Computer assembly: My memories over the years

Unclemun

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curious to know what hard lessons other than a big hole in your pocket....now DVDrom are dirt cheap.

Back then, things were much more expensive. Like what some of the forumers here said, you may need to pay lots to buy computer parts.

Some memories:
1. memorys were in small capacities and you CAN test them on the spot before buying

2. due to the nascent stage of the PC, you do upgrade your pc quite often.

3. I have pulled cards out when the pc was running (!) No prizes for guessing what happens.

4. hardware connections can be reversed. I had to spend lots of time troubleshooting.

5. without the online forums, knowledge was not as widespread. Much was learned the hard way unless you have friends

6. data backup - lost enough stuff to fill 1 litre of tears. was using SCSI, Iomega, etc to backup. one CDRW could cost $35 and I bought a few (feels stupid right now)

7. played with esoteric technologies that did not take off - some were short lived. You can find out what these were.

8. You can subscribe to PC magazine from the States - i treated them like gold then (no internet, remember?)

9. Lots of time and my life was wasted. Lesson learned - treasure family and living things. Not the PC, or the internet (its a little late now - not much love to spread nowadays)
 

koroshiya8

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Personally i dont think PC will be overtaken like CD -> DVD -> Bluray did...

Furthermore fixing DIY computers are so much easier than before... no more complex jumpers to plug around, integrated MOBO w/ sound and graphics which are so good for starters.. the list goes on... and we can also buy parts online so easily.

however i wont say prices are lower than before, depending how powerful you want your PC to be.


it's up to us to help 'knowledge transfer' what we know about PC and influence our future generation, like the below screen shot :s13:



33lh181.jpg
 
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Providence

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Wow! Awesome setup! When I have children, I may do the same thing. I will cater one room as a Gunpla-cum-gaming theatre. :D
 

UDeepEX

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Apart from the Pentium I which I discribed earlier and II, most of my other rigs are DIYed at shops in Sim Lim. And during the late 90s, Creative Technologies made Computers. My Pentium II was from there and lasted from 1998 to 2006 with Upgrades which I assisted my Dad in upgrading.

But surely did see the advancing technology clearly throughout my 18+ years of computers.

Specs:
Pentium II 400MHz
RAM: 64MB --> 128MB --> 384MB (Practically Overkill for Pentium II)
GPU: 16MB TNT nVidia RIVA --> 64MB Radeon 7000 --> 64MB GeForce 2 MX400 --> 64MB GeForce 4 MX 440 (My first 8X AGP Card)
8X DVD ROM (The first DVD ROM Drive I had)
CD RW
Creative Sound Blaster LIVE! Sound Card.
20GB --> 40GB HDD
Windows 98 --> Windows ME
Other things I plugged in: 100MB Zip Drives
Had USB ports at the time. REALLY useful.

Then this came about, was setup in SLS by Nova Computers, didn't last as long as the Pentium II:
Pentium IV 1.8GHZ
RAM: 256MB --> 512MB DDR
GPU: 64MB Radeon 7000 --> 64MB GeForce 4 MX 440 --> 256MB Radeon 9600
8X DVD ROM, CD RW --> DVD Burner
Intel 845 Chipset --> Swapped Motherboards twice. The last one was a Gigabyte one.
450W PSU
80GB HDD
Windows 98 (which was real overkill, but operated perfectly) --> Windows XP

And in 2005, this came especially for me, also from SLS.
Pentium IV HT 630 3.0GHz
RAM: 1GB --> 2GB RAM
GPU: 256MB GeForce 6600 LE --> GeForce 7300GS
DVD ROM and DVD Burner
Windows XP
250GB HDD - Still in use when Rig RIPed on me.

And in 2011, after being stuck with a crazy slow Laptop, I bought this off Best Prices and it's my first computer I bought that I really started to tinker A LOT with. A lot of these parts I removed and replace myself to this current configuration. Relegated to use as a Family Computer.
Core i5 2500K
Intel Cooler --> Hyper 212 Plus. Face it, Intel Cooler Sucks.
8GB RAM --> 16GB --> Transferred 8GB to my build on my current build specs.
1GB nVidia GTX 550TI --> Radeon 6970 --> 6970 Crossfire --> GTX 680 --> Radeon 5850 (Might see the return of the GTX 680 back here).
1TB HDD
600W Enermax NAXN PSU --> Corsair HX 1000W (Swapped to my current rig) --> 650W Cooler Master PSU
Windows 7
 
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yukita

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hooked on computer because of this game.... played on 286 on floppy 5.25" dunno waste how many months of my life there....
Romance%20of%20the%20Three%20Kingdoms%20II_2.png
 

shadow84

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I remember playing Emulator King on my Pentium 4 desktop from dell....
 

CeleronD

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I remember lode runner/pacman/dig dug.

the joystick had just 2 buttons.

I had so much fun then!

hours upon hours of lode runner which..i never managed to complete
and finally the diskette spoilt so I couldn't play.
years later I tried it again but it was way too fast on the new computer
 

royfrosty

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Cant remember the first so call 2D FPS game name.

Is all in pixelated pixels. With just going to open doors and kill mobs. Cant remember what is the game liao.

Running on floppy disk with my 633mhz acer desktop.

Got another game is Mario and Pacman.
 

koroshiya8

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i remember very very clearly during 1 holidays i was playing ultima 7.. i play and play, until suddenly i blackout, couldnt see a thing.. damn scary.
 

Dr.Vijay

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Wait... they teach PC DIY in the course of study?!

I only learnt how to assemble a computer as a General Elective Module in SP in 2008 using old Pentium III parts and only this month did I build my very first full system.
 

albertchng

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Cant remember the first so call 2D FPS game name.

Is all in pixelated pixels. With just going to open doors and kill mobs. Cant remember what is the game liao.

Running on floppy disk with my 633mhz acer desktop.

Got another game is Mario and Pacman.

This one still remember?
wolfenstein-3d.png
 

shadow84

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Wait... they teach PC DIY in the course of study?!

I took that course as well.... learn about how hdd moves n all... Got 1 MCQ test at the end, ask us to label the parts in mobo.... In the end, someone smuggled in a thumbdrives with all ans, and all of us got 'A'..
 

ComputerTime

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Seems to me that this is an "Old man" thread, talking about memories....hahahaha

I cannot remember the exact year, 1994 or 1995, I got my PC. My PC is the old PC from my ex-company, 486 and it is $300. After using it for a while, I DIY my first PC, Pentium 120. Using back the original VGA monitor. Surprisingly, it can display 16 million colours. It is the processor that limits the colours to 4. Using DOS/windows 3.1 back then. I still remembered that I buay-song with the shop (cannot remember the shop liao) for the setup of Pentium 120, because it requires the silicon to the heat sink, and still required me to buy a small portion for about $5. In the end, I get a large tube from the electronic shop upstair.

Second PC was Athlon @1000 MHz. Third PC is Pentium IV 3Hz, and currently, i5-760. Now thinking whether to upgrade to the 3rd generation of i5, to save on electricity :p.

Previously, I have the chance to play game, earlier days are lode runner, and the NFS version 1 until Most wanted. Nowadays, only surfing nets, and doing some photoshopping. Not much time to touch the computer.

Frankly, I seldom let my kids play with computer, can get addicted and affect their growth.

Yes, I still have the jumpers around, and some plain small heatsinks which I bought when I went ROC for reservist.

I agree with Unclemun, a lot of money and time wasted in this hobby, but I think I will carry on to DIY my computer, if needed. Otherwise, more money will be wasted for the various parts bought. :D
 
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trenzterra

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Lol I'm much younger than most of you here... I joined this forum when I was in P5 so I'm about 22 this year?

When I was young used to use laptops. But I hated them cos they had very little graphics horsepower...

In 2005 i finally got my own desktop. Bought the parts from Cybermind and they helped me assemble it (wasn't confident of building it myself).

At that point I was on a budget so I opted for a Socket 754 Athlon 64 3000+ (which was already way faster than my then-laptop running Pentium 4M 1.4GHz). Kinda regretted somewhere down the road cos 754 was obsoleted pretty quickly by 939.

Over the years, I upgraded part by part manually, and eventually the PC became self-assembled. Changed the graphics card from the 9600 Pro to 6600GT in mid-2005 (to play games like CS:S and BF2), then to 7900GS in 2006 (with a PCI-E motherboard, to run BF2142, but unfortunately I realised it's my CPU that was the bottleneck).

In 2008 I upgraded to the Core 2 Duo E7300, which felt like a super big improvement because by then most people were already running dual-core CPUs! My Athlon 64 3000+ couldn't even run Internet Explorer smoothly on Windows Vista :s13:

In 2009 I upgraded my graphics card to the HD4870 512MB cos it was on clearance sale (and my 7900GS was showing artifacts). Bought a new case in late 2009, which still is my current case, to replace my old Centurion IV (which was by then a shadow of its former self as I added in makeshift fans here and there; not a pretty sight). So I guess my first 'truly' DIY build was in 2009.

Thought a dual core would last me forever, but no, my C2D couldn't handle BFBC2. So in 2011 I decided to upgrade to the i5-2400, which is my current system. Bought a HD5850 the month after, since it was again on clearance sale :s13:

Since then, I've barely upgraded my system. Added a SSD (a birthday gift) at the end of last year, and a Sound Blaster Z this year to replace my spoiling Audigy 2 ZS.

Fingers crossed that my CPU can last a long, long time, because removing the motherboard is a pain in the ass :s13:

Come to think of it, I've never ever done a full overhaul before, so I've only had 'one' desktop my entire life!

But yes, the trend is moving towards portables and all, and really, with my current usage patterns, there's no point upgrading my computer in the near future. An SSD coupled with a decent processor and GPU is enough to handle most tasks today. I've stopped gaming as I grew older so yeah.
 

Dr_ARCHer

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One of my first and all time favourite:
Olympi3c.jpg


Little Brickout, free game that came with Apple DOS
Little_Brick_Out2.gif


Karateka, from Broderbund
1054280934-00.gif


Castle Wolfenstein, the prequel to Beyond Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein 3D. Yes, this is a 2-dimensional game.
157819-beyondwolf_350.JPG


Others include Bard's Tale, Ultima (1 to 6 and beyond), Wizardry (1 to a few), Zork 1 to III and all of Infocom text adventures (including one based on Hitchhiker's Guide), Raster Blaster (great pinball), Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizard, Space Quest, King Quest.... the list is too long to include screenshots. Too bad I never kept any of them.

I do keep games for the MS-DOS world. I still have Seventh Guest, 11th Hour, Day of the Tentacle, Dune (graphic adventure) and Dune II (RTS), Wing Commander, Master of Magic, Master of Orion, etc. etc. Some even come in 5.25 inch floppies.
 
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