Historical: Old computers - see how technology has changed - tell your story!

I stumbled into perhaps my oldest SysInfo.txt file on one of my home network archives. [Yet, it is certainly not my oldest computer (which was 1979 Apple ][+)].

Dated 5 December 1999. This was the computer I used to play Ultima Online back then! Look at these specs! Does anyone know about these specs? Windows version 4? I think I have a floppy disk somewhere with Windows 1.0 release on it.

What old system reports or spec sheets do you have, and what stories can you tell us?

Dated 5 December 1999:

Resource Summary Report - Page: 1

******************** SYSTEM SUMMARY ********************

Windows version: 4.10.1998
Computer Name: Unknown
System BUS Type: ISA
BIOS Name: Award
BIOS Date: 12/12/97
BIOS Version: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
Machine Type: IBM PC/AT
Processor Vendor: GenuineIntel
Processor Type: Pentium(r) II Processor
Math Co-processor: Present
Registered Owner: Winfield
Registered Company:

******************** IRQ SUMMARY ********************

IRQ Usage Summary:
00 - System timer
01 - Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
02 - Programmable interrupt controller
03 - IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
03 - Adaptec AHA-2940U/AHA-2940UW PCI SCSI Controller
04 - U.S. Robotics 56K Voice INT PnP
05 - Creative AWE64 Gold 16-bit Audio (SB16 compatible)
06 - Standard Floppy Disk Controller
07 - ECP Printer Port (LPT1)
08 - System CMOS/real time clock
09 - IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
09 - Realtek RTL8029 Ethernet Adapter and Compatibles
10 - IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
10 - Matrox Millennium II PCI
11 - IRQ Holder for PCI Steering
11 - Intel 82371AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
12 - PS/2 Compatible Mouse Port
13 - Numeric data processor
14 - Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
14 - Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
15 - Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 - Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller

******************** IO PORT SUMMARY ********************

I/O Port Usage Summary:
0000h-000Fh - Direct memory access controller
0020h-0021h - Programmable interrupt controller
0040h-0043h - System timer
0060h-0060h - Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
0061h-0061h - System speaker
0064h-0064h - Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural Keyboard
0070h-0071h - System CMOS/real time clock
0081h-0083h - Direct memory access controller
0087h-0087h - Direct memory access controller
0089h-008Bh - Direct memory access controller
008Fh-0091h - Direct memory access controller
00A0h-00A1h - Programmable interrupt controller
00C0h-00DFh - Direct memory access controller




Resource Summary Report - Page: 2

00F0h-00FFh - Numeric data processor
0170h-0177h - Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
0170h-0177h - Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
01F0h-01F7h - Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
01F0h-01F7h - Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
0200h-0207h - Creative Gameport Joystick
0208h-020Fh - Motherboard resources
0220h-022Fh - Creative AWE64 Gold 16-bit Audio (SB16 compatible)
0274h-0277h - IO read data port for ISA Plug and Play enumerator
0294h-0297h - Motherboard resources
0330h-0331h - Creative AWE64 Gold 16-bit Audio (SB16 compatible)
0376h-0376h - Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
0376h-0376h - Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
0378h-037Fh - ECP Printer Port (LPT1)
0388h-038Bh - Creative AWE64 Gold 16-bit Audio (SB16 compatible)
03B0h-03BBh - Matrox Millennium II PCI
03C0h-03DFh - Matrox Millennium II PCI
03F2h-03F5h - Standard Floppy Disk Controller
03F6h-03F6h - Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
03F6h-03F6h - Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
03F8h-03FFh - U.S. Robotics 56K Voice INT PnP
0480h-048Fh - PCI bus
04D0h-04D1h - PCI bus
0620h-0623h - Creative AWE64 Gold Wavetable MIDI (AWE32 compatible)
0778h-077Ah - ECP Printer Port (LPT1)
0A20h-0A23h - Creative AWE64 Gold Wavetable MIDI (AWE32 compatible)
0CF8h-0CFFh - PCI bus
0E20h-0E23h - Creative AWE64 Gold Wavetable MIDI (AWE32 compatible)
5F00h-5F1Fh - PCI bus
6100h-613Fh - PCI bus
6400h-64FFh - Adaptec AHA-2940U/AHA-2940UW PCI SCSI Controller
6800h-681Fh - Intel 82371AB/EB PCI to USB Universal Host Controller
6900h-691Fh - Realtek RTL8029 Ethernet Adapter and Compatibles
E000h-EFFFh - Intel 82443LX/EX Pentium(r) II Processor to AGP controller
F000h-F00Fh - Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
F000h-F007h - Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
F008h-F00Fh - Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)

******************** UPPER MEMORY USAGE SUMMARY ********************

Memory Usage Summary:
00000000h-0009FFFFh - System board extension for PnP BIOS
000A0000h-000AFFFFh - Matrox Millennium II PCI
000B0000h-000BFFFFh - Matrox Millennium II PCI
000C0000h-000C7FFFh - Matrox Millennium II PCI
000C8000h-000CC7FFh - Adaptec AHA-2940U/AHA-2940UW PCI SCSI Controller
000E0000h-000FFFFFh - System board extension for PnP BIOS
00100000h-03FFFFFFh - System board extension for PnP BIOS
04000000h-0400FFFFh - Matrox Millennium II PCI
A8000000h-AFFFFFFFh - Intel 82443LX/EX Pentium(r) II Processor to AGP contr
D8000000h-DFFFFFFFh - Intel 82443LX/EX Pentium(r) II Processor to AGP contr
E0000000h-E3FFFFFFh - Intel 82443LX/EX Pentium(r) II Processor to PCI bridg
E4000000h-E4FFFFFFh - Matrox Millennium II PCI
E5000000h-E5003FFFh - Matrox Millennium II PCI
E6000000h-E67FFFFFh - Matrox Millennium II PCI
E7000000h-E7000FFFh - Adaptec AHA-2940U/AHA-2940UW PCI SCSI Controller
FFFE0000h-FFFFFFFFh - System board extension for PnP BIOS




Resource Summary Report - Page: 3


******************** DMA USAGE SUMMARY ********************

DMA Channel Usage Summary:
01 - Creative AWE64 Gold 16-bit Audio (SB16 compatible)
02 - Standard Floppy Disk Controller
03 - ECP Printer Port (LPT1)
04 - Direct memory access controller
05 - Creative AWE64 Gold 16-bit Audio (SB16 compatible)

******************** MEMORY SUMMARY ********************

640 KB Total Conventional Memory
65052 KB Total Extended Memory

******************** DISK DRIVE INFO ********************

A: Floppy Drive, 3.5" 1.44M
80 Cylinders 2 Heads
512 Bytes/Sector 18 Sectors/Track

C: Fixed Disk 8875224K Total 6292264K Free
1106 Cylinders 255 Heads
512 Bytes/Sector 63 Sectors/Track

D: Fixed Disk 0K Total 0K Free
0 Cylinders 0 Heads
512 Bytes/Sector 0 Sectors/Track

E: CD-ROM Drive


I remember playing around with the Interrupts constantly to get my devices to work better, particularly my high speed 56 Kbaud Modem (U.S. Robotics 56K Voice INT PnP). Ah, those were the great times indeed!

*whistles an old tune*

 

Love it @Winfield especially since your first computer was the year of my birth.

My first computer was an Apple IIgs that my parents bought for me and my sister, sometime in the mid 80's. I loved that computer and the printer that came with it. I can still remember how loud and how long it took to print out documents on that thing. Moreover, I will never forget the awesome games I had for it: Kings Quest I-IV, Space Quest, Police Quest, Wings of Fury, Times of Lore, Might and Magic II and of course Ultima III-V!

 

The computer on which I first played UO was a 1995 Gateway 2000 P-133 running the very first version of Windows 95 (I actually waited a few extra weeks on the system to be shipped with Win95 instead of 3.1x). It had 16MB of RAM, a 1+GB HDD, a 2MB Matrox Video Card (which I had upgraded to 4MB for the low low price of about $500 soon after), a 6x CD ROM drive and a massive 17" CRT. If I recall that thing set me back about $4k. I rationalized it at the time by saying I needed a super computer for school. It ended up mostly playing games against others on a null modem cable in the dorms that year. There were many iterations of systems by the time I stopped playing around 2002.

First computer - A C64 with the giant floppy drive ca. 1984 - I remember being jealous of a friend later that had a C128
First DOS PC - Epson II 8088 with dual floppy drive ca. 1990

 

My list:

First computer: Texas Instruments TI-99/4 computer in 1979. I used a cassette for data transfer, 16KB RAM. It lasted until the late 1990's when the power supply acted like a Commodore 64 power supply, i.e. it went up in smoke.

Second and favorite computer: Apple //e, 1983. It had 64KB RAM basic, the 64KB 80-column text card (double hi-res graphics WooHoo!), two 140KB 5.25" floppy drives, an Apple DMP printer, Apple green screen monochrome monitor and a color composite monitor. It was my main machine for more than a decade. I had a lot of fun with that machine: programming primarily, Apple Pascal, Applesoft BASIC and my home written 6502 assembler. I still fire it up once a year on the anniversary date I got it. Next year will be the 35th. It still works.

Third machine: IBM PC XT class machine, 1988. Intel 8088 processor, two 5.25" floppy drives, a 10MB hand-my-down HDD which didn't last all that long, amber monochrome monitor. More programming on this one, Turbo Pascal. I did my one and only hardware hack on the machine. It was hardwired-- surface mounted solder-- for 256KB of RAM. I changed out the RAM chips and the memory decoding circuitry to bring it up to 640KB of RAM.

Fourth machine: Store bought 80486 class machine, 1994. Packard Bell, I think. First Windows machine. Programmed with Borland Pascal for Windows/Delphi on this one.

Then there is a line of of machines that I build from scratch starting in 2000, one every four years. I built my current machine in November 2016. It is a dual-boot Windows 10/Ubuntu Linux machine, 32GB RAM, four SSD's (one for each OS, two for data), DVD writer, Blu Ray writer, NVidia GTX 1080, three 1920x1080 monitors. The next build is scheduled for November 2020. Programming continues with Embarcadero Rad Studio, Microsoft Visual Studio (for rFactor2 work), and Python (w/Blender API) for the scripts I write for Blender.

 

I had a few Radio Shack Heathkits sometime in the 70's that I no longer remember the names of which made me think the whole home computer thing would ultimately be a passing fad and I ignored it for the next decade or so

The first "computer" I bought with the idea of it actually being a "computer" was a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_SX-64... words fail to express how much I hated that beast and how much I hated myself for buying it But somewhere along the line I got smitten and I've now had/built more computers than I can remember and had every version of Windows ever made except Windows 8/8.1 including Windows 1.0 that took an overnight download on the Navy DARPANET before there was a World Wide Web.

This will put some perspective on PC evolution: https://nextshark.com/ibm-5mb-hard-drive/!

 

Oh I see it's the "how to make people feel old" thread!

IBM PC Portable.. 6" amber monitor, dual 5 1/4" floppies.. NO HD.. (at first.. later got a 10 Mb HD.. we thought we'd never fill it up!) 4.77 MHz 8086 (later upgraded to the 8088) CPU, 1200 baud modem and all the memory you'd ever need!

We ran a Stonehenge BBS off the dual floppies.. modem answering the phone in the dead of night drove mom nuts.

 

First computer used: Horizon NorthStar CP/M
First computer owned: Apple ][+ (early model, still own it and its in working condition)
First computer class was taught on: PDP-8 (i.e., punch cards)
First Internet Connected Computer: Prime 6150
Oldest computer used recently for work: VAX 11.
Oldest computer equipment purchased recently: Novation Apple-Cat ][
Oldest floppy disk currently in possession: Original Apple ][ Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord ... because someone threw out my old disks! (ARGGHHH)
First Lord British game: Ultima, in the plastic bag, small cardboard instructions, and disk (I believe with the small corner label.)

-- Engineer

 

Jumping into the Old Fart contest:

First computer used: IBM 1130 (coding in trendy Fortran II!)
First 'home' computer: Decwriter II plus 300 baud modem to an HP 1000 at the office
First computer owned: Apple II+, 48k, 2x5.5" 140k floppies
First HD machine owned: Mac SE with 20MB HD
First color machine owned: Mac IIsi
First game: Space war on a Xerox XDS something or other
First LB game: This one! I was into Wizardry back in Apple II days, then took a 30 year hiatus to deal with this thing called real life. Now I am safely retired...

 

I used to play a game called 'worm' on my Timex Sinclair... it ran BASIC, and I had a 16kb memory plug in for it... used to save/load programs from the cassette deck..

.... wow, now I need a drink ....

 

The first computer I ever owned was a TRS-80 Model 4 (1983) with a graphics card.
I used to hack the binary code to put curse words into a submarine games kids played on it.




The first computer I ever wrote code on was an Atari 800.
It was basic and since there was no save feature, I had to rewrite the program each time to use it.
All I can remember about this computer is pong.

 

First computer used:
1978 - PDP8 (probably an F series)
Junior high school science night - learned about astronomy with telescopes, the science of gas chromatographs, and this beauty - which most people ended up playing the ascii version of Star Trek and Greyhound races on the teletype printers ^G^G^G^G^G with a real bell...



First computer owned:
1980 - Sinclair ZX80

 

While I can remember the first computers I used and owned and I remember having to learn how to use DOS and manually edit things like autoexec and config files, there are a couple of hardware changes I am really grateful for. Chief among them though?

OPTICAL MICE.

And as much as I really like having super thin displays, I miss the fact you could use the old CRT ones as a shelf to put things on.

 

I started with a Schneider CPC 464, followed by a C64 and some years later i got a 386 DX 40 MHz with 4MB RAM and 30MB HDD.
Next was a P1 @66MHz and 16MB RAM and iirc 100MB HDD, i dont know exactly, but i believe this Maschine i buyed a Turtle Beach Soundcard and start Musik Produktion.
I also buyed a Matrox Mystique with 4MB VRAM.

I learned to type fast while nonstop writing
edit autoexec.bat or config.sys to adjust hinem, set IRQ, DMA and need country set to 049,850

I hated Windows and before Star Writer.
I loved the DOS Shell and Norton Commander :-D

I had a Star LC 10. 9needles printer, loud as hell with endless paper, green and white...
Nostalgia.

 

1st Computer- Ti-99/4a with a Cassette Player to record/load my programs

2nd- C128(my favorite) Had a 300 baud modem(at first) then 1200 baud, I think it used a 1571(?) 5 & 1/4" Floppy Drive and of course, it also dual-booted the entire C-64 system. I didn't get another computer after this until the 80486's(or it might have been the 80386's) came out. The first one I bought...everything after that I built my self, except an ASUS laptop I got a few years ago.

 

Sounds like me playing Text games back in the 80's. I was constantly trying to use Curse Words, and lewd comments in the games and, more often than not, got a remark such as "What would your mother say!", or, less rewardingly(is this a word?) "I don't understand what you mean." But, every once in a while your lewd suggestions would pay off and you would get a cool response.

 

Mine was a 'cat bed'. Nice and warm apparently.

 

I loved that one. I used to play Parsec with the add-on voice pack... and Mine 2049er... those were the days

 

My early computers in general:

• 1979 - Apple ][+ with 2 5.25 inch floppy drives ($500 each), Selectric ball typewriter with RS-232 interface (10 characters per second !!), 40-column green monochrome screen all in upper case, SuperText 40-column word processor software
  • At MSOE college (Milwaukee, WI), used ONE teletype to PDP-8 or 11 computer for entire 200 person engineering dormitory.
    
  • 1980: 110/300 baud to PDP-11 MSOE college computer for FORTRAN IV programming because I was living off campus then without a teletype.
• 1981-85 - Apple ][+ enhanced with CP/M operating systems (80 columns screen support -- woo hoo!), which I disassembled the boot code to say "Hi Jerry" when it booted up (no swear words for me).
  • Played Wizardry, Ultima IV
  • Connected to ARPANet and programmed in JOVIAL language (used in the F-16 aircraft)
  • Played / learned to fly with MS Flight Simulator (I took flight lessons and and solo'd in 1977; continued MS FS for years with VATSIM; flew again for real in 2007 with instructor -- took off and landed without help on first returning flight -- MS FS sure helps!)
• 1985 - IBM XT (Dell clone) - Played more Ultimas, Prodigy network and "played" Star Trek Prodigy forums text-based RPG, played MUDS, MUSHes, etc.
• 1995 - Dell 386SX PC - started getting into Ultima Online (pre-beta) forums and such before UO took over my life.
• And beyond... about 10 computers in all (some home built). Loved the 1 GB Iomega Jaz Drive removable SCSI hard drives -- finally, I could swap out data without using 1000 1.44 MB floppies! -- oh had Colorado RS-232C DAT tape backup drive too. NICE!

NOW: MSI GT72VR TOBII (GEFORCE GTX 1070) - Huge!!

 

No. It is a thread to give some of us a chance to show how old we are. Not too mention how nerdy as well.