My first modern CPU - do you have yours?

[spinifex]

Gave our first comp away to a needy person, so don't have the cpu.

On a sponge behind me, i do have 3 cpu's.

1. SX419 (Intel 80486 33 MHz) SX419 (Intel 80486 33 MHz)

2. SZ904 (Intel 80486 upgrade 66 MHz) SZ904 (Intel 80486 upgrade 66 MHz)

Last but not least, the cream of the crop.

3. SZ996 (Intel Pentium 100 MHz) SZ996 (Intel Pentium 100 MHz)

Got a heap of much later procs, both Intel & AMD, still in mobo's, in running order.

Jon

 

[mickey megabyte]

I still have the computer somewhere - a Sinclair ZX Spectrum - though it's so small I don't actually know the precise whereabouts in my collection of slowly rusting electronic memorabilia

i used to have one of those too - as a young teenager it was my second favourite plaything

i used to spend many happy hours typing in pages of long programs published in several magazines at the time - then spend a few less happy hours trying to debug, before finally being able to play/use the software - ah, the early eighties, those were the days...

i believe it is still somewhere in my parents' loft, along with my brother's vic20.

 

[nate42nd]

I still have the computer somewhere - a Sinclair ZX Spectrum - though it's so small I don't actually know the precise whereabouts in my collection of slowly rusting electronic memorabilia

i used to have one of those too - as a young teenager it was my second favourite plaything

i used to spend many happy hours typing in pages of long programs published in several magazines at the time - then spend a few less happy hours trying to debug, before finally being able to play/use the software - ah, the early eighties, those were the days...

i believe it is still somewhere in my parents' loft, along with my brother's vic20.

I did the same thing. I found magazines and books with pages and pages of code and spent hours typing it in. After hours and hours you could finally use the program, or find out you screwed up. haha (This was on an Appple IIc)

 

[chuckr]

i used to spend many happy hours typing in pages of long programs published in several magazines at the time - then spend a few less happy hours trying to debug, before finally being able to play/use ...

Pity that today's 'modern' operating systems do not include any

"programming language" to help those that "might" be interested...

(With, of course, an 'accurate' tutorial, or 'Help' file)

I can't c this happening -- its such a BASIC concept...

 

[Dave76]

My first computer was a Toshiba with a Intel 386 and an orange screen.

 

[Zen00]

Mine had a green screen, so much more popular than that gaudy orange.

 

[Mercurial]

i'm not really that old... *still 18* so my first CPU would be back in 1997-9?

 

[Barman58]

I suppose this was the first I owned - not the first I used though ...

 

[Zen00]

My dad has a collection of old CPUs. I wonder where it is.

 

[swarfega]

My first cpu was the 286 running at 12mhz! I also had the separate 287 chip which I still have somewhere.

 

[mickey megabyte]

those were the days...

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

those were the days...

That'd close to 10k in today's economy/money.

 

[Barman58]

those were the days...

That'd close to 10k in today's economy/money.

That's the strange thing with the whole computer industry - today the same amount of money would buy you a system at about the same level of sophistication by today's standard.

The price seems to remain fixed while the available technology increases

 

[mickey megabyte]

i have to disagree, nigel.

if you read the small print, it says 'monitor and display adapter' not included - i hate to think what they would have cost extra...

so all you get is the case, psu, mobo, cpu, floppy drive, ram and keyboard. you don't even get an os.

$2599 = £1600 roughly

£1600 would get you one heck of a case, psu, mobo, cpu, floppy drive, ram and keyboard combo.

 

[Barman58]

Hello mickey,

I take you point and I missed the monitor graphics card

but still this is the equivalent then of the best i7 system money can buy now so the difference may not be that much

 

[Tews]

Mine was hardly what you would call modern... Motorola 8088

​

 

[wallyinnc]

those were the days...

Yesterday I was cleaning old papers and found the invoice for the Dell I bought in 2000: US$ 1662
That is not that long ago. It was a Pentium III, 256M RAM, 40G hard drive. It worked until lastr week, I am finally retiring it

 

[H2SO4]

That's the strange thing with the whole computer industry - today the same amount of money would buy you a system at about the same level of sophistication by today's standard.

The price seems to remain fixed while the available technology increases

I agree. My pet theory #392 is that the price is (self) determined by what the average family is willing to part with in order to compute.

At first, in the very early 80s, PCs were far more expensive than they are today, relatively speaking. A fully-specced PC XT constituted a financial hit comparable to a decent second-hand car, back in 1983. By the time it all got commoditised in 1988-1990, it was obvious that your average offering had to be around $2K (in today's money), because that's what a family could absorb every so often.

 

[chuckr]

Mine was hardly what you would call modern... Motorola 8088

​

Motorola made those too ?

In addition to their 68000 product ?

 

[strollin]

Mine was hardly what you would call modern... Motorola 8088

​

Motorola made those too ?

In addition to their 68000 product ?

Um...Isn't that an Intel 8088? That's the CPU that was in my first computer, IBM PC, bought in 1984 for about $2500 (IBM employee price). Had 256K memory, 2 360K floppies and 4 color CGA graphics!

I no longer have my original CPU but do have some other 8088 machines that I have collected over the years!