What got you started with PC's? Tell your story.

[Recon-UK]

Not sure if this will pass as a "club" but it don't feel right anywhere else, i suppose this would be a tell your story club.

So i spent my childhood and almost all my teen years on games consoles... they were awesome and never regret it at all.

Around 2005 i think? i went to a mates mates house and he had a PC with Black Hawk Down on it, and i asked if i could have a go and obviously they were all cool with that.

Loaded up online... i was EXTREMELY bad at it and well had to get used to KB+M but one thing is that it felt natural and i absolutely loved the feel of the controls even though i had to look where to put my fingers on the KB lol.



Fast forward to around 2008, i started buying PC magazines (PC Gamer, Custom PC, PC Pro & PC Format ) i believe one of those is actually Bit Tech.

Anyway one of the issues i think in late 2009 was what really got me into PC's, it had a content disc with demo's for games and video's, it also had 1 video that taught me very well how to build a computer and i would use that for my first 2 builds as reference and it became natural after 2 attempts.

Here is that video, this was uploaded in 2012 to Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_mAjwf3j7g

With all of those magazines i read and read and read i built up a massive amount of knowledge just from reading those magazines, just how low you can scale and how high you can scale with hardware.

In 2009 i would build my very first PC and it was not for myself. I was in the Army at the time and was maiing a bit of money and had not seen my bro for like 4 years prior.

It had a Core i7 920.
6GB DDR3 i think 1333mhz?
Some nice EVGA X58 board not quite sure what it was.
2x GTX 285 SLi
Coolermaster Cosmos.

A awesome for the time DELL 1920x1080 monitor, again i apologize i can't remember the model but it was IPS.


This was a greeting gift from me when i met up with him as i knew he was big into gadgets and stuff and loved video games like me.


In 2009 i would go on to build my own system and it was a Pentium Dual Core 930 with a X1550... could barely play anything but was my tinkering machine, i learnt what thermal paste was with that PC, as well i used toothpaste and it did not work so great. Got her to 3.6ghz but liked to BSOD enough.

I then moved to AMD and got a Athlon II x4 640 and it was a great CPU paired it with a HD 4670 and was gaming in a cheapo TV with about 768P for max res lol but it played ARMA II nicely on ok settings
It had a cheap ECS board and 4GB of ram so it was not going to be overclocked and i ended up giving it away to a good friend in the forces.

I then built another rig, this would have an AM2+ Foxconn board and one of the older Phenom chips.

Foxconn A7DA-S
I can't remember the intricate parts so forgive me, i re-bought a 4670 again since the one before served me so well.

I sold that and then built another PC, by this time it is 2010, yeah i built a lot in a short time but it was my way of learning and i loved every minute of it.

Phenom II 955 BE.
MSI 790FX-GD70
4GB DDR3 Kingston no name 1600mhz
ATi 5770 1GB from Sapphire
Gigabyte Odin 450 watt PSU.

The GPU came DOA and i sold it for 3 quarters the price lol, i then got a second hand 9800GTX+ and played on it for a long time, played BFBC2 all sorts, it was a great GPU!

Here is a pic from my old PhotoBucket account lol.

I was trying everything out i was exploring what i could do with a PC, emulation etc etc...

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac356/amd655/desk.png
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac356/amd655/Untitled.png
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac356/amd655/Untitled.png?1473190542558&1473190543035

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/ac356/amd655/desk.png?1473190542558&1473190543035

Then i heard that the Radeon 4870 was faster, got a 512MB Gainward Golden Sample... turned out it ran worse than the 512MB 9800GTX+ i had for unknown reasons and decided to wait until Nvidia dropped the GeForce DX 11 GPU's to see how it all pans out.


GTX 400 series released and all was said, i watched the arguments back and forth for both AMD and Nvidia, by that time the 500 series came out, and it was not long after the 400 series were out the gate that Nvidia answered with the 580.

I snapped up a brand new Gainward GeForce GTX 480 brand spanking new for the time for 180 GBP which was an insane deal, at that time the 5870 was not on offer and was 220 GBP it was a no brainer however i ended up buying a Corsair TX 650 to power it.

I stuck with the GTX 480 for 4 years until it eventually died, in 2011 i upgradeed from the Phenom II to Sandy Bridge with a i5 2500k, 8GB Gskill Ripjaws X 1600, MSI P67A-GD53 and a 1000 watt PSU because i wanted to SLi another 480.

This is how it ended up.

http://static.gamespot.com/uploads/original/1253/12539083/2375609-6630113054-2ebet.jpg


At the time i was thrashing most people, even single GPU benchmarks i was putting up huge scores next to GTX 570's and 580's, i was able to push a single card way further too as you can see below.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5654604

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/details/v8m2x

I enjoyed being an enthusiast overclocker and benchmarker for a while with both the AMD and intel systems.


Here are my results on Tom's Hardware for the insane CPU overclocks.

I am 384-BiT

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...18FHDWQLeVn95ml-XL-FsbY/pub?hl=es&output=html

Old thread.

http://forum.overclock3d.net/archive/index.php/t-45446.html

I had some of the fastest kit on air cooling going, and was proud of it at the time but ehh time moves on.

I sold one of the 480's and the original card eventually died, so i replaced it with a used Radeon 5850 which i actually benchmarked a bit but obviously was no where close to the class of the GTX 480.

In 2013 my GF passed away which sent me into a downward spiral of just staying at my PC for like 2 years, it just kept my mind happy because i enjoyed it and for that i took a massive hit financially. I had to sell off my Sandy system, i got over it and well things looked up, i still had the AMD system and gamed on it which at the time was updated with a Radeon 7770 which died after a years use lol, but i played CSGO on that for hours. Replaced that with a cheap GTX 580 and that PC is still running fine to this day with the original overclocks.

I now have the system in my signature.

Some video's of my older systems.

Sandy with the 480.

These the Sandy system with the 5850.

Phenom II + Radeon 7770.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ7ALuJ7VjU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S6Usjwphm4


Phenom II + GTX 580.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fws6OQsEhwc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMwyI6uWfP0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxBrV4oz9ek



I hope you enjoyed the read, i think i did pretty well to be honest and learnt a hell of a lot from trial and error than word of mouth


Also i can't embed more than 5 pieces of media sorry for the odd looking post.

 

[Seba_82]

Very good and long post , my native language is Spanish so I do not know if I can express myself as naturally as you but I will be as brief as possible , my grandfather bought me my first computer at age 9 was a 486 DX2 , a few months the disarmament entirely and turned to assemble using only a manual that I got from a house of computer science, these mothers were configured via jumper. Then I had a Duron 800 .. Athlon xp ... and others who today do not remember . At the age of 17 years I did my PC Technician course , summarizing ... I have today 33 years and never think to leave this wonderful world of PC gamer.

I hope my English is not entirely horrible, thanks jajajaj google translator. see you!

 

[Recon-UK]

Very good and long post , my native language is Spanish so I do not know if I can express myself as naturally as you but I will be as brief as possible , my grandfather bought me my first computer at age 9 was a 486 DX2 , a few months the disarmament entirely and turned to assemble using only a manual that I got from a house of computer science, these mothers were configured via jumper. Then I had a Duron 800 .. Athlon xp ... and others who today do not remember . At the age of 17 years I did my PC Technician course , summarizing ... I have today 33 years and never think to leave this wonderful world of PC gamer.

I hope my English is not entirely horrible, thanks jajajaj google translator. see you!

Thanks for your post, wow DX 486 that's way earlier than me

 

[silentbogo]

I did not have a personal PC until I went to college.

My first experience was also with an old 486 at my mom's work. It ran DOS and had such excellent games as DOOM, Tetris, Prince of Persia... and Sexonix )))
At approximately the same time my granpa opened a workshop in the basement of a local university, where they had to clear out a giant storage filled with spare parts for some very antique 2-nd gen. transistor computer.

Then, at 5th grade, I regressed to soviet-made Corvette-86 (it ran on an equivalent of Intel i8080A) at the school computer lab. There I learned BASIC and first saw an 8" floppy and a humongous printer-sized external floppy drive.

 

[erocker]

Dad bought me a Commodore VIC 20 sometime in the early 80's where it was "super cool" to code on.. Until I bought game cartridges and have been a "PC" gamer ever since.... Then a Commodore 64, some weird stuff like a Coleco ADAM, then I believe an IBM PC jr. where I spent hours playing a very slow loading Kings Quest. Then we bought a 386sx which I suppose would be the first "modern" PC. IBM COMPATABLE!!! I was hooked, then got a better 386, 486sx, dx, dx2, up to a Pentium III. Though there was a time as a teenager when I owned a PS2 and used it often. It was most likely the drugs and booze. Then around 2004 I built an AMD Athlon sytem with an unlocked ATi 9800SE and played nothing but Unreal Tournament 2k4. Now I have the PC that's the size of a large 90's CRT television and my actual television collects dust.

 

[P4-630]

My first own computer was a Casio casiopeia e100 palm top (bought it in 1999-2000 or so, when I was in Bangkok), (I was traveling a lot at that time) it had windows CE 2.11 on it.

I decided to buy a compact flash modem for it and had a dial up internet provider and I was able to send/receive emails on my own device everywhere I went in Thailand.
In 2003 I bought a packard bell laptop when I was back in Europe for a while, later on back in Bangkok and it had overheating problems, sold it and then I decided to buy a Acer desktop PC with Pentium 4-630, ATi X300, I wasn't traveling much anymore and had a fixed place, replaced the graphics card with a ATi x1600pro , then I bought a XFX 6800GS XXX , had it for a very short time and bought a ATi x1600xt, then upgraded to a Powercolor X1950PRO, which was a great card, and running very cool.
Had used the Acer a few years and decided to build my own PC, first I used the Acer case, bought a mATX motherboard with a intel e2200, did a little overclocking and it was fun.
Only a few months later I ditched the Acer case and bought a Lian Li case with GB ATX motherboard with intel e7200 and bought a HD3870, after a while upgraded to HD4870.
Then I needed to travel again and shipped the desktop to my parents in Europe and bought a few laptops for myself again after that.
I'm currently live in Europe again and since I have my own apartment now (March 2016), I decided to build my current Skylake desktop PC.

 

[Recon-UK]

My first own computer was a Casio casiopeia e100 palm top (bought it in 2000-2001 or so, when I was in Bangkok), (I was traveling a lot at that time) it had windows CE 2.11 on it.

I decided to buy a compact flash modem for it and had a dial up internet provider and I was able to send/receive emails on my own device everywhere I went in Thailand.
In 2003 I bought a packard bell laptop when I was back in Europe for a while, later on back in Bangkok and it had overheating problems, sold it and then I decided to buy a Acer desktop PC with Pentium 4-630, ATi X300, I wasn't traveling much anymore and had a fixed place, replaced the graphics card with a ATi x1600pro , then I bought a XFX 6800GS XXX , had it for a very short time and bought a ATi x1600xt, then upgraded to a Powercolor X1950PRO, which was a great card, and running very cool.
Had used the Acer a few years and decided to build my own PC, first I used the Acer case, bought a mATX motherboard with a intel e2200, did a little overclocking and it was fun.
Only a few months later I ditched the Acer case and bought a Lian Li case with GB ATX motherboard with intel e7200 and bought a HD3870, after a while upgraded to HD4870.
Then I needed to travel again and shipped the desktop to my parents in Europe and bought a few laptops for myself again after that.
I'm currently live in Europe again and since I have my own apartment now (March 2016), I decided to build my current Skylake desktop PC.

I love the story thanks for sharing, i did notice that you may have gone through more hardware than me lol.

 

[blobster21]

What got me started was *cough* all those erotic gif images *cough* i used to buy, download on the minitel network, and collect on floppy disks.

Almost the same year, my father bought me a compaq Presario (Fr 13.000 !! / Pentium 90 / 800Mb HDD / 16MB SIMM memory / windows 3.11)

Internet was not a big thing at that time (the premises with The Microsoft Network), and my 33,6K olitec modem was barely enough to browse and harvest all those alt.binaries.pictures.erotica newsgroups

Still they managed to keep me "busy" for a while, and i got to learn a thing or 2 in the process

edit : who said horny monkey !?

 

[Sasqui]

Was laid off from an engineering job in October of 1990 ... went out and spent $3,000 on a 386/25 with 64KB mainboard cache and 4MB of RAM. Read the entire DOS manual before opening the box, fired it up and was writing .BAT files out of the gate, even wrote a crude GUI to launch programs.

That purchase helped get me a job in the CAD industry, the company I started with 3 months later even bought me a math co-processor so I could run AutoCAD at home. I left that company in late 1991... it was swallowed up by Autodesk in 1996 and I returned in 1998, working in the same building I left 7-8 years earlier. Been through more PC's than I can remember.

 

[Kursah]

My first experience beyond Apple IIe's in elementary school in the early 90's and late 80's was my grandparent's PC, which had Doom on it...I only got to use it when I visited which was mostly during Summer. It had Doom and eventually X-Wing and Tie Fighter to keep their remaining live-in kids entertained, otherwise it was a CAD PC. Well a series of PC's, but the one that was most fun was the one with the turbo button to go from 8MHz to 33MHz and a nifty front panel LCD that displayed that.

In 1995 my parents bought a Packard Bell ( ) with a Pentium 100, 1GB hard drive, 56k modem, 8MB RAM and Windows 95. I had to learn and teach my family how to use it at the same time, as up to that point my experience was DOS and Windows 3.x. So much has and hasn't changed in the last 20-30 years of computing, it has been a fun ride and now in a sysadmin-style arena I have really been enjoying my time with technology.

Eventually my old man and I decided around 1999 to build our own PC's, after he bought a partially parted-out Pentium 3 rig that needed RAM, a hard drive, and a power supply. That turned out to be one helluva system and my first overclocking experience! Had an S3 Trio 64v+ graphics card iirc, what wasn't very good...but allowed us to play some games.

I was always into tinkering with PC's, just kept after it. Building for friends, family, local businesses, etc. Eventually deciding to change my career as a GM line tech to leave that, go to college to earn an IT Network Administrator degree and pursue a career opportunity for a local MSP. Couldn't be happier.

 

[Sasqui]

My first experience beyond Apple IIe's in elementary school in the early 90's and late 80's was my grandparent's PC

I forgot about the Apple IIE that my Dad borrowed from a colleague for a summer (technically it wasn't mine). I wrote a lunar lander program in basic... that was only fast enough to play when I used a machine language compiler to convert it I tried to write a Pac Man clone but that was beyond my capabilities at the time!

 

[Ebo]

My first computer was a Intel Pentium II running at 266Mhz, 4GB harddrive, S3 Virge GFX and 4GB SD ram back in 1997.
I didnt want it, but my first wife wanted one, so to shut her up I bourght it for her.

After i bourght a Pentium III 480 Mhz(I not sure, mabye 460Mhz), 8GB harddrive, Voodoo II GFX card and 8 gb SD ram1998/99.

Had a AMD Athlon 1800 XP that clocked like a dream on an Abit NF8 MB(awsome), ATI 8500 GFX

Athlon 64 754 pins after with 9700 pro GFX all watercooled, then a Opteron machine 939 pins.

Q6600 C2Q Intel machine, and it worked llike a charm.

Got a AMD FX-8120, simply because i couldnt understand why people said they were so bad, so I had to try it out.

Now Im running a Intel I7-5820K, and thats a bad a$$.

 

[IceScreamer]

We didn't really have money for a computer when I was growing up and the first computer was given to us when I was around 7 years old, around 2002, and it broke down a month in.
Up until I was 16 I didn't own any computer, and the school gave me a computer as a prize, something about a drawing class. It was a cheap prebuilt, Celeron E4300, 2GB RAM, integrated GPU, but it was my first "real" PC, I remember playing New Vegas and Secret of monkey island on it, everything on low. I got interested in computers then and swapped parts, bought a C2D E8400, Radeon HD6770, OCZ 550w PSU and some more RAM and it served me really well.
After selling that PC and saving some more money I built a new PC myself (the one in my specs), part by part. Most of the parts I bought were used and it serves me well today. Since then I became, for better or worse, the "tech guy" of the family. I don't think I'll be changing this configuration for a while (except for that damn GPU cooler) but I love building PC for others.

 

[Recon-UK]

We didn't really have money for a computer when I was growing up and the first computer was given to us when I was around 7 years old, around 2002, and it broke down a month in.
Up until I was 16 I didn't own any computer, and the school gave me a computer as a prize, something about a drawing class. It was a cheap prebuilt, Celeron E4300, 2GB RAM, integrated GPU, but it was my first "real" PC, I remember playing New Vegas and Secret of monkey island on it, everything on low. I got interested in computers then and swapped parts, bought a C2D E8400, Radeon HD6770, OCZ 550w PSU and some more RAM and it served me really well.
After selling that PC and saving some more money I built a new PC myself (the one in my specs), part by part. Most of the parts I bought were used and it serves me well today. Since then I became, for better or worse, the "tech guy" of the family. I don't think I'll be changing this configuration for a while (except for that damn GPU cooler) but I love building PC for others.

Right there with ya it's a very satisfying hobby

 

[yotano211]

The thing that got me started with PCs was when my mom bought me a Nintendo with Mario Brothers and duck hunt when I was 9 in 1989. Since then I always wanted a PC for the games but nobody bought me one until I bought one.

I have a love affair with laptops.

My first desktop was in 1999 when I bought a Pentium 3 450mhz (on those big socket 1), it had 8gb HD, 64mb of memory (later upgraded that to 128mb) and I cant remember the graphics card. I had to buy it myself since my parents never bought me a computer, I was 18 at that time. That computer lasted me for a good 5-6 years. I upgraded the processor to a 550mhz, I took it from my sister's boyfriend at that time and switched it for the 450mhz in my. I just wanted something a little faster and didnt have much money. He never knew anyways.

After leaving the Navy, I really didnt do much on the computer front. I did buy an e-machine, I dont even remember the specs on that thing. I was the worst computer I have ever bought. I only remember it had a 80gb HD. I was able to play some games on it for the entire year I had it. I think the motherboard gave out so I stripped it for parts to sell.

Next after that I finally built my own desktop for the 1st time. I loved doing it even though it took me 2 days. It had a AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 160gb HD, I forgot the graphics card but it was a mid range ATI card. That was the 1st computer that ran Boinc with it. I tried to uprade it to a dual core AMD 64 3600 x2 and a Nvidia 8800GT but the graphics card fried the motherboard. I think I didnt install the extra power connector to the gpu. It was fried after the 3rd time starting the computer up. But by that time I already bought my 1st laptop, a Sager 2090 that was much faster. This was around 2005.

After that, lets see, that laptop lasted me a good 3 years, then I bought a gateway 6860fx with a intel T5550 running at a slow 1.8ghz, I upgraded that to a t7500 at 2.2 and later to a t8300 at 2.4 and lower temps and Nvidia 8800m gts. This laptop was truly my 1st gaming laptop but not my last. I loved that laptop so much, still think about it today. It was such an awesome overclocker, the graphics card was able to do 25% on the core and 35% on the memory. I replaced it since the power circuit board gave out. It was in 2008.

It was replaced with a Asus g73jh that I really hated the track pad in it. Overall I hated this machine, I had problems with drivers, with the track pad, too many to list. The biggest thing is the nightmare to clean it. I had to disassemble entire thing to clean the vents out. It was a 45min job. That laptop was sold to my ex that she still had today. This was in 2011.

After this I went with a Alienware m17x. I bought used for $550, it was one of my best deals ever. My first laptop that had Nvidia sli graphics card (260m sli) and that weighed over 10lb. Overall I liked this laptop. I was able to overclock the cpu (q9000) from 2.0 to 2.2 in the Bios. I had that one for 2 years and sold it for the $650 on Craigslist.

I then went for another used Alienware, the m18x r2. I dont know where to start with this laptop. I had a 3920xm in it overclocked to 4.5ghz but normally kept it at 4.3 AMD mobile 7970 xfire. Towards the end of owning this "thing" I had 6.25tb of storage in it. 3 2tb spinner HDs and 256gb 1 msata HD. I weighed over 13lb and the 2.5lb 330w power supply. The motherboard fried so I stripped it down and sold it for parts. I owned it for 2 years.

Today I have the laptop in my system specs and its still going strong. I have had it for around 1.5 years now. I might sell it for something newer and much lighter. Maybe something with a Nvidia 1070 in a 17 inch laptop and I will go with Clevo/sager again.

I have owned some HP elitebook laptops for my business but I dont really count those. Today I do my business work on Clevo w230ss laptop. Its able to play games on med to high settings when I am not at home. I wont replace it for a few years.

 

[Recon-UK]

I have a love affair with laptops.

My first desktop was in 1999 when I bought a Pentium 3 450mhz (on those big socket 1), it had 8gb HD, 64mb of memory (later upgraded that to 128mb) and I cant remember the graphics card. I had to buy it myself since my parents never bought me a computer, I was 18 at that time. That computer lasted me for a good 5-6 years. I upgraded the processor to a 550mhz, I took it from my sister's boyfriend at that time and switched it for the 450mhz in my. I just wanted something a little faster and didnt have much money. He never knew anyways.

After leaving the Navy, I really didnt do much on the computer front. I did buy an e-machine, I dont even remember the specs on that thing. I was the worst computer I have ever bought. I only remember it had a 80gb HD. I was able to play some games on it for the entire year I had it. I think the motherboard gave out so I stripped it for parts to sell.

Next after that I finally built my own desktop for the 1st time. I loved doing it even though it took me 2 days. It had a AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 160gb HD, I forgot the graphics card but it was a mid range ATI card. That was the 1st computer that ran Boinc with it. I tried to uprade it to a dual core AMD 64 3600 x2 and a Nvidia 8800GT but the graphics card fried the motherboard. I think I didnt install the extra power connector to the gpu. It was fried after the 3rd time starting the computer up. But by that time I already bought my 1st laptop, a Sager 2090 that was much faster. This was around 2005.

After that, lets see, that laptop lasted me a good 3 years, then I bought a gateway 6860fx with a intel T5550 running at a slow 1.8ghz, I upgraded that to a t7500 at 2.2 and later to a t8300 at 2.4 and lower temps and Nvidia 8800m gts. This laptop was truly my 1st gaming laptop but not my last. I loved that laptop so much, still think about it today. It was such an awesome overclocker, the graphics card was able to do 25% on the core and 35% on the memory. I replaced it since the power circuit board gave out. It was in 2008.

It was replaced with a Asus g73jh that I really hated the track pad in it. Overall I hated this machine, I had problems with drivers, with the track pad, too many to list. The biggest thing is the nightmare to clean it. I had to disassemble entire thing to clean the vents out. It was a 45min job. That laptop was sold to my ex that she still had today. This was in 2011.

After this I went with a Alienware m17x. I bought used for $550, it was one of my best deals ever. My first laptop that had Nvidia sli graphics card (260m sli) and that weighed over 10lb. Overall I liked this laptop. I was able to overclock the cpu (q9000) from 2.0 to 2.2 in the Bios. I had that one for 2 years and sold it for the $650 on Craigslist.

I then went for another used Alienware, the m18x r2. I dont know where to start with this laptop. I had a 3920xm in it overclocked to 4.5ghz but normally kept it at 4.3 AMD mobile 7970 xfire. Towards the end of owning this "thing" I had 6.25tb of storage in it. 3 2tb spinner HDs and 256gb 1 msata HD. I weighed over 13lb and the 2.5lb 330w power supply. The motherboard fried so I stripped it down and sold it for parts. I owned it for 2 years.

Today I have the laptop in my system specs and its still going strong. I have had it for around 1.5 years now. I might sell it for something newer and much lighter. Maybe something with a Nvidia 1070 in a 17 inch laptop and I will go with Clevo/sager again.

I have owned some HP elitebook laptops for my business but I dont really count those. Today I do my business work on Clevo w230ss laptop. Its able to play games on med to high settings when I am not at home. I wont replace it for a few years.

You have had some pretty awesome notebooks. Thumbs up

 

[yotano211]

You have had some pretty awesome notebooks. Thumbs up

I dont buy most of my laptops brand new, I usually buy them within 3-6 months. When I had HP elitebooks, I usually got them when they where 1 year old, elitebook's normally come with 3 year warranty. I would get them from ebay for a cheap price considering the warranty they have. Specs wise they are "ok" but business class warranty is above anything in the consumer world.

 

[Mussels]

my dad had a PC he used for 'work' and he had a few demo games on it from floppies.

back then family would *buy* game demos thinking they were full games as birthday presents and such, and i'd struggle horribly to play them as a little kid.

oldest one i remember was the original prince of persia (full game) (1989, i was about 5) and making it all the way to where you meet your reflection - but i couldnt read so i didnt have the manual to tell me the trick to beat it


edit: From memory (i was 5, so i'm remembering the PC when it was retired - might have a few changed specs)

486 dx2 66MHz (googled it, this was definitely an upgrade. might have been a 386 or plain 486 at this time)
8MB EDO ram (4x2MB sticks iirc)
4.3GB Quantum fireball hard drive (this ended up in my first PC, a pentium 90)
16KB? Graphics card. I've still got it in the shed for nostalgia, has upgradeable memory chips.
DOS with some kind of mouse GUI shell - it effectively let you put like 9 shortcuts on a screen to click and launch programs/games.
5 1/4" floppy
2x 3.5" floppies
14" 1024x768 fishbowl CRT monitor
about 10 broken joysticks thanks to me
A partridge in a pear tree

 

[Jetster]

In 1990 my friends dad got a new PC for his work. Gave me his old 8088 IBM PC I soon realized I could play games on it. Also learned DOS and would often crash the system and reinstall everything. Bought Falcon 3.0 and California Games. Later got another freebee a Super 286 and started buying Shareware from a local PC shop. I still have most of it. Downloaded porn from BBS sites pre WWW. It would take 10 min to get one picture. Then a 386, 486 DX 4 120, then a Pentium 90, Then my first build was a AMD K6 2-350

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

I will make this short and sweet. Unreal tournament.

 

[Recon-UK]

In 1990 my friends dad got a new PC for his work. Gave me his old 8088 IBM PC I soon realized I could play games on it. Also learned DOS and would often crash the system and reinstall everything. Bought Falcon 3.0 and California Games. Later got another freebee a Super 286 and started buying Shareware from a local PC shop. I still have most of it. Downloaded porn from BBS sites pre WWW. It would take 10 min to get one picture. Then a 386, 486 DX 4 120, then a Pentium 90, Then my first build was a AMD K6 2-350

Wayyyyy back when i was about 10 years old or so before i went into care my dad had a computer that took massive sized floppies, it had a beige colour with a green screen, and everything was done by command line, the floppy disks were programs / games.

I played the flight one where you control a triangle shaped ship/ aircraft and i can't remember much else if it had guns on it or it was just flying it, it was a side scroller of sorts anyway.

Never knew what machine that was.

I also left that out as it never influenced me with PC's.

 

[Mussels]

Wayyyyy back when i was about 10 years old or so before i went into care my dad had a computer that took massive sized floppies, it had a beige colour with a green screen, and everything was done by command line, the floppy disks were programs / games.

I played the flight one where you control a triangle shaped ship/ aircraft and i can't remember much else if it had guns on it or it was just flying it, it was a side scroller of sorts anyway.

Never knew what machine that was.

I also left that out as it never influenced me with PC's.

sounds like asteroid (or one of its numerous clones)

 

[Jetster]

Wayyyyy back when i was about 10 years old or so before i went into care my dad had a computer that took massive sized floppies, it had a beige colour with a green screen, and everything was done by command line, the floppy disks were programs / games.

I played the flight one where you control a triangle shaped ship/ aircraft and i can't remember much else if it had guns on it or it was just flying it, it was a side scroller of sorts anyway.

Never knew what machine that was.

I also left that out as it never influenced me with PC's.

Setting up a DOS system is fun. I did one for a son about 10 years ago. There are GUI program so you don't have to use just the command line but you have to program everything. No plug n play Its quite complicated. Not like today. Even when I started there were 3.5 floppy but 5.25 large floppy's were still around.

 

[Recon-UK]

sounds like asteroid (or one of its numerous clones)

I think they were 5 1/4 Floppy size, all i know is they were abnormally large even for the year 2000 or so lol.

 

[biffzinker]

Apple IIe in elementary school back in Michigan. Later Macintosh Plus, SE-SE/30, LC II & III IIsi in middle school. Bought a Performa 577 with money I earned at part-time job working at one of the high schools in Anchorage during summer break. Replaced the Performa 577 with a PowerComputing PowerBase 240.

Learned of the games available of the PC side ended up buying my first pre-built OEM system with a Pentium 233 MHz (don't remember the rest of the specs.) Added in a 3Dfx Voodoo bumped the RAM, and overclocked the Pentium MMX from 233 MHz to 304 MHz. Afterwards did my first custom build with a AMD K6-III 450 MHz overclocked to 550 MHz with 128 MB of SDRAM (later added 128 MB), and a Diamond Viper 770 TNT2 Ultra.