OT Building new computer (DIY)

[gfretwell]

My first PC was a first day ship IBM PC-1 that cost about 2 grand (employee price) with two 128k diskette drives, a tape recorder "mass storage" and a whopping 64K of RAM. (Epson dot printer and mono monitor)

Several years later I did the $300 WDWX1 controller/ST238 upgrade to a hard drive but that also required a new system board. My old one suddenly just "went bad" and I had to replace it on the M/A ... funny how that works huh? I had a problem earlier with one of those diskette drives and needed a new one too. They only had the 360K. ;-)

[gregz]

I'm thinking a large disk in mid 70's was about 20 kb or perhaps mb. ? In 1969 loading a program by paper tape into a $10k pdp 8/I first required you to manually machine code the program on switches so computer would know how to read the paper tape. Back when an oscilloscope was what you used to fix computers.

I must confess, I have found good deals at complete computers or laptops at Office Depot.

Greg

[Atila Iskander]

By the time something goes wrong, the computer is long past it's useful life span. I have currently 2 laptops that are over 5 years old. And they have been running 24/7 except for the times that I took them while travelling. They are currently running as servers All I did to them was max out the memory And since I installed Linux on them, I have only booted them once a year to make sure that there was no memory creep. The Windows I run on top of the Linux, gets re-booted once a month.

I wouldn't waste my time, money and desk space for a box PC if my life depended on it It's just not cost effective.

[krw]

Ditto, though I had a single-sided diskette drive and 48K memory (the minimum available on the employee models). It didn't stay that way long, though. Within a year it had two double-sided drives and 704K memory. ;-)

I still have it, but I highly doubt it'll boot.

The original IBMs were 140K. I always ran with two drives and a third RAM drive. When I booted, the first thing AUTOEXEC did was to copy B: to C:.

[RBM]

Yes, but the teenagers don't

[notbob]

Yet you, like 2 other posters, run M$ Windows despite a history going back to pre DOS days. I find this extremely curious. One of the reasons I haven't run Windows in over 10 yrs is because it's a flakey, unreliable, intrusive piece of crap that's more of an hassle than a help. Regardless of my views, we have 3 old Unix hands running Windows. Jes outta curiosity, why?

nb

[trader4]

I'm not sure that proves much about W/D. Isn't it just possible they were the supplier for the systems you bought. Meaning if they had used brand Y, you would have gotten a lot of dead machines with brand Y drives instead.

[Vic Smith]

I've been running Win 7 for more than 2 years and none of what you say is true. None of it. Don't care what OS you use, but have no problem busting your myth-making.

[trader4]

I have a DEC removable from the early 80s in my basement. It's probably 18" around outside , 2 inches thick, single media and I think it held 5MB

[Vic Smith]

WD has a good rep now. It's gone up and down, like all the others. Worst drives I've had were IBM. Maxtors were good, but the WD Caviar Blacks I've been running for the past +2 years are the most flawless I've had.

[trader4]

Really? You want to guarantee that for all of us?

Not cost effective? You get MORE in a desktop for less money than in a laptop. I'm sitting in front of a 27" monitor. Where can you get that in a laptop?

[trader4]

+1 to that. How would he even know what Windows is or isn't today, since he says he hasn't run Windows in over 10 years? Kind of like some of the strange folks around that still stick with Win98 and insist that only it was stable.....

[George]

Same here. I have Win7 on this computer and on my notebook and it is stable and runs fine. I do remember the windows 3.1 he is focused on but

10 years ago isn't today.

[George]

If anything modern OSs have become much more stable and reliable.

[Vic Smith]

I think gfretwell still uses '98 for something. That's where you can run into driver issues. But if it works, so what. Win 7 is the most trouble free Win I've run. Puts XP to shame.

[notbob]

Yes, every word I utter/write is a lie. As if.

Likewise, I don't care which OS you use. I'm a firm believer in choice. But, don't sit there and tell me M$ is not intrusive, maniputlative, and controlling. THAT is a bald faced lie and everyone knows it.

I have a near virgin XP netbook, probably last XP build. I rarely boot to Windows, preferring to completely bypass Windows and boot to Linux from a flash drive. Regardless, new out of the box, many of XPs native apps do not work. For instance, WMV does not function at all and will not even play the 2 example files included. Not until I get on the net and connect to microsoft.com and kiss their mangy ass or get anointed or whatever the fsck I gotta do to get them to enable the software I've already paid good $$ for. Gee, and I thought this was MY computer. Silly me. Well, fsck 'em. Let WMV rot. And, if you want to play this stupid denial game --which Windows users seem particularly adept at-- be my guest. Momma notbob never raised such a foolish child.

nb

[notbob]

Please show where I once mentioned Windows 3.1 or even remotely referred to it. You can't, cuz it never occured.

Amazing how Windows user twist reality to fit their own agenda.

nb

[Duesenberg]

I agree with your statement that all manufacturers take turns at being the worst. Western Digital did have a bad rep for a while I thought.

I was always a Quantum fan, then Maxtor fan and always avoided WD but when Maxtor got bought out I tried a WD drive about 6 years ago and was won over.

The one Seagate I purchased in that time was about 8 months ago and of course to my luck, S.M.A.R.T. says it's gonna fail.

There are alot of WD haters out there and I understand why.

The worst was Futjitsu(sp?) back in the mid 90's I think.

[notbob]

I happy for that. Nice to know. Did EVERYTHING work w/o having to connect to the mother ship?

nb

[trader4]

Amazing how some people get such a bug up their ass about MSFT that it becomes like an obsession. I've been using their products for twenty years and am a satisfied customer. Apparently hundreds of millions of others are too or they would be out of business by now.

Are they perfect? No. Are they tough businessmen, out to defend their turf and make a profit? Sure. So what? Doesn't have anything to do with the fact that Win 7 is running right here on this PC and is, IMO, a fine and stable product.