Coder
Experienced Member
- Joined
- Apr 17, 2023
- Messages
- 80
I, uh, got a little long winded. Everything below the divider is the long story of my first PC. Apparently I fancy myself a writer... Everything above is actually about the stuff I have coming.
I somehow had managed to avoid the vintage PC hobby up till now. But thanks to a recent YouTube video, I've gone off the deep end. It seems that I was one nostalgia fueled eBay binge away this whole time. I've watched LGR for a number of years now. But didn't really follow anyone else in the vintage computing world. But earlier this week, a suggested video popped up in my feed. It was Tech Tangent's video on the Compaq Portable III, a computer from my childhood. My best friend's dad had one and I always wanted one. Seeing it in his video made me lust for one again. It didn't take long to find one on eBay. But it seems that once the seal was broken, the nostalgia demons escaped and all hell broke loose. RIP my bank account.
Before my binge was over (is it over?), I'd amassed the following:
The Compaq, the MZ-100, and the Packard Bell have significance to me. Each was a big part of my computing history. The no-name 486 and Dell T700r I plan to combine into something that can create 5 1/4 floppy disks for the the older computers. I was just going to get the Dell and a floppy drive, but for some reason people want nearly the same price for a floppy drive as they do for a computer that has a floppy drive in it, so here we are. I figured I can pass the rest of it on to someone else, or keep it for spare parts.
The Packard Bell holds the most significance to me. It looks identical to my first computer. It's not the same model, but it's close enough. Long story follows lol.
===============================
When I was teenager, I found a computer at a resale shop. It was a Packard Bell and out of my price range. The shop wanted $50 and I only had $25, money I had saved from my birthday. I begged my mom to let me get it, but she was having none of it. She told me I'd have to ask them if they'd take $25. I was a shy kid, so asking was hard enough, but asking them to take half price? It seemed doomed to fail. But I really wanted that computer. So I asked. And to my surprise, the guy said yes, as long as I volunteered for one day at the shop. I couldn't say yes fast enough. They let me take it home that day. I was beyond excited.
I assembled the computer the moment I got home. $25 bought me the whole setup, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and all. I didn't have a desk and since I shared my room with my little brother, the computer had to stay in the living room. So I set it up on my dad's old console radio and used a stool from the kitchen as a chair. It had Windows 3.1 installed and ran it pretty well. It even had a copy of Doom! My brother and I played with it for a little while. But, and this is a trait that has never left me, I couldn't leave well enough alone. My dad's computer had Windows 95 and I wanted it too. Running setup was pretty simple. I had zero computer knowledge beyond playing games on my dad's PC when he would let me. He was very protective of it, so that wasn't very often. I answered the few questions it asked and then sat as I watched the little drum tap away. It was slow. Very slow. I'm sure it was only an hour or two, but it felt like 5 or 6. But the progress bar slowly crept away. At several points, it seemed to stop. The drum halted, the progress bar paused, but after a minute or two, resumed. That is, at least, until it reached 82%. I remember that number. My brother and I, for years to come, would joke that if an installer got past 82%, we knew it would finish. In this case, it did not. The drum stopped. The progress bar paused. It did not resume.
I didn't know what to do. We left it there for a good half hour, hoping it would start moving again. When it didn't, we ejected the CD, checked it for scratches and smudges, and put it back in. Nothing. No sign of life. In a last ditch effort to get it working, I did what everyone tells you to do. I turned it off and on again. And it sprung back to life! Huzzah! My happiness was short lived. "No operating system found." Whaaaat? What does that mean? What's an operating system? This was before the internet had become widespread. I didn't know anyone that knew computers. I broke my computer on the first day.
And thus started my trip down a rabbit hole that would lead to a life long love of computers. On every trip to the local library, I'd scour the internet, learning how to create DOS boot disks, how CONFIG.SYS worked, and what drivers were. I spent countless hours trying to breath life back into that Packard Bell. I never did get it working. I would later learn that it's "Sound Blaster" CDROM drive was hooked up to an interface card built in to it's sound card. A kind of old fashioned way of doing things by that time. All of those articles and forums explaining how to get your CDROM to work in DOS were expecting your computer to have the controller on the motherboard. I needed a special driver for my configuration. But still, it was fun and I learned a lot.
I'd put those memories far into the back of my mind. That is until I watched that YouTube video and all the memories came flooding back. My childhood starts arriving tomorrow. I'm excited. But the one that has remained elusive is the CDROM and sound card combo that forced me to learn so much about how computers work. The combo that very likely led me to my career as a software developer. I did discover the drive is a Panasonic CR-563-B. eBay has several for outrageous prices, all marked RARE, of course. But none that come with the sound/interface card (a version of the Sound Blaster 16). I might be able to find that separate though.
Anywho. I'll be around. I look forward to chatting with all of you.
Ray
I somehow had managed to avoid the vintage PC hobby up till now. But thanks to a recent YouTube video, I've gone off the deep end. It seems that I was one nostalgia fueled eBay binge away this whole time. I've watched LGR for a number of years now. But didn't really follow anyone else in the vintage computing world. But earlier this week, a suggested video popped up in my feed. It was Tech Tangent's video on the Compaq Portable III, a computer from my childhood. My best friend's dad had one and I always wanted one. Seeing it in his video made me lust for one again. It didn't take long to find one on eBay. But it seems that once the seal was broken, the nostalgia demons escaped and all hell broke loose. RIP my bank account.
Before my binge was over (is it over?), I'd amassed the following:
- Compaq Portable 386 (same as the Compaq Portable III but I think the III was a 286)
- Sharp PC-7000
- Sharp MZ-100 (coming from Egypt!)
- Sharp PC-4500
- Dell XPS T700r
- No-name 486 that I wanted just because it had a 5 1/4 floppy drive
- Packard Bell Force 50CD
- A reminder of why I don't have much of a savings account
The Compaq, the MZ-100, and the Packard Bell have significance to me. Each was a big part of my computing history. The no-name 486 and Dell T700r I plan to combine into something that can create 5 1/4 floppy disks for the the older computers. I was just going to get the Dell and a floppy drive, but for some reason people want nearly the same price for a floppy drive as they do for a computer that has a floppy drive in it, so here we are. I figured I can pass the rest of it on to someone else, or keep it for spare parts.
The Packard Bell holds the most significance to me. It looks identical to my first computer. It's not the same model, but it's close enough. Long story follows lol.
===============================
When I was teenager, I found a computer at a resale shop. It was a Packard Bell and out of my price range. The shop wanted $50 and I only had $25, money I had saved from my birthday. I begged my mom to let me get it, but she was having none of it. She told me I'd have to ask them if they'd take $25. I was a shy kid, so asking was hard enough, but asking them to take half price? It seemed doomed to fail. But I really wanted that computer. So I asked. And to my surprise, the guy said yes, as long as I volunteered for one day at the shop. I couldn't say yes fast enough. They let me take it home that day. I was beyond excited.
I assembled the computer the moment I got home. $25 bought me the whole setup, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and all. I didn't have a desk and since I shared my room with my little brother, the computer had to stay in the living room. So I set it up on my dad's old console radio and used a stool from the kitchen as a chair. It had Windows 3.1 installed and ran it pretty well. It even had a copy of Doom! My brother and I played with it for a little while. But, and this is a trait that has never left me, I couldn't leave well enough alone. My dad's computer had Windows 95 and I wanted it too. Running setup was pretty simple. I had zero computer knowledge beyond playing games on my dad's PC when he would let me. He was very protective of it, so that wasn't very often. I answered the few questions it asked and then sat as I watched the little drum tap away. It was slow. Very slow. I'm sure it was only an hour or two, but it felt like 5 or 6. But the progress bar slowly crept away. At several points, it seemed to stop. The drum halted, the progress bar paused, but after a minute or two, resumed. That is, at least, until it reached 82%. I remember that number. My brother and I, for years to come, would joke that if an installer got past 82%, we knew it would finish. In this case, it did not. The drum stopped. The progress bar paused. It did not resume.
I didn't know what to do. We left it there for a good half hour, hoping it would start moving again. When it didn't, we ejected the CD, checked it for scratches and smudges, and put it back in. Nothing. No sign of life. In a last ditch effort to get it working, I did what everyone tells you to do. I turned it off and on again. And it sprung back to life! Huzzah! My happiness was short lived. "No operating system found." Whaaaat? What does that mean? What's an operating system? This was before the internet had become widespread. I didn't know anyone that knew computers. I broke my computer on the first day.
And thus started my trip down a rabbit hole that would lead to a life long love of computers. On every trip to the local library, I'd scour the internet, learning how to create DOS boot disks, how CONFIG.SYS worked, and what drivers were. I spent countless hours trying to breath life back into that Packard Bell. I never did get it working. I would later learn that it's "Sound Blaster" CDROM drive was hooked up to an interface card built in to it's sound card. A kind of old fashioned way of doing things by that time. All of those articles and forums explaining how to get your CDROM to work in DOS were expecting your computer to have the controller on the motherboard. I needed a special driver for my configuration. But still, it was fun and I learned a lot.
I'd put those memories far into the back of my mind. That is until I watched that YouTube video and all the memories came flooding back. My childhood starts arriving tomorrow. I'm excited. But the one that has remained elusive is the CDROM and sound card combo that forced me to learn so much about how computers work. The combo that very likely led me to my career as a software developer. I did discover the drive is a Panasonic CR-563-B. eBay has several for outrageous prices, all marked RARE, of course. But none that come with the sound/interface card (a version of the Sound Blaster 16). I might be able to find that separate though.
Anywho. I'll be around. I look forward to chatting with all of you.
Ray