What was your first (PC) computer, 286,386?

OCdude · 23 Aug 2016 at 19:04

tom_nieto said:
Ahh! The joys of GTA over a serial link soon overtaken by slinging Cat5 cables out of dormitory windows and running them secretly under carpets to play red alert 2 and counterstrike!

I used to have really weird issues with GTA going out of sync.... i'd be sitting downstairs laughing my head off, having blown my brother's car up.. and he'd yell "what are you laughing at?" - and he'd be halfway across the map doing something totally different :confused:

Now, Duke Nukem 3D games via modem... they cracked me up! Especially the F-key taunts you could spam

Skiddley · 23 Aug 2016 at 19:15

MookJong said:
This...

A gaming high that I have chased and cannot reach again.

Agreed. I made a massively long serial cable - probabbly broke all of the rules but it worked. Could game in different rooms.

Then we bought NICs - those 10base T ones where you build a bus network with coax, t-pieces and terminators at the end. Good times.

WoZZeR · 23 Aug 2016 at 19:22

MookJong said:
This...

Luckily one of my mates lived in my street and we used to play coop DooM2 over 9pin serial link. I would be seen regularly walking down the street with a CRT during the summer holidays in 1995 / 96

Unbelievable times, I really cannot explain how good DooM2 coop was at the time, especially with custom maps. Loads of people played DooM in the 90s but I can't tell you how unbelievable it was to clear rooms with a friend working with you at the time.

A gaming high that I have chased and cannot reach again.

A work mate and I both had 28K Modems (they were very expensive back then) and we used to hook up on a direct connection and play Doom Co-op on Hurt Me Plenty at weekends, phone bills were huge.

nutcase · 23 Aug 2016 at 20:38

MookJong said:
This...

Luckily one of my mates lived in my street and we used to play coop DooM2 over 9pin serial link. I would be seen regularly walking down the street with a CRT during the summer holidays in 1995 / 96

Unbelievable times, I really cannot explain how good DooM2 coop was at the time, especially with custom maps. Loads of people played DooM in the 90s but I can't tell you how unbelievable it was to clear rooms with a friend working with you at the time.

A gaming high that I have chased and cannot reach again.

All true. CS came close but Doom was Doom :cool:

Duke · 23 Aug 2016 at 21:48

tom_nieto said:
Ahh! The joys of GTA over a serial link soon overtaken by slinging Cat5 cables out of dormitory windows and running them secretly under carpets to play red alert 2 and counterstrike!

Lotus Turbo Challenge over null modem on two Amigas :cool:

GSXRMovistar · 23 Aug 2016 at 22:25

BNC Network cards, Token ring networks...it's interesting to think about all the stuff I used to be able to setup but now can't remember a single thing about.

George Hincapie · 23 Aug 2016 at 22:27

Mine was an AMD K5 IIRC. Then upgraded to a K6 II.

Neil79 · 23 Aug 2016 at 23:00

George Hincapie said:
Mine was an AMD K5 IIRC. Then upgraded to a K6 II.

Stretch · 24 Aug 2016 at 00:56

Neil79 said:
Nobody owned a 486 100mhz DX4 then?

I still have a DX4 chip in the loft somewhere. I have quite a few old chips actually.

Ahh, the days before cooling fans, when PCs just emitted a soothing whisp from PSU, and the occasional reassuring chatter from the HD.

ShaolinDreams · 24 Aug 2016 at 05:58

Does a Sinclair ZX81 count?

mid_gen · 24 Aug 2016 at 07:39

Wyrdo said:
286 12mhz with a 20mb HDD - I forget how much RAM it had. I think that was around 1988/89? I forget, it was so long ago

Same as the first PC that was mine, although my parents had an 80886 before that.

It was a Comcen AT, 2mb RAM, the 20mb HDD was the size of a breezeblock. That PC had the best power switch ever, it was like it belonged on a nuclear reactor. Found a pic of a similar one, although it was a few years before I splashed out on a HiGH DENSITY 3.5" drive

Iamzod · 24 Aug 2016 at 07:45

Mine was a Pentium 4 1.7 with 512mb of PC800 RDRAM and a 40gb HDD. It came with a GeForce 2 MX200 which i swapped to an ATi Radeon 8500 pretty quickly, it ran games of the time pretty well.

OldComputerGuy7 · 24 Aug 2016 at 10:10

I would think some kind of 286 when i was a kid for first PC seem to remember playing the game paratrooper on it

.
But think first computer would have been a BBC Micro my dad bought which i have many fond memories playing on and doing some basic coding.

Speaking of older mice, i have been using my "Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical" since around 2000 and used that up until a few months ago until the left switch stopped working but for all that time it worked faultlessly for all those years, often got dropped/knocked off the desk but still had no real problems. Once i get round to replacing the switch it will be as good as new

.
I also got another one from ebay a while back which is what i am using.

I still find it fine for what i do with it and still not bad in FPS's although i tend to be playing other things these days.

Rannoch · 24 Aug 2016 at 23:09

sk3lph said:
First PC was a 486 DX2 66 with 4Mb of RAM and 105Mb HDD, which I bought for my Engineering Degree course. Spent £200 upgrading the RAM to 8Mb and added a dual speed CDROM drive to it for £175.

Tried to convince my parents that I needed to upgrade the PC to a Pentium to do coursework in the last year of my degree, when in fact I really wanted to upgrade it to play Quake.

Those were the days when you had to load your PC into your car and drive round to a mates house if you wanted a bit of multi-player Death match action.

We did link ups, they were great fun, much better than online. I used to cart my 19" IIyama monitor round with a huge pc, great days.

Rannoch · 24 Aug 2016 at 23:12

The_Baron said:
Pentium 60. Oh the joys of trying to get old DOS games working

Magic Carpet on the P60/66 was class

. Made 486 owners drool...

Kyrne · 25 Aug 2016 at 03:12

Some form of Packard Bells line up from Currys! Win 95!

Aberfala · 25 Aug 2016 at 07:10

My first PC was a 386 DX33, it was also my first build as it was £50 cheaper to buy it as bits rather than ready assembled so I thought I'd give it a go.

SickAsAParrot · 25 Aug 2016 at 10:08

My first was an 8086 based thing cobbled together in the late 80's out of bits with an ancient b+W monitor pinched out of something else, no case, bench power supply to run it. It would run Wordperfect and Lotus 123 just about.

I had an Amiga 1500 at the time and was considering buying a PC emulator card for it but it was cheaper just to build the PC to tinker with.

It gradually got upgraded over the years but I eventually bit the bullet and bought a proper 486 based system (from Multivision) and dumped the Amiga.

Adam-r · 9 Feb 2017 at 15:24

I had a spectrum +2 first. Then upgraded to a Tiny, P120. Guy guy in the shop asked 'Why do you need a 1Gb HDD"

Then I got a Philips PC with 266Mhz processor. which was like a rocket in comparison. I can still remember having the phone line running across the living room floor for dial-up and if anyone rang the house it would disconnect you

Efour · 9 Feb 2017 at 15:28

K2 350 AMD? Socket 6 I can't remember name.
80gb hard disk can't even remember rest.
Voodoo banshee 16mb