what sort of PC did you have at age of 15, compared to now?

hi!
this came to me one day, as i noticed there's a broad range in age among OCF members, some above 30, some below 20 (like me).
so i'm just curious in asking what sort of PC and what specs it had when you were 15 years old.
was overclocking even possible then? LOL

- How much did you spend on your system?
- What specs did it have?
- What was the main reason for your PC? (gaming...education etc)

anything really.

i'll start first!

when i was 15 (November 2007) i had the similar computer to what i have in my sig.

cpu - e6400 - stock speed stock cooling
mobo - gigabyte 965p-s3
ram - 1gb generic 667mhz
graphics - asus 7600gt
psu - CM Extreme 650w
peripherals - G3 mouse, G11 keyboard
sound - Logitech Z5400
screen - BenQ 22" Wide
hdd - 250gb Seagate
case - antec 900

since then, i have learnt all about overclocking and how a computer actually works. 1.5 years ago i pretty much only knew how to turn one on and use software/play games.

now i can put a computer together from scratch in a few hours, overclock without worry etc.

hardware i have changed is grahpics, to a Powercolor 4850
overclocked cpu to 3.4ghz (from 2.13ghz) with a TRUE
upgraded to 4gb of OCZ Reaper X kit.
upgarded to 1tb of space, as 250gb didn't suffice for all my files.
painted case fully black, and added a few more Antec fans in.
and my G11 keyboard broke, so i sent it back to the shop, and they replaced me with a G15 rev.2 becuase G11 was out of production.


what is your story?

anybody had a 400mhz cpu back the days? or the good old 4mb harddrive? haha

Tandy TRS80 Model 1

CPU Zilog Z80
SPEED 1.77 MHz
RAM 4 kb / 16 kb depending on models (up to 48 kb)
VRAM 1 kb
ROM 4 kb (Basic Level 1) or 12kb (Basic Level 2)
TEXT MODES 32 x 16, 64 x 16
GRAPHIC MODES 128 x 48
COLORS monochrome
SOUND None
I/O PORTS Monitor, cassette interface, expansion port

and

Commodore 64

BUILT IN LANGUAGE Basic
KEYBOARD Full-stroke 66 keys with 4 function keys
CPU 6510SPEED 0.985 MHz (PAL) / 1.023 MHz (NTSC)
CO-PROCESSOR VIC II (Video), SID (Sound)
RAM 64 KB
ROM 20 KB
TEXT MODES 40 columns x 25 lines
GRAPHIC MODES several, most used : 320 x 200
COLORS 16 + 16 border colours
SOUND 3 voices / 9 octaves, 4 waveforms (sound output through TV)
SIZE / WEIGHT 40.4 (W) x 21.6 (D) x 7.5 (H) cm / 1820 g
I/O PORTS RGB (composite, chroma/luma and sound in/out), 2 x Joystick plugs, Cardridge slot, Tape interfarce (300 bps), Serial, User Port, TV RF output
BUILT IN MEDIA Cassette unit. Provision for 170 KB 5.25'' floppy disc unit (1541)
POWER SUPPLY External power supply unit

I can't remember exactly: it was either a Duron 650, 128 MB RAM, 30GB HDD, GeForce 2 MX or a Thunderbird 1100 and 256 MB RAM. Either way, the damn board was crap for overclocking.

(It got upgraded at one point)

Jolly-Swagman said:

Tandy TRS80 Model 1

CPU Zilog Z80
SPEED 1.77 MHz
RAM 4 kb / 16 kb depending on models (up to 48 kb)
VRAM 1 kb
ROM 4 kb (Basic Level 1) or 12kb (Basic Level 2)
TEXT MODES 32 x 16, 64 x 16
GRAPHIC MODES 128 x 48
COLORS monochrome
SOUND None
I/O PORTS Monitor, cassette interface, expansion port

and

Commodore 64

BUILT IN LANGUAGE Basic
KEYBOARD Full-stroke 66 keys with 4 function keys
CPU 6510SPEED 0.985 MHz (PAL) / 1.023 MHz (NTSC)
CO-PROCESSOR VIC II (Video), SID (Sound)
RAM 64 KB
ROM 20 KB
TEXT MODES 40 columns x 25 lines
GRAPHIC MODES several, most used : 320 x 200
COLORS 16 + 16 border colours
SOUND 3 voices / 9 octaves, 4 waveforms (sound output through TV)
SIZE / WEIGHT 40.4 (W) x 21.6 (D) x 7.5 (H) cm / 1820 g
I/O PORTS RGB (composite, chroma/luma and sound in/out), 2 x Joystick plugs, Cardridge slot, Tape interfarce (300 bps), Serial, User Port, TV RF output
BUILT IN MEDIA Cassette unit. Provision for 170 KB 5.25'' floppy disc unit (1541)
POWER SUPPLY External power supply unit

Click to expand...

oh my, i've never heard of half of those things
that 1.77MHz Zilog sure is a beast.
is this before Windows was invented? when you had to type commands etc.

If memory serves me correctly I had these:

Commodore 64 -overclocking? ha ha ha ha... well I DID have a memory expansion and a fastboot cartridge.

Atari 1030XE

TI99/4A

Amiga 1000 -what a great machine although the 512 was more popular

and maybe, this was on the borderline of that time..... A Packard Bell 286 (first and last x86 machine I got that I did not build). I think I was able to overclock it from 33mhz to 40mhz

Who remembers the "chicago" beta of win95 lol. Im getting old geez...

Also a Compaq Deskpro XE 466 was what i used with a whopping 8mb of RAM, what a joke, but it was cool back then though. Nothing like the one used today of course, but still cool.

I still remember the Oregon Trail dos floppy games from school. I tried to find it in its original floppy form but have failed everytime.

And also wow to the gent with the TRS80. Was it the radio shack tandy i am thinking of? With the cassette deck for media storage?

Hmm, I think it was a 486 DX 50, but it might have been a 486 SX 33. I always got hand-me-downs from my dad.

I can't remember the exact timeline, but around that time I had a couple different iterations of the Pentium, then an MMX, then that eventually got upgraded to the new AMD K6-2, I think the latter couple may have come when I was 16, though. I did a lot of swapping stuff around as I was getting the leftovers from my dad's work, as they upgraded various things, that's at least where the motherboard and first couple CPUs came from. I believe it went P133->P166->P200MMX.

I know I ran Windows 95 (and OSR2, when it finally came out), I didn't go to 98 until SE came out in '99.

Overclocking existed, it wasn't really popular or a hobby yet, didn't even really have the name 'overclocking' yet... The attitude about it was a little different, too.

The P133 I had was probably actually a 90 or 100mhz chip, I think the 166 was actually a 133, and the 200MMX actually a 166. Or something like that.

At the time I kinda used the highest-clocked chip available as a baseline, and considered the lower-end chips to be re-labeled from that. I.e., if 133mhz was the highest available, then all chips made around the same time should be able to run at that speed, and the ones that weren't were 'broken'. You had to be careful, though, because there were also older-production chips at the same speeds, but made back when 100mhz was the top-end, and those weren't likely to do over 100mhz. If you were really lucky, you could sometimes even get a chip that would run faster than the highest-end ones... that didn't happen very often, though.

I only remember I had a Pentium III with 1000MHz Clock Speed and 128 RAM with ATI Graphic Card. Didn't know the detail coz I wasn't familiar with Hardware at that time.
AMD CPUs were still very hot at that time although they were faster than Intel CPUs.

nothing at 15, then again I had mostly moved out of my dads and was living on my own more then not.

We had a 486 33, but I cant remember any of its specs, I was prolly 10 when we had that. My first gaming computer when I was around 14 or 15 was a Pentium 600Mhz lol. 19GB hdd, and 64MB ram. I believe it had 16MB of vram.

That thing ran the first combat flight sim like a champ

Current system in sig

No computer at 15, I didn't get one until 2003 when I started undergrad and it was a POS HP laptop. The best thing about it was that it got struck by lightning, ending its life...

I had a Packard Bell pack-mate with a 386sx-16 and 40 mb hard drive, it was a turd that my parents had picked up from a garage sale. The only thing I did to it was upgrading the onboard video to a 1 mb ISA card which resulted in a noticeable improvement in a few DOS games that I enjoyed.

p2 48 mb of ram and windows 95 WIIIII!!!! "_" i was able to play solitaire with full color

i can tell some that have posted might be around 20s, as i am still a little familiar with their systems, but others must be older than that as i just don't known what they're talking about

i only knew about Intel/AMD, ATi/nVidia, and al the other big names when i began reading here. before, i was only familiar with HP, Dell etc. knew nothing about hardware about 1.5 years ago.

our familiy computer, 10 years ago, had the OS before Windiws 95. a Intel Pentium II and 4mb of ram or similar. it ran some golf game pretty well

my gawd have computers changed. i nevre woudl've imagined 3d car games, or games like GTA4, where it's open world. the most graphically advaned game i used to play was 3d pool...and maybe some pacman lol. but i haven't lived long, so what i call ancient might not seem that old to some

kkpudge7, Pentium 600mhz ftw!!! you technically have a cpu nearly 24 times as fast as you did when you were 14, 15. it's prob not true, but it would be 24 times as fast if you said:
3.4ghz compared to .6ghz (about 6x faster)
quad core compared to single core (4x faster)

so let's assume that's how it works, 24x the speed! :O
too bad it doesn't lol.


EDIT: i just googled the Tandy TRS80 Model 1
my GAWD that looks beastie LOL!

i think - if i remember correctly, i had a DX2-66 - and back then they had no heat-sink! - so i used to put a fan over the chip and OC it with the jumper-settings to 100MHz - think i had 32Mb RAM - cant remember the HDD size - but it was win95. I too got hand-me-downs from my dad, and always broke my HDD controller card by putting the ribbon cable in the wrong way. And - if i remember, was that the time when BIOS batteries were soldered on? Not sure if i ever had to change that particular battery tho...

And also, now my memories of old are coming back, my dad and i soldered a Parallel port cable with a superb max length of !! 15m !! and "networked" our computers together! woot!

Amiga1200 with full size 200MB hdd, and soldered the 3.5" cable to 2.5" pins with the soldering gun right beside me. Both still works. 2MB ram, 14Mhz cpu.

Well, my first computer was a Commador Pet when I was 17.
Computers were an expensive dream when I was 15.
I'm 44.

2. 386 homebuilt
3. 486 homebuilt
4. Pentium 70 Packard Bell w/Win95 when it came out
5. Dell 133
6. 400Mhtz homebuilt
7. 900Mhtz homebuilt
8. 1.4Ghtz homebuilt
9. 2.4Ghtz homebuilt
10. 3Ghtz homebuilt
11. 1.5Ghtz VIA homebuilt (rig 2 in my sig)
12. 2X3Ghtz Intel homebuilt (rig 1 in my sig)







Be nice, or I'll shake my cane at you and call you bad names!

Yeah haha....

Technically speaking I do have 24x the computer. The quad runs at 3.4Ghz but its capable of handling 4x the threads. It really is amazing how computers have evolved even over the last 10 years or so.

think of the changes...

CRT to LCD
VGA to DVI/HDMI
ISA and AGP to PCIe 2.0
USB FTW!!!
we now have 64GB flash sticks on egg for 100 bucks...my first computer didn't even have 64GB of anything...
1.44Mb Floppy to DL Blu Ray @ 50GB
56K dial up to 20Mb Fiber optic cable
2GB hdd to 2TB hdd

Its amazing to think about

I'm 15 now...soooo uhhhh, sig rig is where it's at for me lol.