ
64MB Ram PC100 (upgraded to 128mb a year later)
13GB Hard drive 5400rpm
Matrox G400 Graphics Card
DVD-ROM Drive (8 speed!!!)
CD-Rom Drive
Windows 98Se


Was still using it up until XMAS 2003, still ran most stuff anyway that I wanted it to - Medieval Total War, Civ 3, Half Life. Still in the loft, would work fine now

[absolute512]

Current One's:
a)
2x Xeon DP @ 2.8GHZ (FSB533 w/Peltier)
Asus PC-DL Deluxe
4GB DDR400 Ram
Ati Radeon 9800xt w/256MB (@FireGL)
Audigy2 Platinum Pro
640GB HDD (4x 160GB dual RAID)
LG 4160 DVD-R/RW DL
Lian-Li PC-V1000 Case
Tagan 480W Supply
b)
Powermac G5 dual 2.0
2GB DDR 400
Radeon X800
600GB HDD
Pioneer DVR-108
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger

2x IOGear KVM
2x Samsung Syncmaster 955MB Flatscreen CRT

Do Video-Editing for a living

[oshta]

Our first pc was a crapy "Time" PC, will still got it using it a crapy domain "server" (with some extra ram)

- 1000Mhz Athlon t'bird
- Asus Geforce II GTS
- MSI K7T pro1
- 128mb PC133
- x10 DVD-rom (CD-RW added later)
- On Board 1.0 Sound
- Only two usb ports (eek)
- 16GB Fujitsu HDD (failed after a year)
- 19" Samtron CRT (still using now)
- Running Win ME (ahhhh, that didnt last long)

Cost over a grand for that! Must have been around then, i think early 2001 acutallly


Daniel

[starside]

AMD duron 700MHz
64MB SDRAM PC100
Win 98 SE
9Gb HDD
TNT graphics card (I think)

How times change

[exAndrzej]

Year: 2000
Job: Running company creating database driven web sites (honest - they WILL catch on)
System: 1.2GHz Athlon with 512MB SDRAM (133 ?) and a 60GB drive on a KT133a mainboard
Built By: Some bloke called Dutton who promised me he knew what he was doing
Lasted: 4.5 years - it is now in retirement but still sitting next to me - it is keeping a stack of IT magazines at 'hand-height'

Replaced by: 14.5Kg CPU called a 3.73Ghz EE with tons of something called DDRII and a hard drive that causes agorophobia in my data packets


Do I notice the difference when typing this message ?... not a lot

However, I have to say that my old system would not clear 100fps in HL2 - but this one does

Also - cos I lent him all the parts for a show - this one also carries the shame of being 'Built-by-Dutton'