PC Nostalgia (Pick a moment in time)

Can't find any photos of my old rig but It was this case. This case in like 04/05 was the bees knees I'm not the only one who had this case :p Shame OC don't stock it still.


 
Last edited:
1994 DooM 2 and Tie Fighter. Building DooM wads using a level editor and then playing them coop over serial cable. Also making music mods on FastTracker II
 
These were the days. Coolermasters and Lian Li's were THE cases to have. I only just got rid (got married:() of that epic desk last year, which has been with me since I was 12!

Not entirely sure what year this was from...
I6F8LrF.jpg

Eventually started gaming on these new fangled LCD's in 2005... Behold the glorious wallpaper - the stuff of legends. DDq97ID.jpg
 
Really torn between a few periods! I think one of the big ones for me though was the first PC I'd assembled myself: A socket 423 Pentium 4 1.7GHz, Intel 850 chipset MSI motherboard, either 1GB or 512mb of RD RAM (I cannot quite remember now!), and a Leadtek GeForce 4 ti 4200 all housed in that Cheiftec case everyone and their dog had. Bought all of this to play Battlefield 1942, which it played splendidly! Was a fantastic machine for it's time although like many PC's back then, it was fairly short lived. It was eventually replaced with an Athlon XP machine with a ATI Radeon 980 pro!

PC's certainly seemed a lot more interesting and exciting back in those days, although I'm not sure if that's just me looking back with rose tinted glasses.
 
The 90s:
  • Generally messing around in DOS with DOS commands, shell, QBasic - creating basic INPUT and PRINT commands and copying code from the Internet to execute apps and games way out of your coding knowledge!
  • Windows 95/98 - Windows Themes, Microsoft Encarta! Small applications that you could download and save to floppy disk that got exchanged in school. One was a Coke advert which stated it would provide a free drinks holder, you click OK and it would just open the CD tray on your CDROM - simpler times!
  • Games like DOOM, Quake, C&C, Red Alert, Theme Park, Commandos (lol). Does anyone remember Motorcross Madness?
  • PC magazines with discs that contained tons of demos on and then installing most of them when not needed.
  • Looking around PC stores just to see and play on the latest PCs, peripherals and games.
In the early 00s, there was a shift from desktop PCs into custom builds including case modding - adding windows and additional fan inlet/outlet holes, water cooling. Athlon processors like 2500+, Abit NF7-S 2.0, Coolermaster cases!
 
naefeart said:
Oh, mustn't forget Doom 2 and Delta Force against your mates via serial cable! Many happy memories but sadly I struggle to achieve the same levels of gaming fun these days.
Click to expand...

I recently found out Delta Force is still sold on Steam and works on Win7 without issue! I've been playing it and GR Wildlands back to back for a few weeks and TBH I still prefer DF, even with the Voxels :D
 
I loved the dialup Wireplay community in 98/99 - Jedi Knight, Action Quake 2, TFC, an experimental 64 player Quake 2 server that often fell over and many regulars. The closest things to it in the following years were Ultima Online and the servers hosted by Jolt, Barrysworld, etc, for CS and DoD. Private parties and the like have killed the community feeling; I might as well be taking on advanced bots.

As for hardware, the Radeon 9700 Pro was a cracking purchase. BF1942 ran like a dream.
 
Those ATI 9700 and 9800 Pro's were incredible GPU's. They absolutely battered the FX series cards from NV at the time. Wish I had mine still!
 
If we're talking PCs only (no ZX, BBC, C64 etc), then 1999 for me. That was my first PC, and got online for the first time. It wasn't 56k dial-up either, but rather... a dual-T1 (3Mbit) connection as I was in uni halls! Blistering speed, but I didn't know better at the time until I came back to my parents during summer hols. Then I had to endure 56k for the next 3 months and that was sheer agony in comparison :p

Gaming-wise, it was all about real time strategies. Blizz was meant to realise Warcraft III in 1999 as well but they kept delaying the launch date so I jumped ship to Age of Empires II which I consider as the spiritual sequel to Warcraft II. AoEII would then become one of my favourite games of all time. All-night LANS ftw :) All of the n00bs would select Franks as their civ then the smart ass (not me!) would select a camel civ e.g. Saracens which could wipe out the paladins easily :D
 
Kainz said:
Those ATI 9700 and 9800 Pro's were incredible GPU's. They absolutely battered the FX series cards from NV at the time. Wish I had mine still!
Click to expand...

I have a 9800XT and FX 5800 Ultra in their boxes. The 5800 Ultra was a fond gift from America in Detroit.
 
ianh said:
I recently found out Delta Force is still sold on Steam and works on Win7 without issue! I've been playing it and GR Wildlands back to back for a few weeks and TBH I still prefer DF, even with the Voxels :D
Click to expand...
Omg we used to play that over the lan at work in an old job!
 
End of nineties, beginning of 2000's. You could purchase SGI Indy/Indigo/O2 for less than £600, Intergraph's TDZ 2000 were out, good games, stable OSes, life was good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom