Does anyone else remember the 286s or is it just me?

kardeck · 22 Jul 2010 at 23:40

Duke said:
Anyone remember having to set dip switches and jumpers to get the right front side bus / memory / voltage settings

Yes. My very first overclock was a massive 20mhz on a P166 to get it up to a corking 187mhz!

Duff-Man · 23 Jul 2010 at 04:15

486 sx25 was my first computer

Upgraded to a DX66 around the time that the pentium first reared its ugly head.

When I was a kid my Dad had a Tandy something-or-other, which had an 086 processor in it, along with a greyscale monitor. I never really used that at the time though - I was too young (maybe 4 or 5?).

Lunatic Dreyfus · 23 Jul 2010 at 05:26

We had networked 286 based RM Nimbus's at school, which I think ran Windows 3.0?

My first PC was a 386sx, with turbo. Beast!

Edward78 · 23 Jul 2010 at 06:42

My first was a C64, I even halfway reprogramed a game after a accident. Almost got it to work, but I couldn't. The funny thing is, I had no idea how to code, but still got the game almost working again.

djkav · 23 Jul 2010 at 08:34

I started with an Acorn Electron > Spectrum +3 > Commodore 64 > Atari 520STFM > Amiga 500 > IBM 8086 > Amiga 1200 > then to custom built PC rigs

Im still an Amiga geek at heart. That was really the computer of all time, such an amazing piece of hardware. I wonder where the Amiga would be right now if Amiga Inc still did the the chipset

Had a brilliant true mutlitasking OS too

WobblerJW · 23 Jul 2010 at 09:09

first pc was a mega pc (the one with a mega drive and a pc all in one lol
also still got my amiga 1200 <3
first pc i used was an old 286 back at high school

xxoriusxx · 23 Jul 2010 at 15:02

@Vipernet - LOL that's the best thing i've ever seen in my life

SirCanealot · 23 Jul 2010 at 16:26

So when do you think ovens are going to have a Gasmark 8800? ^_^

xiphrex · 23 Jul 2010 at 16:51

Vipernet said:
I'm reminded everyday by my wall

snip

My first "pc" a 486 is still in a cupboard somewhere. Slowest thing on the wall is a socket 7 mobo with old isa and edo memory slots!

lmao thats awesome, wonder if you could label each one as to what they are that would be neat.

I remember my dad upgrading to a pentium 75mhz from a 486. It was a Gateway2000 machine and came with the first version of Encarta. They were exciting times!

RizlaKing · 23 Jul 2010 at 16:57

There's always someone that will start a thread to remind you how old you are isn't there

. My first pc was an 8086 cannot remember what make but the first 286 i had came with a turbo button that made it go from a stonking 8mhz to storming 16mhz

. Ah those were good ol days life was so much simpler lol.

Lunatic Dreyfus · 23 Jul 2010 at 17:06

wannabedamned said:
My PCs

> 386 running windows 3.1
> 166 cyrix with 1.2gb drive and a cirrus logic GFX card
> 400 AMD with a Voodoo 3
> 2500m AMD OC'd to 3200 Spec
> Opteron 146

A Cyrix CPU!

I doubt it was much an upgrade over your 386.

I went the same way with the Voodoo 3/and various AMD CPU's, finally peaking with a nifty K6-3 450. I even had a MPEG 2 decoder card in that PC too. I have fond memories of that old rig.

MeddlE · 24 Jul 2010 at 00:15

My first OC was on my 200MMX, got it to 225!

I still have most of my old computers.

1 x ZX Spectrum 16k + 32k RAM pack
2 x ZX Spectrum 48k
1 x Atari 800XL
1 x Atari 520STFM
1 x Amiga 500
1 x Amiga 600
1 x Amiga 1200
1 x Pentium 200MMX
Plus a fair few others.

I suppose I should have a clear-out but I'm a bit of a hoarder.

InkZ · 24 Jul 2010 at 01:04

Used to go round my mates and play on his Amstrad 1512. It had 2 5/14 floppies, one which booted gem desktop and the other would load your app

I started on a C64 but that was my first PC experience.

Hagar · 24 Jul 2010 at 08:52

Lunatic Dreyfus said:
A Cyrix CPU! I doubt it was much an upgrade over your 386.

I went the same way with the Voodoo 3/and various AMD CPU's, finally peaking with a nifty K6-3 450. I even had a MPEG 2 decoder card in that PC too. I have fond memories of that old rig.

Considering that the 386 was either 25, 33 or 40MHz, the Cyrix at 166MHz was quite a jump. Cyrix was like AMD then, competing to produce x86 'Intel' clones. I was building PC's for others in those days, Micro D****t was in an old post office counter in Manchester and I bought a lot of Cyrix from there as they were relatively cheap for their performance.

andy

minicle · 24 Jul 2010 at 10:04

The computers at my first job were a mix of 286 and 386's, fondly held memories aside from the over whelming "beigeness" of them, ugly fugly things...

linktoinsanity · 24 Jul 2010 at 12:14

My first was a 486sx33Mhz with 4mb RAM, 250MB Hard disk and 1MB Cirrus logic onboard video. It was a Packard Bell (still have it actually) and actually supports PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors. My Grandad gave it to me when he replaced it with a P3 550Mhz (which he still uses) and it was MY first PC. :eek:

Before that I used my Dad's old 486sx25 with 20MB RAM (took ages to count it all) which suffered from either faulty memory or a faulty motherboard as it loved giving the horrible error message "Memory Parity Error. System Halted." I hated it as it would come up when I was doing well at Commander Keen!

So although the PB had less memory than the evesham, it was both faster cpu wise and more reliable lol.

blister · 24 Jul 2010 at 13:39

1st 1 i had was the amega a600 2 meg of ram

Lunatic Dreyfus · 25 Jul 2010 at 09:20

nkata said:
Considering that the 386 was either 25, 33 or 40MHz, the Cyrix at 166MHz was quite a jump. Cyrix was like AMD then, competing to produce x86 'Intel' clones. I was building PC's for others in those days, Micro D****t was in an old post office counter in Manchester and I bought a lot of Cyrix from there as they were relatively cheap for their performance.

andy

There was a

for a reason.

I had just become a tiresome AMD fanboy around that time and so it was nice to be able to point and laugh at another CPU producer.

Snograt · 25 Jul 2010 at 10:53

Oh god - another "let's all feel old together" thread

My story's a bit odd. Like several others here, I started off with the old 1k ZX81, followed by 48k Speccy (still miss that "dead flesh" keyboard.) Was quite a while until I could afford an Amiga and that started an obsession.

My first PC didn't come until 1999 - because I was obsessed with Amigas waaaay too long. I ended up with a beast with a 68060, external HDD, 17" Multisync monitor and an update of virtually every chip in the machine. Swapping a GTX260 for a GTX470 just doesn't have the romance of swapping Fat Agnus for a Fatter Agnus

Then some bugger showed me Quake 2 on a PC and I cried.

First PC, then - it was a Slot A Athlon (500 I think), because they were far better than Intel's current Pentium III. Half a Gig of memory. Soundblaster Live! - and some crappy ATI All-In-Wonder graphics card, speedily replaced by a pair of SLI'd VoodooIIs.

Ah, reminiscence

sybaris · 25 Jul 2010 at 16:29

I always wanted an amiga. I had an Atari ST. First the 520FM and then the 520E. My very first upgrade on a computer was changing the floppy drive to a double sided drive. I remember I had to cut a notch in the case as they changed the shape of the eject button.... odd after all these years, I can recall that memory. I haven't given it a second thought since I did it.