Old computers - how did they do it?

[joshwa]

Well, someone at work found an IBM 6x86MX PR300 (233mhz) (IBM manufactured version of the Cyrix) chip today, so we proceded to try and blow it up - it didn't happen, but I might have to try and find a socket 7 system to see if the chip still works...

[Dougal]

I had to do a retro build a few months back. Needed ISA slots and the only one I could find at the time took a cyrix chip. The days of the cheap 3rd party CPUS

[Jonny]

I did a retro build last month - an entire AMD K6 500Mhz machine (except power supply) inside a modern motherboard box, with holes cut for CPU fan, Mouse, Monitor, etc. I installed Windows XP on it (yes, it did run), and was going to use it as a firewall, but got bored and overclocked it. 520Mhz, fine, got to 550 with no apparent problems, 600 it crashed after POST, and 700 it burnt. Good fun while it lasted!

[joshwa]

I did a retro build last month - an entire AMD K6 500Mhz machine (except power supply) inside a modern motherboard box, with holes cut for CPU fan, Mouse, Monitor, etc. I installed Windows XP on it (yes, it did run), and was going to use it as a firewall, but got bored and overclocked it. 520Mhz, fine, got to 550 with no apparent problems, 600 it crashed after POST, and 700 it burnt. Good fun while it lasted!

lol - i did that too: with a K6-2 500 @ 550

[Jonny]

LMAO - that is exactly what mine looked like! Still have all the bits here - burnt out unfortunately. But I'll do a proper one someday in a metal box, same dimensions, and use it as a firewall.

[Matt1eD]

I have a 486 DX 33MHz and it is just as fast for word processing as my 2.53Ghz Athlon 64, it just looks less pritty while doing it. It boots faster as well, just to PC-DOS 7 instead of windows 2000.

Same with me, 486 DX with 2 megs RAM. Loads DOS 6.2 + Win 3.1 in under 30 secs, ready to do WP.

[TooNice]

My first PC (I've used slower, but it was the first I claimed as mine since my mom wasn't using it) was a 486sx 33 with 4MB RAM and 200MB HD (the sticker said 120MB - guess they must've upgraded it). I upgraded the RAM to 12MB for a whole $80 (worth a lot more at the time). I even installed Win95 on it at one point so that I could play some games I otherwise couldn't (thanks to the virtual memory management). It was slow, but it served me well till I moved on to a P2 400. And that served me well till my Barton 2500+. I really should upgrade more often, otherwise, my next upgrade might include a CPU with 8 cores lol.

[Jonny]

I had a 333mhz P2 (1998) Celeron 450Mhz (April 2005) AMD K-6 500Mhz (May 2005) and A64 3000+ (June 2005).
Hows that for poor upgrading?

[Dougal]

I can beat that.

BBC Micro -> P75 -> AMD k6/2 533 -> Duron 600(!!!) -> Athlon XP 2000 -> Athlon XP 2600 - > Athlon 64 3000+.

And I still have the BBC micro running

[Matt1eD]

And I still have the BBC micro running

That was real programming

[Dougal]

Did my first game on it.

Made a nice little skiing game.

It also taught me to back up correctly.

Power cuts are not nice..........

[DavidM]

Power cuts? Ha, you had it easy You should have managed the ZX81's tape loader... at least the BBC was better for that :-)

[Dougal]

I did have a spectrum, but that came after the P75.

Picked up the system with around 1000 games for £30. Was asked if I wanted it for £50, said "Oh, its not worth that much".

Meh.

Saw a nice ZX81 for £30 a while back in the Boro, sold it on for about £80

[mike_w]

The oldest machine I must have used would be a BBC Micro. Didn't really use it all that much though - the first machine I used properly was an Acorn Archimedes. Great machines - I still have fond memories. There some decent games on there as well.

In the past, I played around on 286s, 386s, 486s, and then we finally got a 133mhz PC. After that, we got 333mhz PCs - they're still lying around the house. My first PC all to myself was a Duron 800, followed by an Athlon 1.2ghz, followed by an Athlon XP 1800+, followed by a Mobile Barton 2500+. I still miss the Arc.

[Dougal]

Used the aacorns at school.

They kinda got on my nerves for one reason or another.

I used the Micro to teach me french time, luverly little game based on Notre Dame

[Agent]

RISC-OS ruled.
Seriously. I loved that OS.