Johnny's Computer

Well, let's see. It started in 1983. Christmas to be exact. I got my first computer...  The Atari 800.  It was an 8-bit computer with a MOS 1.79MHz 6502 CPU, 2 ROM expansion slots, 48K of memory and an Atari 410 data cassette drive.  Later, I got an Atari 1050 5¼" external floppy drive for it.  It was a single sided, double-density 180K drive.  Archaic by today's standards, but pretty cool for 1983!  I got a 300-baud modem from a friend in 1984.  That's where the online habit started.  Geez, the Internet was still ARPAnet then and not really available to the public.  WWW hadn't been developed by CERN yet and the IBM PC jr. cost a mint!  I was on local BBS's for years. 

Many moons passed and in about 1988 I got my first 16-bit computer.  It was a Tandy 3000HL.  Hmmm, it had a 4.44/8MHz 80286 CPU, a whopping 640K of RAM, a 360K 5¼" floppy, a 3½" 720K floppy, 20MB MFM (or was it RLL) hard drive, an EGA video card and EGA monitor.  I bought a 2400-baud Hayes external modem for it in 1989.  It was bundled up with the new Prodigy for DOS software.  I was online that night!  I also was on PCLink for about 6 months (now commonly known as AmericaOnline!).  Anyway, since Tandy used a proprietary BIOS from Phoenix (v1.0), I couldn't update it to run the new Windows 3.1.  It only ran up to DOS 5 and Windows 3.0. 

I eventually got tired of it and built my first PC.  I bought an Intel 80486 DX2/50 processor, motherboard, 4MB (4 1MB, 30pin SIMMs), a Genoa VLB 24bit video card, two high density (5¼" & 3½") floppies, a VL-bus Multi-I/O card with IDE, an AT desktop case, 420MB IDE hard drive, blah, blah, blah...it was a speed demon!  When I think today what I spent for the chip alone, I shudder.  Then again, The Tandy ran me $2000 used!!!  After I tired of the DX2/50, I got an Intel 80486 DX4/100, a faster motherboard, another hard drive (840MB total) and 4 more MB of RAM. That was a great system!  The motherboard was one of those bastard boards that took both 30-pin and 72-pin SIMMs.  I had room to grow! 

When Windows95 (that freakin' resource hog!) finally came out, I quickly realized that 8MB of RAM wasn't going to cut it.  I expanded to 16MB. Windows95 is OK with 16MB, but it really needed 32MB+!  More time passed and below is what I have now.  This isn't meant to boast, I just like seeing what other's are running out there and thought that you might be interested in what I have. 

Enough rambling!

Johnny

AMD Athlon 1.4GHz

MSI K7T Turbo-R Limited Edition MS-6330

256MB PC133 RAM

512K L2 Pipeline Burst Cache

Maxtor 6E030L0 30GB Hard Disk

Western Digital WD400BB 40GB Hard Disk

Sony CD-R/RW CRX-1611 (16X W 10X RW 40X R)

Matrox Mystique 3D PCI Video Card, 4MB SGRAM

ViewSonic A75f Flat Tube 17" (0.25mm dp) Monitor

Logitech TrackMan Marble

Visioneer 9020USB Flatbed Scanner

Creative Sound Blaster Live! 128 Sound Card

Logitech QuickCam 4000pro Webcam

Logitech Y-BE22 Internet Navigator USB Keyboard

Creative ModemBlaster 56K external fax/data/voice modem

Efficient Networks SpeedStream 5263 Ethernet ADSL Modem

  Intel 21143 PCI 10/100Mb NIC

Linksys BEFSR41 EtherFast Cable/DSL Router

TEAC 3½" 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive

Hewlett-Packard 952c Color Ink-Jet Printer

Labtec LCS-3210 Amplified Speakers (LOUD!)

Labtec AM-22 Microphone