Let's play a game:
Post the oldest image of your "battle station" / computer setup that you have.
Ideally, post some specs of the system if you can remember.
I'll start:
- photo from 2003
- Pentium II, 350MHz
- 3DFX Voodoo Banshee
- 1024x768 17" Eizo CRT
- Iomega Zip drive, 100MB via Parallel port (*click!*)
- SCSI Scanner hidden away in the background
I think the Mac was a Power Macintosh 6300, but I'm not 100% sure.
What are yours? :)
#retrocomputing
@manawyrm Would have to go back to my parents' house across the country and scan some film photos.
But it was a Smith-Corona PWP-80. (it was old at the time, but my dad wasn't using it anymore so it was mine to use as I saw fit)
@azonenberg Neat!!
Yeah, I think this was the first digital photo I have, or at least it's the first one I have as a JPEG (those Kodak Photo CDs were a thing back then).
@manawyrm We also had an AMD 386 running DOS 5 and Win 3.1 at the same time, but dad actually used it for stuff so I had less time on it.
Then we bought the Windows Mistake Edition box in 2000 or 2001, at which point I had the 386 all to myself...
Until I touched the keyboard lock after touching the CRT display and fatally ESD'd it, a year or two after. I don't think it was completely dead, it would boot to a bios menu, but it wasn't seeing the hard drive so either the HDD was toast or the BIOS config for the very much not plug-and-play drive was corrupted/erased. Middle school aged me had no idea how to fix it so that was the end of it.
RE: https://chaos.social/@manawyrm/117030833107653781
@alina
I'm at the very very edge of Gen Z, might barely still be a millennial.
Either way, I have back pain now, so I'm officially old 😹
RT: https://chaos.social/users/manawyrm/statuses/117030833107653781
@azonenberg
Yikes, that feels familiar :/
I killed a PC in a similar way by connecting the IDE cable (might've been a floppy cable) the wrong way around, back when they didn't have notches.
Oopsy, for such a simple mistake the box sure didn't like that and never turned back on.
@manawyrm A glimpse into my home lab around 2001 or 2002—nobody knows for sure.
An HP NetServer LH Pro with a Pentium Pro 200 running Windows NT 4.0 Server and six 2 GB SCSI drives. Next to it, my self-built Pentium 133 with two HDDs, dual Plextor UltraWide SCSI CD-ROM drives, and an Iomega ZIP drive. Topped with an HP PhotoSmart P1000 and a 15" Targa CRT. I knew every jumper, cable, and SCSI terminator by heart. #RetroComputing #WindowsNT #SCSI
@azonenberg @manawyrm I should make better scans of my negatives of our DECstation (circa 1992). That mouse was a crime against humanity, although it was still an upgrade compared to the VT-420's we had in the terminal room.
@th @azonenberg
super cool pic!
(and oh damn, the hair back in that day! :D)
Nice thread !
This is a beautiful 286/20 MHz :
- 1 MB RAM
- 40 MB HDD Western Digital
- Video card Trident TVGA 8900 512 ko
- Baby Boomer sound card (Adlib clone)
- RIC (Royal IC) VGA monitor 14"
Running on MS/DOS 5.0 with PC/GEOS (Geoworks) GUI
🥰🥰🥰🥰
@manawyrm gurl. You are not that much younger than I. How come my first battle station was around a millenia younger?
@manawyrm This is probably the oldest picture of my computer, from January 2004 (I never cared enough to take pictures of my desktop before that).
I think this is an Athlon XP 2500+, with either 1 or 2 GB RAM, no idea which graphic card (probably GeForce 2MX), Pioneer DVD-ROM, Teac CD-RW, Teac DVD-RW optical drives, 8+40+40GB hard drives (Quantum, IBM, Maxtor), Hansol H530 15″ 1024x768 LCD monitor, Umax Astra 2100 USB scanner (with Via Eden 5000 mini-ITX board resting on it), and yes, the whole computer was built-into the drawers of my desk.
@tyalie
I've been doing this for a while ;)
I think you've asked me before why it seems like I've touched basically any topic at some point -- well, over (a lot of) time is the answer 😄
Later in 2004, I finally got a chance to upgrade to an AMD Sempron 2100+ and I also found a CD version of Microsoft's Visual Studio, so that's when things really got going :)
@manawyrm C64, a 1541 clone, my grans old telly and some joystick (no competition pro unfortunately)
@Exilsarahl heck yes! 6502 <3
Here's my original C64c, although in a much much never video (ok, it's also 15 years old at this point), with an LCD monitor already.
@manawyrm oh wow. I don't even have any pictures from my first setup way back when.
I only found this which is also the last ever desktop setup I had. Only use Laptops since then.
Photo is from August 2004.
* AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1,8Ghz
* 17" CRT
* and of course two technics 1210 mk2 on the side ;)
Also: The Microsoft intelli explorer was the best mouse for at least a decade - change my mind
@manawyrm From 2001. Don't remember which incarnation this is but it has housed a Celeron 300A @ 450 MHz and a PIII 700 @ 933 on an Abit BH6 mobo. Guess it has a GeForce 2 GTS, which replaced a Riva TNT2 which replaced a Matrox Mystique + Voodoo2, in this photo. 19" LG @ 1600x1200. Used to have a Gravis Ultrasound Max but upgraded to a Hoontech SoundTrack Audio DSP24 with RCA in/out. DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives. Don't remember what harddrives.
- photo from 2000
- desktop with AMD K6-2 450
- sis 6326 graphics with 8MB
- 8gb quantum bigfoot hard drive (it was 5.25")
- 64mb of RAM
- freeBSD with KDE and it looks like Netscape
- first picture some linux website, second picture absolutely shitposting on slashdot
- 33.6 external modem (not pictured) that worked with FreeBSD
- I was about 14 and built it all myself with my own $$$
- pc magazine feb 8 2000 edition to the left
- a cat
@manawyrm My cave ca. mid 90s. IIRC, the desktop on the right was a 486 DX4 running at a blazing 100MHz. The one on the left was a 386 DX 33MHz in a full size tower. No idea what my BBS (center) ran on. My desks still are the same mess.
Oldest pic I could find 1995. First computer. 486 DX4 75 Packard Bell. I overclocked to 100MHz using a jumper from 3x to 4x multiplier. 8MB of RAM. I found 4 extra MB in a computer that was thrown out in the dump and it worked (30 pin SIMM) so I ended up with 12MB. 545MB Hard Drive. This was before we had computer desks in homes so we just put it on a table and keyboard in lap. Came with Win95 but I had Slackware with fvwm95 on it by 1997.
@manawyrm Nowhere near the oldest computer I had by almost two decades, but this was my Ultra workstation for reading news during breakfast in early 2000s.
@manawyrm Here is me hacking happily on October 16, 1983.
- Commodore 64
- Zenith b/w “monitor”
- GPX Boombox
- Commodore Dataset 1530 (off camera)
- Commodore 1520 Plotter (off camera)
I still own and use the same C64, Dataset, and plotter. I have had to replace a few chips in the C64 over the years. The tape in my Dataset right now is the same tape that was in it when this photo was taken. My plotter pens are all dried up though haha.
#retrocomputing
@artifex @manawyrm I downloaded over a 14.4 modem and it took forever. And nobody could pick up the phone during that time! I overwrote every floppy I had including WFW 3.11. And then I installed it and had to download separately Netscape 3.x which was only 5 MB, instead of the larger Netscape Communicator suite. Later on, I discovered CheapBytes and got the CD's mailed to me. #slackware
@manawyrm Somebody remind me to go digging in my archives as soon as I get home from work.
I should have a bunch of similar images from around 2005. I don't think I have photos from my first ever PC. That one was 98 or 99 iirc. I got to build myself my own machine from some left-over parts, after messing up my father's computer too many times. I had to share it with my brother for a while until I got my own computer again in 2002 or 2003. I definitely have pictures of that system.
@manawyrm The first computer we had at home was a 286 in '89, and the first one I bought myself was Celeron 450 in '99, but if pictures of those exist, they're somewhere in albums (well, technically the computer in the picture and the one I still use today can be traced all the way back to the one I bought in '99, because I just keep upgrading that piece-by-piece).
@manawyrm my oldest digital photo, where I kept records from, is 2012, with my then-new i5 750 (or 760?).
However, the oldest machine I had access to in my childhood (12 years before that), was like some ancient Win95/Win98 - I can't remember shit - machine, which I think barely played some Thomas-game, Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour, and QBasic, IIRC. Also, SimTunes. Specs? I don't have any Idea - CRT, 640x480, probably.
@manawyrm Compukit UK101 in 1981. First year at Westfield College (London). 6502 machine with 8k.
@manawyrm Must be from 1994/95. Unfortunately the big tower is not in the photo, but I remember very well its specs:
486 DX 33MHz
4MB RAM (later upgraded to 8MB)
200MB HDD (later added another 320MB)
14" Belinea Monitor
Soundblaster 2.5 from CPS Labs
3,5" and 5,25" disk drives
I don't remember the graphics card, but I do remember replacing it later with a Spea V7.
This would be 2004ish. Senior year of college. I was working at a computer store part time so my rig was legit.
AthlonXP 2500+ OC to 3200+
512MB or 1GB RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
Dual 36GB Western Digital Raptors in RAID1 for boot drive. I think a 120GB drive for storage and games.
And of course the dual LCDs, Viewsonic IPS panels of some sort. 1280x1024 res.
Not pictured:
Dell XPS R400 modded bios to accept a slot adapter with a P3 Coppermine 1.2 Ghz
@manawyrm oldest I got to hand May 2000:
Amiga 1200 with '030 and 18 meg ram. Connected to the internet via a PCMCIA card to a VSDL service straight into the ISP I worked for. CD-ROM, 2GB HD, airlink remote control thing (that controlled a sky box IIRC over the internet - the streaming was obviously not handled by the amiga!) uprated (old PC) PSU, prograb 24 frame grabber.
External keyboard naturally, alongside a Philips CM8833-II sat on the desk. This open-heart-surgery pile of parts sat on a shelf to the side 😂.
Beast of a machine, definitely a battle station, had the base A1200 since 1993, and repeatedly bolted stuff on, on a tight budget. It was starting to become difficult to use as the daily driver around then, but everything about it was great fun. nothing's been remotely such a pleasure to use since.
@manawyrm Intel 486DX2@120MHz, 16MB RAM. 17“ CTX Monitor, 1,3GB HDD, ISA Soundblaster, HP DeskJet 560C Printer. Before that, it was a Commodore Amiga 500 with two FDDs and a 14“ Monitor! Quite some time ago. I think this photo is a scan of a 1996 photo. I was there, Dialup modem, IRC, ICQ (later), Qualcomm Eudora E-Mail-Client, DOS/Windows 95
@manawyrm
- photo from 1989
- BBC Micro
- oscilloscope borrowed from school
- can't remember what the circuit on the breadboard was
@manawyrm Acorn A310, probably about 1991. Dot matrix printer, phone, modem.
Good old times. Photo ~2000
AMIGA 4000T:
- Cyberstorm 060/50MHz
- 48 MB RAM
- IBM DDRS-34560 4,5 GB HDD
- Cybervision 64 4MB
- Plextor 32x UltraSCSI CDROM
- Ariadne II 10MBit Netzwerkkarte
PC:
- ASUS P3V-4X
- Intel Pentium III 650MHz
- 128 MB SDRAM
- IBM DNES-318350W 18.3 GB HDD
- ELSA Erazor X² GeForce256DDR 32MB
- Plextor 40x UltraSCSI CDROM
- D-Link DFE530TX 10/100MBit NIC
- Soundblaster Live!
- Key Tronic Colorkeys-GR Tastatur
@manawyrm
From 1996, my third and fourth Macs. A PowerMac 7500 and a PowerBook 1400. The first digital image I ever took after unboxing my QuickTake 100.
Plus a Wacom tablet, Apple adjustable keyboard, Sony trinitron display and a SCSI scanner.
@manawyrm I don't have any images of my older computers, because digital cameras hadn't been invented, yet, and film was too expensive to waste on photos of unimportant things. My first PC was an Atari 800. That was followed by an Apple Macintosh IIsi, then a Power Macintosh 7500.