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Old timers thread. How long have you been in the game?

gamerk2 said:
Eventually graduated to my own PC when I was in HS (so maybe late 90s?): A Pentium 4 @ 1.6GHz (Northwood probably) and a GeForce 2 MX400. Eventually upgraded the GPU to a NVIDIA 5500FX (lol!), but Doom3 was the game that forced me to build my own PC for the first time.
Click to expand...
With a GF2 MX it was probably the first P4 iteration Willamette in 2001.

My dad had a 1.7 with one, (later upgraded to an ATI 9000 something). It was definitely faster than the P][ I had for HS, but that little CPU fan was loud!
 
First PC was a Commodore 64, second was a Tandy something with a Tape drive.
First build was with an intel pentium 2 cartridge with an nvidia agp gpu on windows 95 and a 3dfx voodoo gpu.
In between I have had an ATI 9800 pro, GeForce 2 Ultra (pissed the wife off with that), 8800, etc...etc...(too many to list honestly)
Last PC I build was my 5950x with 128gb ram and 2x 3090 gpus with an nvlink and an absolutely embarrassing amount of disk space (2 8TB WD Black drives and 4 raided 4TB SATA SSDs). It was/is my AI / Data Science workstation.
 
Well, you can check my join date :)

I lurked for a year or so before registering. I built my first PC when I was 14, in 1999. I was 15 when I registered here, and I'm 40 now...
 
The first system I ran overclocked was Celeron 600 to 750MHz.

First PC I could overclock but didn't was Pentium 166MHz which I remember could have been overclocked ~188MHz. It was tested at this frequency and seemed to work.
I wanted to keep it at 188MHz but my brother didn't want to risk it. Running some DOS games which showed error error 200 didn't help - though it was an issue with Borland's speed detection and 166MHz was at the very end of what these programs supported without patches. I remember we already knew that overclocking FSB was potentially risky to components which motivated the decission to not OC. Also at that specific time most games ran just fine.

In retrospect what I should have done is to either map FSB change (it was single jumper change) to turbo button and not tell my brother...
...or better when he played Carmageddon (his main use for that computer) then mention overclocking as an option - it would have been much more successful convincing him to OC when he needed more performance. That PC and any latter computers we owned together were mostly used by me even if he was the biggest contributor except parents to their specs.

All my computers were overclocked and bought to be overclocked. All except Core i9 9900K which was just too loud to overclock and gains were so laughable it didn't seem worth it.
Core i9 13900KF is the first PC I actually underclock. Perhaps this is why it runs stable 😅
 
Grebuloner said:
With a GF2 MX it was probably the first P4 iteration Willamette in 2001.

My dad had a 1.7 with one, (later upgraded to an ATI 9000 something). It was definitely faster than the P][ I had for HS, but that little CPU fan was loud!
Click to expand...
Makes sense.

That PC was still a HUGE upgrade from our family PC, which as originally one of those 386 based IBM PS/2 models. I still remember when we got our first Adlib soundcard (first tested on DOOM E2M2), and Voodoo 3 GPU (for Mask of Eternity of all things, no idea how the CPU in that thing could run that game in hindsight...)

Kids these days have it easy; not having to deal with EMS/XMS memory, manual IRQ management, and what's a command line? DOS memory extenders? Lol.
 
1770261316016.png
 
JNavy89GT said:
Me? I had “computers” dating back to vic20:Commodor64 or if you want to qualify it “pong” gaming system . I had various IBM/intel pc’s but I’d buy them pre-built as it was all black magic voodoo to me lol. But the internet was a wonderful learning tool, so I started “building” and overclocking computers when I bought a decent new computer off eBay with an AMD K6-3 450 that I had to rebuild (due to UPS damage). I learned how to redo that setup and upgrade suspect parts etc. New heatsink, better ram, new graphics and overclocked it to 525mhz lol. it’s been a sickness since.

I was young enough and brave enough to crack open $200-300 slot A AMD Athlon CPU’s(1997) and would resolder resistors to change clock multipliers to overclock 500mhz CPU’s to 850+mhz. Eventually ,Slot moved to socket. Soldering moved to pencils. And eventually everything was in put into bios, which made overclocking accessible to the everyday person. That and windows evolving to allow non MIT grads to install drivers. I exaggerate, but pre windows 95 was a nightmare for me anyway to get networking actually working and just general driver conflicts and memory address issues. Ugh. I get a headache thinking about it!

AMD lost me after athlon x2 and I was with intel until just recently, when I built a Zen4 rig that I’ve enjoyed messing with and cycling several CPU’s and gpus through to gauge performance. Overclocking is a lot more civilized today. I appreciate that in my older age lol.

Looking back. I look fondly on the memories. Along the way, I was able to set a couple records, albeit briefly. I was able to work in review media. I was able to work with a well know memory company in the day and help develop new products and I was a nerd in a candy shop being able to play with unreleased/prototype hardware.

Kids and family happened and it all got put on the back burner. But, I have been having more fun recently tweaking in computers and perusing forums.

Where did your journey begin? Notable things to add?
Click to expand...
 
JNavy89GT said:
Me? I had “computers” dating back to vic20:Commodor64 or if you want to qualify it “pong” gaming system . I had various IBM/intel pc’s but I’d buy them pre-built as it was all black magic voodoo to me lol. But the internet was a wonderful learning tool, so I started “building” and overclocking computers when I bought a decent new computer off eBay with an AMD K6-3 450 that I had to rebuild (due to UPS damage). I learned how to redo that setup and upgrade suspect parts etc. New heatsink, better ram, new graphics and overclocked it to 525mhz lol. it’s been a sickness since.

I was young enough and brave enough to crack open $200-300 slot A AMD Athlon CPU’s(1997) and would resolder resistors to change clock multipliers to overclock 500mhz CPU’s to 850+mhz. Eventually ,Slot moved to socket. Soldering moved to pencils. And eventually everything was in put into bios, which made overclocking accessible to the everyday person. That and windows evolving to allow non MIT grads to install drivers. I exaggerate, but pre windows 95 was a nightmare for me anyway to get networking actually working and just general driver conflicts and memory address issues. Ugh. I get a headache thinking about it!

AMD lost me after athlon x2 and I was with intel until just recently, when I built a Zen4 rig that I’ve enjoyed messing with and cycling several CPU’s and gpus through to gauge performance. Overclocking is a lot more civilized today. I appreciate that in my older age lol.

Looking back. I look fondly on the memories. Along the way, I was able to set a couple records, albeit briefly. I was able to work in review media. I was able to work with a well know memory company in the day and help develop new products and I was a nerd in a candy shop being able to play with unreleased/prototype hardware.

Kids and family happened and it all got put on the back burner. But, I have been having more fun recently tweaking in computers and perusing forums.

Where did your journey begin? Notable things to add?
Click to expand...
Got a TI99-4A c. 1983--decked out with all the stuff--external 8" floppies, telephone modem, voice module, amber on black monochrome monitor--"real mainframe stuff as one friend called it". Played a few of the early TI games hooked to a TV. It had a bitchy interface and shit keyboard! Programmed the thing to say "Welcome to 1984" and scroll the same message across the monitor--seemed so futuristic at the time. Used it for the New Year's Eve party '83 going into '84. Had a friend come by and he connected with Compuserve to his office on the West coast and sent messages back and forth.

Another friend who taught orchestra got to using the thing to create mailing lists and fell in love--he gave up orchestra and ended up teaching computer science until he retired. I messed with the bitchy thing for a few months then threw it all off a balcony and didn't touch tech again for over 20 years. Sorry I did--it has cost me a ton of money!
 
Apple II clone (yes, text based games included) > Amiga > 386 > Pentium ...

Been on x86 ever since. Don't see that changing but the need to upgrade slowed down dramatically. Longest running CPU? Probably the i5-2500K, using it daily in my HTPC. Still have the 386 in storage. Plan to fire it up one day when I retire.
 
I lived through the heady days of Netburst when intel said they would hit 10Ghz. It's been 20 years and we're still waiting. Im so old I don't think computers today are as fast as people think. Here's what I mean, I had a GPU back in the day that could push about a million lit and shaded polygons, at nearly 30fps. Sure, it was only a 640x480 screen. The thing is, the GPU didn't even have heat sinks... LOL. Also, even though it was a workstation card it still cost less than a 5080. A big thing people don't realize is that most of the complexity in a computer is wasted each cycle. Big complex cores don't actually work much faster than smaller simpler ones. That's why GPU's have dozens or even hundreds of cores. The reality is they've never actually improved on multi-threading to the point of making it work how it should so, computers of today really aren't very fast.
 
thewarriors said:
I lived through the heady days of Netburst when intel said they would hit 10Ghz. It's been 20 years and we're still waiting. Im so old I don't think computers today are as fast as people think. Here's what I mean, I had a GPU back in the day that could push about a million lit and shaded polygons, at nearly 30fps. Sure, it was only a 640x480 screen. The thing is, the GPU didn't even have heat sinks... LOL. Also, even though it was a workstation card it still cost less than a 5080. A big thing people don't realize is that most of the complexity in a computer is wasted each cycle. Big complex cores don't actually work much faster than smaller simpler ones. That's why GPU's have dozens or even hundreds of cores. The reality is they've never actually improved on multi-threading to the point of making it work how it should so, computers of today really aren't very fast.
Click to expand...
I think the advancements in generations are legit. I can %100 tell the difference between a 8rd gen intel and a 12th gen, even when the ghz are about the same. But ya, I wanted multi-cores CPUs to act as a single even when the software was not designed for it. (not an engineer so I get this is hard or impossible). I used to say couldn't the CPU cores read ahead. Like when a gradeschool class is doing group reading and one person has to read page one, the 2nd person may need to read page 2 so they read ahead so when the first person is done they are ready and read it more smoothly. If they are not picked, then the work was discarded but when they are picked woo hoo.
 
I connected a dock to my Lenovo X1 and it has a weird coil whine noise when the hard drive (SSD) is being accessed.
It was really messing with me because it sounded EXACTLY like a 7200 rpm 2.5" IBM drive. It is kind of cool sounding. If I was building a retro gaming (DOS/Win) box I would probably cheat and use a SATA SSD to IDE adapter and have one of those noise makers that clicks like a geiger counter on disk activity. I'd imagine Win 3.1 hitting the swap would sound like the counter in the same room as the elephant's foot! :-D
 
Stiction. Remove HDD, tap gently on the floor, put back in. - IBM
 
Fun thread.

I have vague memories of our first computer. '91 or '92 I guess.

When I got a job in highschool and had money, started buying my own stuff. I have no photos of anything from my computing in the 90s which stinks of course.

I had a really tall desktop that I modded up in the late 90s. Sanded, painted, cut out fan holes, extra whatever stuff. Suppose this was in the early days of enthusiast PC building? I dunno.

So very long ago. So much fun.

edit: didn't realize this was in the OC forum. Uh, guess the first time I OC'd was pressing the turbo button on my 386? Or 486? LONG AGO.
 
Pianomahnn said:
Fun thread.

I have vague memories of our first computer. '91 or '92 I guess.

When I got a job in highschool and had money, started buying my own stuff. I have no photos of anything from my computing in the 90s which stinks of course.

I had a really tall desktop that I modded up in the late 90s. Sanded, painted, cut out fan holes, extra whatever stuff. Suppose this was in the early days of enthusiast PC building? I dunno.

So very long ago. So much fun.

edit: didn't realize this was in the OC forum. Uh, guess the first time I OC'd was pressing the turbo button on my 386? Or 486? LONG AGO.
Click to expand...
OMG, I remember the advice "You need a blow hole in your case for cooling. Just get a dermal to cut a fan hole in your PC easy" then after the 8th cutting blade the 80mm hole the hole is about %70 done. Stupid steel cases.
Also the mandatory car biohazard car emblem attached to the front in case. Not unlike the one here:


1777057600148.png
 
You know computers were fun when you had to look at aquarium pumps to complete your build......
 
I consider my first computer to be my Parker Brothers 'Merlin' handheld game. After that I had a VIC-20 with Datasette, a C64 with an Action Replay fast load/utility cart + 1541 + 1701 monitor + more pirated games than I care to mention. An Amiga 500 with 1084S + second FDD + 512k chip ram expansion. An IBM PS/1 with 486DX33 + 5MB HDD + 4MB of ram + Creative CDROM drive and a Soundblaster card that worked about half the time (playing DOOM on that machine changed me forever, FPS games FTW). A Pentium 100 + 5MB HDD + 64MB of ram + some S3 Trio graphics card, later I installed a Pentium 166 and overclocked it to 200 MHz (my first overclock). A Pentium III 667 @ 750 MHz with 128MB of ram and a Voodoo 3 3000. A Pentium III 1000 with 256MB of ram and a GeForce 2 GTS. A Pentium III Tualatin 1.2 @ 1.5 GHz with a GeForce 4 4600Ti. A Pentium 4 Northwood 2.4 @ 3.8 GHz with a GeForce 6600GT (I was in the middle of playing HL2 for the first time during that upgrade, the move from DX8 to DX9 was simply amazing). A Core 2 Duo E6600 at 3.8 GHz with two 7800GT's in hacked SLI. A Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3.9 GHz with an 8800GTS 512. An i7 920 @ 4.1 GHz with 2 x GTX 275's in SLI. A 2700k @ 5 GHz with 2 x GTX 570's in SLI, followed by 2 x GTX 670FTW's in SLI. A 7700k @ 4.6 GHz with a 980Ti. An 8700k @ 4.8 - 5 GHz with an RTX 2070S. Current PC = Specs in sig, although I also have a secondary PC here running an i5-11400 with the RTX 2070S.
 
I'm actually older by 6 years but I didn't any of the early stuff you had. My first was a 486SX25 with 2 MB of RAM.
 
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