A blast from the past

[Agentbolt]

Still waiting for my new video card to come in for my computer, so in the meantime I've switched back to my old E-Monster 600. This thing is SWEET.

600 MHZ PIII
64 MB of SDRAM
20 gig 5200 RPM hard drive
8MB NVidia Vanta LE Video Card
Windows 98 SE

WITH Starcraft still in the CD Player (36X, oh hell yeah)! I tell you what, the nostalgia I've got going on right now is incredible. I almost never want that other video card to come in. Did I mention this computer came pre-loaded with Star Office Suite? KILLER RIG!!!

 

[Antoneo]

I know what you mean, I can't get myself to let go of my 440BX system. It's been piping a 1.4GHz Celeron-T with 512MB of SDRAM. It'll be back up one of these days as soon as I get it a new hard drive. Too bad for ~$150 I could get a nice athlon setup/upgrade that would blow it out of the water.

 

[Agentbolt]

There's gotta be someone out there with a primary computer that can beat either of the ones mentioned so far in terms of sheer obsolence. Someone with one of those crazy old celerons that you could OC like 200%, maybe.

Also, I recently searched around for the Vante LE and found it's considered THE worst AGP card in existance. Seriously, the absolute worst. Cool!

 

[Jittos]

I have a friend who still uses a PII...
he only uses his comp to chat, surf, email, and download p0rn

 

[hopejr]

I still use a Slot 1 PII 350MHz as my second-to-main computer (my main computer is an iBook G4). It has 192MB SDRAM (originally 64MB), Creative iNFRA CD-ROM Drive (I think it's 36x too), Creative Ensoniq sound card, 440BX Chipset (mobo is an intel one too), GeForce 2 MX400 w/64MB VRAM (originally SiS 6326), 40GB and 4GB Hard Drive (originally just 4GB). It originally came with Win98, but I'm running Windows Server 2k3 on it (and does really well).
Not quite in it's original state, but oh well.

My bro still uses a PIII 733MHz (and my parents also have one). We also have an AMD K6-2 533MHz.

Believe it or not, I know this guy that still uses a Pentium 100MHz, with Windows 95A. He also uses Amiga sometimes.

 

[karnick]

i got a blast from the past for you: overclocking by moving jumpers

 

[farscape]

Dang...
Got you beat...
Still using a Compaq at work with a smokin' P120, 40 meg of RAM, 740 MEG of HD, ....


and...



Win95!!!

Ripped off the Compaq label and replaced it with a more apt SLUG-MACHINE label.

 

[impemonk]

Well, when the Internet craze and computer craze started happening in early '96 and '97, I was still using my Apple //e. The thing was a dedicated beast. The printer was just as loud. I only used it for word documents and to play games like Karatika, Chop Lifter, Diamond Mines, Situation Critical, Montezuma's Revenge, Load Runner, and Ape Decapitate. ahhhh... good times. I never stopped using that computer until late 2002 when I got MY FIRST COMPUTER!!! It was handed down to me from my cousin... the thing had an integrated 8MB GRAPHICS CARD! Wooot. I still have it lying around and its always a blast to decapitate apes in Ape Decapitate. hahahaha what a strange mind whoever created this 1988 classic.

 

[ponyo]

Originally posted by: karnick
i got a blast from the past for you: overclocking by moving jumpers

That's not the past. Even as recent as 2000 I was overclocking Duron 700 on my Asus A7V with jumpers and pencil trick.

 

[wisdomtooth]

My brother-in-law still uses the Celeron 300A overclocked to 450mHz that I built for him 6 years ago. Still using that Abit BH6 (the first of the jumperless overclocking BX boards), an NVidia TNT1, and the original Sony 17SFII Trinitron 17" monitor.

Did incrementally upgrade his RAM to 512MB couple years back, and recently HD to a 200GB SATA with a Promise ATA150 TX2 controller though, and it runs WinXP Pro fine. Works well with his cable modem broadband. The only thing he does is surf, email, word processing, some digital photography, and kindergarten-level games for his kids, and it works swell.

I wouldn't be surprised of that Celeron 300A lasts 10 years.. The original King of the Overclocking CPUs. All hail!

 

[Agentbolt]

I don't really remember what my first computer was, I just remember that it didn't even have Windows. I used to play a lot of Jill of the Jungle, Commander Keen, and Ernie's Big Splash. Oh and Captain Comic. Goddamn that game was sweet. Where's that old box anyways...

 

[Rhin0]

Originally posted by: wisdomtooth
My brother-in-law still uses the Celeron 300A overclocked to 450mHz that I built for him 6 years ago. Still using that Abit BH6 (the first of the jumperless overclocking BX boards), an NVidia TNT1, and the original Sony 17SFII Trinitron 17" monitor.

Did incrementally upgrade his RAM to 512MB couple years back, and recently HD to a 200GB SATA with a Promise ATA150 TX2 controller though, and it runs WinXP Pro fine. Works well with his cable modem broadband. The only thing he does is surf, email, word processing, some digital photography, and kindergarten-level games for his kids, and it works swell.

I wouldn't be surprised of that Celeron 300A lasts 10 years.. The original King of the Overclocking CPUs. All hail!

OMFG.... First I got pissed when I saw what kind of comp this guy was talking about then I saw your post and about took a dump in my pants. Guess what machine is my MAIN computer I use to game and everything on? THATS RIGHT MAN!!!!!! SEEEE BELOW


Celeron 300A 300mhz overclocked to 450mhz (since 1997 baby, no problems)
Abit BH-6
128mb Mushkin PC-100 ram
Asus TNT 16mb video card (replaced, 3d mode died on it)
WD 5400 Caviar 10 gb HD
Monster MX300 soundcard
USR 56k
Linksys NIC

Added since:
128mb (Crucial I think? borrowed from a friend)
3dfx Voodoo 5 AGP 64mb

I bought a "Celery sandwich" cooler to overclock it more but I never used it. Overclocked to 450mhz with retail cooler. It will run 504mhz at 112mhz fsb no problem.

This computer honestly runs half life better than many other 500mhz or even 800mhz systems I have seen. Don't know why but it runs it great.


I still love my computer. It is really fast at surfing the net too.

-Rhino


Oh and I bought my 300A CPU for $86 WOOTTTTT pretty funny when I compare it to a 900 dollar AMD FX-55 chip of today. HUGE price difference

 

[Antoneo]

Ooo, it's nice to see all of the classic builds posted here and also to see them still being used. Nice 300a, never had one but always wish I did . I still have my TNT2 Ultra that I promised to overclock (but never did) somewhere along with my P3-450 gathering dust together.

 

[Rhin0]

Originally posted by: Antoneo
Ooo, it's nice to see all of the classic builds posted here and also to see them still being used. Nice 300a, never had one but always wish I did . I still have my TNT2 Ultra that I promised to overclock (but never did) somewhere along with my P3-450 gathering dust together.

Now that i think about it I think it was an ASUS TNT2 16mb and let me tell you that thing ran HOT. I haven't see a card run that hot since... It was a pretty good little card.

I have the Voodoo5 5500 64mb and it has a lot more power but I think it is definately CPU bottlenecked



It runs Unreal Tournament, Rogue Spear, Half-life (DOD 3.1, CS 1.5, Vamp slayer, Action HL), AOE I & II, Ascendency, Heroes M&M3, Civ II, Total Annihilation. Oh and it ran Ultima online great (most important thing)


What else do you need!?!?

 

[footbal07]

my parents had a p2 350 on a bh-6 with 64megs of ram, permedia 2 vid, 6gig wd, creative dvd rom, and a dvd decoder card. recently i flashed the bh-6, put a p3 650 in it, 512 megs pc 133, seagate 200 gig sata, vantec stealth, and a new cd-rom. i was goina use it as a file server running fedora but i decided to take the 200 out, put in a 8 gig wd out of my xbox, and use it as a spair running xp pro.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

lets see, oldest PC I'm around, its a REALLY old server in my dad's office, has a Pentium 66 MHz or smth, never seen the monitor on, has a bunch of legacy ports flying all over the place, connected to terminals that had nothing but monitors and keyboards, no actual PC, server does the work for the "dummy PCs" i keep telling him the crap he's running is OLD AS FVCK, but he thinks that as long as it works, its fine, surrrrrrreeeeeee.

got a really old NEC Versa laptop, this thing was the shiznit, 99 MHz Pentium, no-name 2D graphics, 16 MB of mem i think, and a whopping 800 MB hard drive

I STILL got my first PC (I'm a lot younger than all of you) and this thing was the absolute BEST when I got it. Let me read directly off the specs sticker on the front:

HP Pavilion 7360
Multimedia PC (roflmao)
+ 200 MHz Intel Pentium Processor with MMX
+ 32 MB EDO Memory
+ 3.8GB Hard Drive
+ 16x max-speed CD-ROM Drive
+ 33.6Kbps DSVD fax/data modem (videophone software included)
+ 3D Display Graphics (this beast had an S3 ViRGE, ah, the good old days)
+ 2MB of EDO video memory for high-resolution graphics (ROFLMAO!)
bla bla
+ MPEG for full-screen, full-motion video
more bla bla
+ USB for easy Plug and Play

this baby takes only 30 whole seconds to boot into Win95 OSR2

 

[T9D]

I never keep old crap around. I usually don't even bother trying to sell it. Not worth the hassle I just give it away or trash it.

 

[sharkeeper]

Overclocking by changing crystals.

Cheers!

 

[VirtualLarry]

My previous rig, was a full-tower case with an Abit BX6-r2 (sucessor to the BX6 and BH6, the diff between the BX and BH was number of RAM and ISA slots, primarily). Had a PII-300 SL2W8 @ 450 (the one guaranteed to OC to 450), which blew away the "other" OC'ing champ of the day, the 300A, especially for things like emulators. (At some later point in time I had a 300A in there, multi-tasking just wasn't as smooth. Cache helps more than you think.) I had both an Aureal Vortex2 and an SB AWE64 value ISA (replaced my SB16 SCSI-2 ASP card), chained together via external line-out/line-in. I used the ISA card for emulators and old DOS demos, and the Vortex2 for Windows-based stuff. I used the internal CD-ROM inputs to wire up three optical drive's analog audio outputs. I had a RagePro AGP 2X card in there too. Only 4MB VRAM, but the neat thing was, I ran with 1:1 FSB:AGP, and actually ran a 100Mhz AGP bus, with SBA enabled! I overclocked the video card's memory clock to 100Mhz too, so everything was running more-or-less sync. It was "well-tuned", even though it was still slower than a Voodoo2 for 3D. DVD playback and TV-out for emulators rocked though. I also had a WinTV PCI to take S-Vid/Composite/Tuner in. I had a Promise Ultra66 PCI IDE controller, and for a time, had both an IBM 13.5GB 14GXP and a 30GB 75GXP, both of which supported TCQ, and I think, the Promise drivers supported that too, because they were hella fast. Combined with my PCI UltraSCSI card and some SCSI opticals (Toshiba reader, Yamaha 6416S burner, and some others), I could burn + rip at the same time to the same HD. Amazing! (I can't even do that now on my current AMD XP/KT400 rig.)

Sadly, that all went horribly wrong, when I was working on a slotket-based Tualatin mod, and couldn't get it to work, so I started randomly changing jumpers around on the slotket (never a good idea to randomly change hardware jumpers...), and combined with the wire-mods that I did, ended up shorting CPU vcc to gnd somehow, and I really toasted the CPU VRM section of the board. I have never seen a CPU heatsink get so warm, so quickly. Surprisingly, in a different board, that Tualatin CPU survived and worked fine... those things were tough buggers. I still have the board, in the hope that someday, I will be able to repair it, and return it to its rightful place in history as the i440BX greatness that it is, along with three 256MB PC133 Micron DIMMs that I've saved for the occasion.

 

[wisdomtooth]

to Rhin0: LOL, I still have my C300A SEPP card here in my drawer-- SL2WM Costa Rica Week 46.

I'm definitely hanging onto it as a keepsake for remembering the days when we got the performance of a $800 CPU (P2-450) for a mere $86.

Heck, when my brother-in-law finally upgrades with a new-build a couple of years from now, that wouldn't be the end of the story for that trusty C300A either-- It's going to live on as a hand-me-down for his toddler kids.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper
Overclocking by changing crystals.

Cheers!

Yup, my first. OC'ing a 6 mhz 80286 IBM AT to 9.13 mhz. with a 10 meg 5 1/4 full hight drive.

 

[Kenazo]

Young punks. As if a 600mhz computer is nastolgia worthy. I'm thinking you have to at least be pre-pentium era to be worthy of such a title.

 

[w00t]

i rember my 1st pc it was a packerbell was the family comp so sw33t. than 2nd a p3 350mhz 64mb of ram its right next to me i am trying to make it work i need to download a bootdisk and it should be fixed and ready for my brother to play some cs on.

 

[wisdomtooth]

I still got a Commodore 64 in my closet somewhere and piles of 5.25 " double-density double-sided floppies full of games on them.. Pity I no longer have a working 1541 drive, otherwise I'd play those games too.

Raise your hand if you remember Archon!

 

[Dennis Travis]

Like I said in the Mac Bashing thread earlier, I still have my old IBM 5151 XT with a 640Meg ISA Ram Expansion card, 20 MB MFM HDD, Full Height 5.25" Floppy and some 8 Bit ISA Video Card. It still works but it's so slow I only keep it to show others how far we have come!

My first real PC was a Home Built Intel 80286/16 Clocked to 20Mhz, ELT-286 Motherboard, 1-Meg DIPP Ram, 40Meg IDE Coner HDD, both 3.5 and 5.25" Floppys, Trident 1-Meg ISA Video, Sound Blaster Origional(added later), Properity 1x CDROM Drive. Served me for years as first my main system and later my BBS's computer. It still works like brand new today. Amazing after all it's been through, Years of never being turned off. The CPU is really an AMD! Was shocked after all these years when I took off the HS and saw AMD. At the time I did not even pay attention as AMD was not talked about much back then!


Oh and wisdomtooth, I remember Archon!