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Thread ID: 28365	2002-12-17 10:54:00	Years of computing experience	rugila (214)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
106978	2002-12-18 05:24:00	I am truly impressed at the wealth of experience shown here. The first computers I had anything to do with were DEC PDP-11s used at work - couldn't see much use at home for one of them, but about 1984 Dad bought a Dick Smith machine with 20 K of ram and it used his portable ghetto blaster as a storage medium - loading a game from the cassette could take half an hour and then it would crash! I remember that he upgraded the ram to 24k for a mere $300! Still I thought this was a bit of a novelty item and couldn't see the point (damned expensive entertainment!) In 85, Dad bought an Atari 130XE (128k of ram) with a disk drive (180kb 5.25inch floppy). I saw this running and was hooked. I got my own, added a couple of disk drives bought at an auction, had a 14" tv as a monitor (crappy resolution) and invested a fortune for a star 9 pin colour printer, books, magazines and software. There was a great user group/club in Palmerston North in the mid 80's. I learned to programme in BASIC, but never got my head around assembly stuff. Heaps of fun and some excellent games. In 91, I bought a PC General 386sx-25 with 1Meg of ram and a 40 meg hdd and the brand new Windows 3.0 and DOS 5. WOW! This was magic. A whole new learning experience. I learned to take things apart, put them back together, and get them working. Great stuff. In 94, I again went to the general for a 486dlc-40. An oddball as it turned out, but a good machine, which I later upgraded to a 486 dx2-66, then to a P200, which my daughter still uses. The ram increased in steps up to its present 32 meg, and the hard drive to a 6.5 gig. from the original 200 meg unit. (actually, come to think of it, the PSU, an 8 meg ram stick and the floppy drive might be the only original parts, but that's the fun of pc ownership isn't it?). It's replacement in 2000 was a PIII 550, 380 megs ram, 20 gig hdd, cd/rw, which has now recently replaced my wife's Compaq 486dx2/50 (which still works, and is now in the shed as a programming terminal for the PLC unit that runs the home automation) as I now have my latest dream machine - a P4 2.4, 512 meg 333ddr ram, 64 meg geforce video card running a 19" flat screen Philips Monitor, twin 80 gig 7200 rpm hdds and grunt I wouldn't have believed possible 10 years ago. Like I've said every upgrade - this beast is all I will ever need or want. Famous Last Words, I'll bet. I've tried to get my head around Visual Basic and Delphi, with reasonable success, and have a lot of fun trying to sort out MSAccess and Excel, but I still reckon Wolfenstein 3D was, and still is, one of the best PC apps ever!	andy (473)
106979	2002-12-18 05:36:00	My first computer was a 486 running 'doze 3.11 nearly 6 years ago, i payed $500bucks for it it had a flash screen saver thing and everything! I knew nothing, and i do mean nothing, so i was impressed.. About a year later i gave the doorstop to the guy who helped me build the original Vanessa (something.orcon.net.nz), the machine which is still with me today. Vanessa was a HUGE (ha!) 133meg machine with 32 meg of RAM. The only component that is original is the motherboard, and the specs are a tad better these days. These days i'm running 98 on vanessa, and learning SuSE8 on SAM my other near identical antique, so things are a tad more advanced, but with everything i learn, i realise that i have a long way to go. .Clueless	Clueless (181)
106980	2002-12-18 09:46:00	About 1987 I had a fiddle with a computer at my brothers and wanted more. So in 88 got a computer that used the TV as a monitor and a tape and did a corrospondence course on basic programming. 89 I bought an XT 640k mem and 20mb HD. Ended up buying and teaching myself Borlands Turbo Pascal 5 which I much preferred to program in. Moved from TP5 to TP5.5 which was the first pascal object orientated language then to Delphi 1 to Delphi 3 and am now waiting for a spare $900 odd to get Delphi 7 Professional. Moved from the XT to a 486/DX66 which ended up becoming a Pentium 233 with 256mb memory and a 6gig HD until recently upgrading to a self built AMD Athlon 1200 256 mb mem, 2 HD and CDR with Win2000 and RH 7.3. Have built up several PC's for others ( I'm still a little nervous when I first switch them on) and do quite a bit of trouble shooting, upgrading of software and training for others. Recently had a PC that was crashing intermitently so tried several things before reloading 98 but after opening the box found that it was dust causing the problem. Posted about a year ago how 2000 backs up critical files of which they consider Solitaire critical and suggested that that was a waste of space. Well I basically got flamed by a young buck whose daddy probably bought him the latest and greatest. Having started with a tape and then a 20mb HD which I was always trying to free up space on I don't like seeing my HD being wasted in such fashion. The thing I dislike most about Windows is the registry. I don't believe anything that only relates to a single program should be kept there.	mikebartnz (21)
106981	2002-12-18 09:57:00	> suggested that that was a waste of space. Well I > basically got flamed by a young buck whose daddy > probably bought him the latest and greatest. ha ha! try DOS 6.22	BIFF (1)
106982	2002-12-18 10:30:00	>I don't like seeing my HD being wasted in such fashion. Having started with a 10Mb drive on the XT - Agreed! Actually, did have a computer before the XT. A commodore? (husband bought it off a mate at work). Couldn't see the attraction of it. Old black and white TV and a tape deck (sequential file access). Had some really strange games, a typing tutor and a word processor. But no printer. Interest in this computing stuff lasted all of one evening.	Heather P (163)
106983	2002-12-18 10:31:00	Give us your life story Biff we might appreciate your wit a bit better.	mikebartnz (21)
106984	2002-12-18 10:32:00	Not sure when I first got interested in computers. But it was because of the games. I guess I was around 5 years old, probably younger. Travelled between ChCh and somewhere past Picton quite a lot. It was a ~6hr drive at normal speeds. Always ended up beigng 8 when we factored in food, gas and visiting people. Luckily, the people we usually visited had a computer, it was suddenly OK stopping for that long, hell I didn't want to leave. It was an Atari 520 ST FM. I got myself one a few years later as well. More of a glorified console unless you actually bought printers and stuff. Next computer I got was this one which I got this year.	-=JM=- (16)
106985	2002-12-18 20:18:00	MY 1st Pc was to play chess on was a ATARI 600 the 800xl with tape drive soon got sick tape and went to a 5 1/4 floppy disk drive cost about $1500 plus in the old days when xps were still arouns 1989? We had a great club used to meet and exchange ideas and gam,es etc once a week in the church near the bee hive . Went to a 286 witha a mono monitor remember upgradging my ram by 2 megs cost $150 !! next was a 486 dx 66 went well with a vga monitor played better games then a 166 with a massive HDD of 2 gigs got a celeron 400 built with dvd drive plus hollywood plus card and a 8 gig HDD around 1988 which was slowly upgraded to a P3 450 with 20 gig HDD moved on to a AMD duron 700 which had 30 gig HDD and 256 ram! this has been upgraded to a 1.2 thunderbird 512 ram 80 gighs of HDD in the lounge now still with my old 4x dvd drive and hollywood card in it . Cost heaps over the years but was worth every penny the internet has grown heaps even since i have been on iot about 3 years now when napster was the dominent reason cdr writers were suddenly popular	kiwibeat (304)
106986	2002-12-18 20:20:00	oops the celeron was built in 1998	kiwibeat (304)
106987	2002-12-18 20:31:00	>It was an Atari 520 ST FM. I got myself one a few years later as well. I heard that someone in NZ had bought one of those - os it was you! :p	crozier (2004)
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