Windows 98 is 26 Years Old Today

[Jonj1611]

Man I am feeling old

[Rob_B]

christ, yeah that's an eye opener isn't it :/

[AGTDenton]

Damn! Though I skipped the initial version and went for SE

And this was a time when to get a viable update to IE or pretty much any inbuilt MS application you had to wait for the next release of Windows...
Unless it was a severe patch for bugs, but any new features nah

[Jonj1611]

I started off on Windows 1 :/ Before that DOS but my God, where has the time gone

[AGTDenton]

I started off on Windows 1 :/ Before that DOS but my God, where has the time gone

Yeah it's a very scary thought, where has the time gone

With my dad doing stuff on Amstrads I started on the green screen CPC. But it was Win '95 that hooked me in and was the first OS I tinkered with beyond loading apps & games and installed on my first custom made PC. A skill I'm grateful to have today.

[Jonj1611]

Back in the 80's and into the 90's everything was brand new, real innovation, new instruction sets, more speed, more power, every month was like a new thing.

I started actually building pc's in the 386 days though my first PC was an 80286 running at, wait for it, 8Mhz. What a beast.

I remember POV-ray coming on the front of a magazine, the most amazing picture I had ever seen generated by a computer. And I could do it myself! On my PC! With EGA graphics!! Almost fell off my chair. So I started the programme. And waited and waited and well you get the idea. 3 days of waiting for the computer to produce this masterpiece and we had a power cut. Everything lost, though no idea if there was anything being generated as there was no output at the time from the programme. I learnt there and then that ray tracing needed something a bit more powerful than an 8Mhz processor!

But still from that it spurned me on to build my own machine, something I continue to this day.

[[GSV]Trig]

I dont remember 98 coming out tbh, 95 I remember because you could have it on stiffies or on CD...

The number of hours I lost playing pinball or watching the Weezer video is uncounted...

[cptwhite_uk]

I have a distinct memory of watching a video clip (real player, obviously!), must have been 160x120 resolution of Oasis' latest single 'D'You Know What I Mean' from their 3rd album at a friends house. I remember collecting downloaded video clips and sound bites from the Simpsons etc. It was all so 'new' to be able to get media off the internet. Going from not having PCs to having them - it was a period in time which won't happen again. Much like other inventions before it I expect.

[Percy1983]

My first PC had windows 98 on a 350mhz Pentium 2, got it from tiny computers.

[Jonj1611]

I remember those pesky Pentium 2's. I spent half an hour looking for the damn processor in someone's PC they asked me to look at just to find it was stood vertical in some weird plastic housing!

[Rob_B]

I can't even recall my first 'proper' PC specs, some Compaq thingy I imagine. Upgraded it with a slotket and new CPU if I recall correctly, held in by zip ties, aah the memories

[[GSV]Trig]

My first computer was an Amiga 1200, then got an 030/28 Accelorator card, and stuck 8Mb of RAM on that, then upgraded to an 040/25 and lots of other bits, spent an absolute fortune on that machine back in the day, now it lives at the RCM in Leicester..

My first x86 machine was a P90, cant remember much about it other than I electrocuted myself with it, and that I sprayed the case a dark metallic 'Cadbury' style purple colour...

[Rob_B]

I had a 1200 (C64 before that) but could never afford the upgrades.
So that would have been 1992/3 , then pretty sure I had a socket 4 machine pre MMX (as that was the desirable upgrade) so maybe a 66/90mhz CPU? It was so long ago, and I'm now clearly so old my memory is worse than ever!

Now I'm remembering some of the awful,garish and cold cathode lit cases I once owned

[Percy1983]

I remember those pesky Pentium 2's. I spent half an hour looking for the damn processor in someone's PC they asked me to look at just to find it was stood vertical in some weird plastic housing!

Yep the good old slot 1 processors, wasn't it due to yields that the cache and processor where separate on a board so each could be tested separately and assembled if working.

Oddly as my first PC it confused me later when I got a normal socketed processor.

[[GSV]Trig]

I had a 1200 (C64 before that) but could never afford the upgrades.
So that would have been 1992/3 , then pretty sure I had a socket 4 machine pre MMX (as that was the desited upgrade) so maybe a 66/90mhz CPU? It was so long ago, and I'm now clearly so old my memory is worse than ever!

Now I'm remembering some of the awful,garish and cold cathode lit cases I once owned

I cant remember what a lot of the Amiga upgrade costs were, I bough the 1200 with the 030/28 from a guy who was at the same IT training place i was for £500, which I borrowed off of my nan, I remember that the 8Mb RAM was around the £250 mark, the IDE board thing was done by a company but can't remember the name, my old man drove to their place to get the thing for me for Christmas or birthday, one or the other, external CD drive, external PSU, all sorts, I really should go over and see Andy at RCM and see if it is actually alive, last time I asked him it was, but my old mans was stripped down for spares as it absolutely stank, he used to WFH and smoke about 60 a day over it, the case was stained to buggery..

Need to find out when I'm in the UK and the RCM is open, its been a while since I've seen Andy actually..