Looking at a Computer Shopper from Jan 1995... hehe

[Horsepower]

In 1993 I paid $280 for a 720k stick for my Compaq Presario, but worse yet in the 80's I cought an IBM PC (no hard drive), color monitor, oki printer, and Hayes (speedy) 1200 baud modem for $5500!

 

[alewisa]

Originally posted by: vegetation

Now the Amiga 1000.... that was going from night to day!

The Amigas were indeed incredible. From then on, the biggest difference in speed I've ever noticed from a single cpu upgrade was the 68K 7MHz to 68030 @ 25MHz with 32-bit RAM, ROM image copied to main memory and using cpublit or whatever that thing was called to make the text scroll quicker. I still remember how much faster the system became..

Hehehe I still have several Amigas.

1. B2000, with GVP G-Force 68030 40MHz, PicassoII, ICD FFV, SuperIO board, GG2 ISA card, Nexus SCSI (for when the GVP is switched out), 32mb RAM, Internal SCA copier, ROMSwitch, and loadsa other boards and mods. Still used

2. A4000/030 with WarpDrive 68040/ (o/cfrom 25 to 40MHz), C64-3D gfx

3. A1200 in tower case with 68060 card, PC board, and a few bits n bobs.

4. Vanilla 1200. Given to me, never used!

Never did get an A1000! CPUBlit was a godsend when using CygnusED. There is (was) some good RTG stuff going around for gfx cards.

Best of all? The abillity to boot up and working in under 2minutes. There again, I still have a Commodore64, 1541 drive, and EasyScript ROm cartridge. I can switch on and be word processing in under 3 seconds (getting a bit longer now as the machine is nigh on 20years old!)

Ahem... off-topic wibble over!

 

[tigerwannabe]

i happened to dig up a midwest micro catalog from 91. i couldn't believe the prices in there, either anyone know what happened to that company?

 

[Sunner]

Not really... Going from a 7MHz Amiga to a 486DX2-66 was Night and Day.

Yeah, a change for the worse, Amiga > PC.

I remember when I bought a P90 back in the day, got it for a REAL good price since I knew the guy who was CEO of a smaller OEM.
$1.600 for the following back in the day when the P100 was the top end:
P90
16 MB RAM(yes 16, eat that!)
850 MB HD
4X CDROM
SoundBlaster 16 + Speakers
14" Daewoo monitor(smashed it with my fist after I got pissed at a Quake game later on...good reason to upgrade)
Yada yada yada...

 

[jacktesterson]

My first computer was built in a 1989 Chrylser Dynasty and that cost me 21k so eat that poopy

 

[DurocShark]

Originally posted by: alewisa

Originally posted by: vegetation

Now the Amiga 1000.... that was going from night to day!

The Amigas were indeed incredible. From then on, the biggest difference in speed I've ever noticed from a single cpu upgrade was the 68K 7MHz to 68030 @ 25MHz with 32-bit RAM, ROM image copied to main memory and using cpublit or whatever that thing was called to make the text scroll quicker. I still remember how much faster the system became..

Hehehe I still have several Amigas.

1. B2000, with GVP G-Force 68030 40MHz, PicassoII, ICD FFV, SuperIO board, GG2 ISA card, Nexus SCSI (for when the GVP is switched out), 32mb RAM, Internal SCA copier, ROMSwitch, and loadsa other boards and mods. Still used

2. A4000/030 with WarpDrive 68040/ (o/cfrom 25 to 40MHz), C64-3D gfx

3. A1200 in tower case with 68060 card, PC board, and a few bits n bobs.

4. Vanilla 1200. Given to me, never used!

Never did get an A1000! CPUBlit was a godsend when using CygnusED. There is (was) some good RTG stuff going around for gfx cards.

Best of all? The abillity to boot up and working in under 2minutes. There again, I still have a Commodore64, 1541 drive, and EasyScript ROm cartridge. I can switch on and be word processing in under 3 seconds (getting a bit longer now as the machine is nigh on 20years old!)

Ahem... off-topic wibble over!

Commodore 64 to 128 to 128d to A1000 to A4000... heh

 

[Zepper]

tigerwannabe et al.,
MidwestMicro was rolled into Systemax. You can still find one of the best collections of older drivers on the Systemax web site.
. They moved all the MWM files to their site. One of the few places you can find Complete drivers (CL only has basic and updates) for older CL sound cards.
.bh.
Still hoping for some :sun: !

 

[tigerwannabe]

thanks for the update, Zepper i got some equipment from midwest micro way back when--had good stuff & good service at the time. nice to know they are still around in some form.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Diamond Stealth 64 4MB video card - $600

And people complain about the high price of the geforceFX!

wth is it? a rendtion vertie? or the dreaded ViRgE?

 

[Whitedog]

All I can say, is a P90 running Win31/DOS6 was a SCREAMER!!!! Yes Sir!





:disgust:

 

[joshg]

Heh...

I still remember the day when my dad traded a car for a Commodore 64 plus $100

Yes, he traded a whole, complete, running car for it!

The person who he traded it to still drives that car to work the last time that I saw him (probably around 2-3 months ago). Wow!

The C64 is long gone, though, however... One of the coolest things about it was that we used a standard television set instead of an "official" computer monitor!

 

[bluemax]

I remember my Dad's P60 putting my 486DX4-120 to shame. I thought I'd be faster ... you know, clock speed and all.
The Pentium was a real milestone for Intel....

I remember how happy I was to upgrade that 486 to the Cyrix 6x86 P133+.... worlds better!
Then the AMD K5-200. Worlds better!
Then P2-233, not as "better" as I'd hoped....
Traded P2-233 straight across for Celeron 300A (and ran @450 for years!) Worlds better!
After ages, the Duron 700.... not bad....
Then sold it all and got a Dell P4-1500 (with SDR unfortunately, but still.... it's worlds better!)

Now the Dell is entirely the wife's and I have a little Shuttle SK41G with a Duron 1100 because they were all nice n' cheap. I'll upgrade processor and add more RAM when I've got a better job and have cash to spare... but it works like a dandy.

Now that I think of it... most of my CPU/board upgrades were between my 386 and 486!
DX-25, DX-40, 486DX2-66, 486DX4-120..... I guess I'm actually slowing down!

Wait'll I try that one on the wife.

 

[Whitedog]

Originally posted by: joshg
Heh...

I still remember the day when my dad traded a car for a Commodore 64 plus $100

Yes, he traded a whole, complete, running car for it!

The person who he traded it to still drives that car to work the last time that I saw him (probably around 2-3 months ago). Wow!

The C64 is long gone, though, however... One of the coolest things about it was that we used a standard television set instead of an "official" computer monitor!

I don't know what's worse... still driving that car, or still using a C64.

 

[rbV5]

I paid $3200 for a p100 system back then...it came with a certificate for MS's new W95 OS which was due to ship in a month or so.

 

[Whitedog]

It kinda really pisses me off!! How would you feel if you bought a new 65" Wide Screen HDTV Proj TV for like $3000 and it ROCKED!!!

2 years from now HDTV was no longer broadcast and you HAD TO THROW AWAY THE TV and BUY A NEW ONE to get the NEW SIGNAL!!!

I would cuss for like 3 weeks!!!

*******************

And this was an Endless cycle every 2 or 3 years!!!!!!

That's what the PC industry has created... and endless cycle of disposable hardware.

:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|

 

[AnitaPeterson]

In September 1997, I bought a $699 AST Adventure 200 - AMD K5-120, 16 RAM, 1.2 GB HD, 14" monitor, 8x CD-ROM... In June 1999, I sold said computer for $300 (I know, I know, I was lucky to get that much money for it...)

 

[DTSS]

unreal

 

[AndrewNF]

Biggest jump for me was definitely from an IBM "Blue Lightning" 486/100 to an AMD K6/233.

Everything since then has seemed incremental, probably because of upgrading parts so often since then!

 

[thraxes]

I don't know what my biggest "felt" upgrade ever was. There are two, but the first one probably takes first prize:
Apple IIc -> Intel 486 DX33 (Nowadays I don't believe that I actually let out a "wow" when win 3.1 booted up in its 16 colors for the first time)
AMD 486 DX2-66 -> Pentium 75 (immediatly overclocked to a whooping 90)

After that it was all in more or less large steps: 166 (with voodoo and my first 17" monitor!!), 400 (another huge leap, I even went overboard with a TNT2-Ultra with ViVo when it was just fresh released arggh the $$$ i spent ), 800, 1800MHz (current rig).

 

[Anonemous]

gah those were the days...

buying in 3-6 year cycles really gets you jumps

Started with a 286 12 mhz with a whopping 20 megs 256k ram and vga style graphics and no sound card for the low price of 2k!! boy did we get ripped off on that system (this was when 386's were out). The next system I got before entering high school was a P60 (540 meg, 16 meg ram, 1 meg vid card), now that was a big jump... I could actually run windows 3.11 along with various other games (doom2). Then came the k6233 right before college(finally switched to win95), that lasted another 4 years when I would replace it with a thunderbird 800 (wanted to play diablo 2 online) which is currently what I have. Won't be able to use the 2100+ I just built until I get the GPU tommorow... sniff sniff so many memories...

 

[ViRGE]

Here's some price quotes from an Egghead(not to be confused with Newegg) calalog for Sept. 5, 1996, when they were still a B&M store.

Creative Labs Performance CD 8x(an 8x CD-ROM drive + who knows what else): $349.97
Sony Spressa CPS-940S Internal Recordable CD-ROM Drive(2x burner): $799.99
Diamond Stealth 3D 2000(S3 ViRGE based video card): $199.97
US Robotics Sportster 28.8 Winmodem Internal: $99.98(or you could get the full deal for $139.97)
Palm Pilot 5000: $369.98
16MB SIMM: $99.93
WD 3.1GB Hard Drive: $399.96
Virtual I-Glasses(VR Goggles): $499.98

And just for fun: Norton Utilities 2.0: $119.98

 

[hagbard]

Hey, in 2013, our robots will be laughing at what we paid for our P4s.

 

[Whitedog]

In 2013 we'll be cooling our overclocked computers with liquid nitrogen. Air cooling with be a thing of the past. At the rate it's going, air cooling will be gone in 3 years.

There will be 1GB DDR Dimms laying in the drawer where my old 8 and 16 MB simms are not at RIP. Memory Modules will be like 128GB instead of MB and will have to be cooled with a HS/fan like the video cards are.

Our 120GB 8MB cache IDE's will be holding down paper where it would be inconcievable to think that an OS could be installed on such a hard drive. (my first 486 had a 250MB HD... Now, you can't even fit your My Documents folder on one, much less an OS.

HD's will be in TB size with 256MB of cache.

Internet connection speeds will be 100MB/s at your home.... but it will still take you an hour to load a webpage as a webpage will be around 150MB in size... (I remember when webpages were average 2-5k minus graphics, now they are ALL GRAPHICS).

We will still be using a mouse and keyboard. Yes, they got it all wrong in Star Trek!

a 27" flat panel will be the standard monitor (drewl).

Have I missed anything? :clock:

 

[alewisa]

Originally posted by: Whitedog
In 2013 we'll be cooling our overclocked computers with liquid nitrogen. Air cooling with be a thing of the past. At the rate it's going, air cooling will be gone in 3 years.

There will be 1GB DDR Dimms laying in the drawer where my old 8 and 16 MB simms are not at RIP. Memory Modules will be like 128GB instead of MB and will have to be cooled with a HS/fan like the video cards are.

Our 120GB 8MB cache IDE's will be holding down paper where it would be inconcievable to think that an OS could be installed on such a hard drive. (my first 486 had a 250MB HD... Now, you can't even fit your My Documents folder on one, much less an OS.

HD's will be in TB size with 256MB of cache.

Internet connection speeds will be 100MB/s at your home.... but it will still take you an hour to load a webpage as a webpage will be around 150MB in size... (I remember when webpages were average 2-5k minus graphics, now they are ALL GRAPHICS).

We will still be using a mouse and keyboard. Yes, they got it all wrong in Star Trek!

a 27" flat panel will be the standard monitor (drewl).

Have I missed anything? :clock:

Yes, the mindlink to control the damm thing. If only Atari's project hadn't been cancelled in 1986...

Reply to earlier post - Commodore PET 2001-> PET 4000 -> Video Genie (TRS-80 Model 1 Level II) ->C64 ->128 ->A500 ->B2000 ->PCs (more than a stick can be shaken at)

All bar C= PET 2001 still in the loft.

Anyone else keep old 8bit stuff for posterity, yet junk/devolve/giveaway old PC hardware? Even have an original Atari 2600 console and games. The only PC stuff I have kept is some Matrox cards (Millenium, Millenium II, G200 and G400Max), some EDO, and a modem. All else - CPUs, mobos - devolve down the line before being given to friends in need (hey, some still running P133 32mb just used for Wp and Internet). Yet I just cant get rid of the 8bit stuff. Maybe its because it wasnt boring, unlike the PC stuff.

You goota admit, where is the PC equivalent of hardware like the Expert Cartridge, Fast Hack'em and PhantomDOS (C64), SuperCardAmi, GG2 board, flicker-fixer, MultiI/O, RTG libraries (Amiga), for the PC? There is nothing, no enthusiast stuff beyond tweaking Nero or CloneCD.

 

[buleyb]

But WhiteDog, was the 16bit soundcard "Sound Blaster Compatible"

and I still have my Commodore Pet (not sure which one, but I know its not the kiddy looking one with the chicklet sized keys) at home, with Space Invaders on cassette next to it