Thinking back to 1997, I brought my first pc (a Packard Bell).
The specification is laughable by todays standard :-
Pentium 200mhz with 32mb ram and 4Gb hard drive
I paid £1499 for it yet the pc was £999.
The rest was extra cover.
Within 3 weeks the motherboard had died and the 'on site support' didn't know what to do.
I eventually got the whole pc replaced.
As you can probably guess, at the time I knew absolutely nothing about a pc or it's internals.
I didn't even know what a hard drive was let alone a motherboard.
After this experience, I though I would get clued up about pc's and NOT be ripped off again.
In an ironic sort of way, I now work in software.
So when was your first pc and how much did you get ripped off for it ?
|
January 1994. Ambra Sprinter, 486SX 25mhz, 4mb RAM and 100MB hard drive. VESA Local Bus Architecture. Windows 3 IIRC.
With a few bits of software and a mono Canon Printer about £1200 - interest free credit from Tempo.
Actually it served us well. Upgraded memory and fitted a DX processor, a bigger hard drive (but limited due complications over LBA) and windows 95 all obtained at computer/radio shows. The Lad then used it until well into the noughties - lack of a decent video card was a major limitation. Lack of internet killed it.
|
>> January 1994. Ambra Sprinter, 486SX 25mhz, 4mb RAM and 100MB hard drive. VESA Local Bus
>> Architecture. Windows 3 IIRC.
Ah the Ambra, an IBM brand, in an attempt to kill the lower cost clone market.
|
Assuming IBM PC type, I built my first in about 1984, using IBM parts and an OEM case that alone cost 300 quid.
Assuming others, my first was a sinclair zx80 kit (75 quid seems to ring a bell?), followed shortly after by a Vic20 (199 quid?)
|
I have never bought an IBM type desktop PC. Mine have all been hand me downs, or built out of old carp that work were throwing out, or later on, out of new parts that I've bought from various places online. Still prefer to build my own now, not so much to save money, but because I can spend the money exactly where I need it, and not pay for stuff I don't want or need.
I have of course bought laptops in the past, and my first "serious" computer was a Commodore Amiga A500 which was £400 in 1988.
|
Had access to a Commodore PET around late 70s ish. Built in monochrome monitor, 4K memory and a built-in tape recorder. The next version had a black/ green display and 16K memory. There was a version of Space Invaders which took something like 10 minutes to load from the tape recorder, assuming it loaded first time which was rare.
First computer bought was a ZX81, followed by an Amiga. The Amiga, as mentioned above, was a great machine.
I first used an IBM PC as a student during my industrial practice time at British Aerospace around 1984. It had 2 floppy disk drives (1 x DOS, 1 x program), no hard drive but did have Ethernet. I was running a spreadsheet program at the time called Lotus 1-2-3.
|
>>January 1994. Ambra Sprinter, 486SX 25mhz, 4mb RAM and 100MB hard drive. VESA Local Bus Architecture. Windows 3 IIRC.
With a few bits of software and a mono Canon Printer about £1200 - interest free credit from Tempo. <<
Virtual mirror image of me, except I paid cash at Dixons with a Christmas bonus. They were the days...
It soon became obvious that Dixons knew absolute naff all about what they were selling, so that was a lesson learned.
Once we got to understand what was going on inside, mainly thanks to my son's experience at school, it gave good service, allowing for its limitations and only died when he accidentally set his bedroom on fire in 1998. The 'new for old' insurance paid for an Acer 400mhz with all the gizmos, which is still on standby in my attic 500 miles away in France to this day.
Edit: I've just re-checked the title and confirmed it says 'PC'. Our first computer was a Sord M5 16k, a bit like a Spectrum with a rubber keyboard, that cost around £100 in a Debenhams sale in the late '80s. In the early '90s I had the unutterable luxury of a Tandy 200 16k laptop for work, complete with a rubber device for hooking it up to a phone for downloading to the office.
Last edited by: Mike Hannon on Fri 20 Apr 12 at 12:14
|
A Mesh 486 DXII 66 in 1995 - I think it cost around £600 (I didn't pay for it, it was a present). Was about the going rate - couldn't justify the premium for going to a Pentium. Win 3.11 IIRC, later upgraded to Win 95. 4Mb of additional RAM for £80 seemed steep, but £200 for a 4x CD ROM and sound card that never worked properly was definitely a (PC World induced I think) rip off!
We had an Amstrad PC 1512 before that, which was a lot of money at the time, but a lot less than a 'proper' PC!
|
>> ROM and sound card that never worked properly
Ah yes, you had to know your irq and your dma to get that monkey working.
|
>>
>> >> ROM and sound card that never worked properly
>>
>> Ah yes, you had to know your irq and your dma to get that monkey
>> working.
Ahh remember now trouble installing a CD-ROM (OEM version nigh on £100) on the Ambra in 99-2000 or thereabouts. Needed to install some Toy story & Pingu games for kids. Got it to work in end after much cussing and a lot of help from a Peter Norton book. I think we paid for a combined sound/game card as part of the purchase deal.
Earliest experience of PCs at work was c1988 where some very basic 286(?) models were used to issue receipts and send receipting data to a mainframe over the road. OS had to be installed at boot from a 5.5 inch(?) floppy disc.
Later, in next job, we had an Apricot - again 286 DOS based to run a programme called DataEase. The programme discs were just left sitting round in the office. Although I never caught anyone I'm pretty sure they were copied for home use by at least three PC savvy staff members.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 20 Apr 12 at 13:00
|
|
In the pre internet days copied software was the norm, I don't think anybody thought anything of copying disks.
|
>> In the pre internet days copied software was the norm, I don't think anybody thought
>> anything of copying disks.
It's even easier now - you just download it, complete with the crack to circumvent any registration or authentication process.
Paying for software, music or films nowadays is simply a matter of conscience. Hooky stuff has never been more widely available, or easier to find. Not that I'm condoning it here, just stating a simple fact :-)
|
or try and get the open source equivalent versions (am I am not talking just about operating systems).
They are not always as good but sometimes are so much better.
Media Player vs VLC anyone ?
|
" a 5.5 inch(?) floppy disc"
5.25". I remember at work using 8" floppies, then along came 5.25, then high density 5.25, with a massive capacity of 1.2mb. There were flavours like single d=sided, single density, single sided double density and double sided along the way.
I had a dual floppy machine at home, but it belonged to work, and no games worthy of mention existed then.
I worked for a company who manufactured IBM clones (Wang) and we could get machines on a staff discount, with a loan from the company. A guy I worked with, probably mid 80s, got an all singing all dancing one but it was over £3k.
My first owned home PC was a Wang 240 (see one on this page - home.wxs.nl/~janvdv/wang/wangmuseum.htm ). I used to play Wolfenstein (the original), which Wikipedia says came out in 1981, which is earlier than I'd have thought. Later games included Lemmings (1991)and Heretic, and SWMBO had started to get interested in a game called Monkey Island (1990)
Also had some kids games in the early days - I can only remember Captain Keen - and of course that "adult" favourite, Lounge Suit Larry. Next door was also in the computer business and we set up networking between our houses (semis) (BC connectors I think) so the kids could play one another.
Before the PC I was a Spectrum user, and wasted many hours on Horace and the Spiders, Jet Set Willy,Manic Miner and The Hobbit (when I could get them to load).
Although in hindsight the machines seemed very expensive (as were many of the games!), I don't feel that I was ripped off - it was new technology which always comes at a premium, and we are very fortunate that prices these days are falling, along with massive improvements in performance etc.
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 20 Apr 12 at 18:22
|
We got ripped off badly, and I mean badly. May 1993.
IBM 386 SX 20 with 2MB RAM and a 80MB hard drive (big for the time). Windows 3.0 and DOS 4.1. The PC was £750, we then bought a Canon BJ10 SX for about £200 and they ripped us of with the warranty an an extra £350.
By early 1994 I had spent another £100 on DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 but the RAM was over £150 for a 2MB module as it was not standard 30-pin SIMMS. I had to make do with it till Janaury 2006 but I did use the C64 a lot too.
I used the 386 mainly for DOS games and programs like Print Shop Delux, I rarely used Windows as it was too slow.
In Jan we bought the first 486, an SX2 50 (rare!) with 4MB of RAM but soon upgraded to 12MB. Then by 1997 I had upgraded it to a 486 DX4 120 and it all went from there. Used the 486 DX4 to first go online.
|
|
Funnily enough I was browsing through the MESH website recently just looking at what spec I could get today for the £1,020 I paid for a 1Ghz Pentium 3 in 2001.
|
Like many on here my first computer was in the 80s. In my case a ZX81.
My first PC was at Uni and I got a 486SX 33Mhz. I upgraded the memory to 8Mb (a few hundred extra there) and the hard disk. So it was something like £1300! And it had no CD drive or sound - they didn't then. I think the base model of mine with only 4Mb RAM and the smaller drive was £1173. You'd get a lot of computer for that now.
And today I'm sorting out the old Pentium 4 PC which was running loud and hot... swapped a few bits out and some new ones in... Now I need to reinstall Windows and lots of stuff - total rebuild. I decided for now 16Gb RAM was enough - and cost about £70... less than I paid for an additional 4Mb in 1993! You do the maths ;-)
|
I know as much about PCs as I know about motorbikes. My first PC was beige, and so is this one.
The old one cost £600 and sat widthways underneath the monitor, this one was £300 because I already had the monitor and stands upright. I remember thinking it was a bit of a con that you had to buy a dedicated screen and couldn't just plug it into the telly.
My first ever computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K, which my parents bought from WH Smiths in 1984 for £130 when they first reduced them from £199. I had to put the computer, adaptor and leads away in the polystyrene compartments and put it all back in the box when I wasn't using it.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Fri 20 Apr 12 at 17:37
|
If you mean by pc not first computer which was a c64 then a amiga, wonderful days! went to uni and needed a pc luckily a friend sold me a pc without a cpu and video card paid him £150 and spent another £150, it had the following
cpu was a cyrix 333 mhz, motherboard was a abit socket 7 with isa slots for the video card, the gfx card was a s3 virge, hard drive was 1 gb then upgraded to 4 gb, running win 95, and had a 14 inch vesa monitor, memory was 4mb ram.. that was alot in those days,
I used it for word processing and running mame, it didnt have the grunt to run pc games, after working full time i lost interest in pcs, till i bought a medion pc from pc world for £850, it had windows xp, 2 dvds one was a writer, a tv tuner, a amd 3200+ 512k ram and a fx5200 gfx card, the cpu on it own was £350 so it was a bargain
|
late 1984 1st PC was twin floppy, colour screen & printer with 512Mb memory and DOS1.1
Upgraded to a 2nd systembox that housed a 10Mb HDD. About £6,000 in total.
6 mths later got an AT with 12 MHz processor and 20Mb disk............again about £6,000.
Youngest 2 were 8 yrs and older boy was 12- only ones in the school with a real PC in the house...........stood them in good stead with going to Uni in 1990 and 1994 as they were all proficient in WP/Spreadsheet and other packages.
|
You can see how the likes of Apple et al are doing well selling expensive PCs. Back when some of us got a first "PC" it cost at least £1000 and often a lot more. For that you got a computer adequate for the time. Today the same can be bought for £300 in laptop form and be faster for sure (but bloat in Windows etc slows it down).
But £1000 in mid 90s is what now in terms of take home pay percentage? Technology is cheap.... that's what I keep telling myself after spending today. But I got a lot for the money. Including a Bluray writer - I need a SATA optical drive so why not. My first DVD Writer a long time ago was over £200!
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 20 Apr 12 at 21:57
|
I hope the initial message title is a little tongue-in-cheek. I am astounded at the incredable complexity of modern electronics and how cheap it is. Just look inside a hard disk and be amazed at the contents and their functionality, and all for less than £30.
My first computer was a BBC, and to get my first PC I sold my BMW 2002TII (for £1500) to buy it around 1990.
|
|
I had a Sinclair thing made out of marshmallow in the early 80s followed by a Toshiba MSX which was a beutifully made bit of kit, then an IBM 286 system - 45mb hdd ? Cost a fortune, got upgraded constantly, eventually some bits carried on in different incarnations culminating in a Pentium 75..
|
After having the obligatory ZX81 followed by a Dragon 32.
The first actual PC I bought myself was a Daewoo product aquired from Comet for the princely sum of 800 quid. When I got it home I was rather surprised to find that the 450Mhz Pentium II it sported topped Intel's processor range at the time, making it rather good value. 17" CRT and 16Mb of memory, both of which were large at the time. I wanted it for the full tower case, which meant it should be easily upgradeable and so it proved.
That one went through a selection of upgrades, eventually ending up as an Athlon XP with a couple of gigs of memory, before the limitations of the PSU slot caused a case swap. The final part of that thing to get dumped was the monitor, which eventually got replaced with a 17" LCD long after the rest of the machine had gone. The Daewoo CRT was a good monitor and it lasted well, a good thing as it was many years before LCDs of the same size and quality became anywhere near affordable.
It's not only the first PC I ever bought, it's also the only one. Everything since has been an incremental improvement on that first, with some parts being preserved between generations.
|
|
TeeCee, you sound just like Trigger in Only Fools and Horses talking about his original brush :-)
|
August 1996. A rather ordinary desktop pentium 1, with 1 GB hard drive, and something like 16mb ram, running Windows 95, of course.
It was purchased from Dan Technology, who, in those days, tended to come top in the customer satisfaction surveys. It cost the horrendous sum of £1,393.56. I know this, because I am looking at my old credit card statement as I type.
(But what is worse, much worse, the old machine is actually sitting on the desk beside the laptop I am typing on, and it still works. I'm one of those unfortunate types who cannot bear to throw things away. It was last used regularly in 2003.)
At the same time, I purchased a small HP laserjet printer. At £395.98, horribly expensive by modern standards - but at least the running costs were lower than those of an inkjet.
|
Your first PC and how much you got ripped off - Bromptonaut
