Would you have enjoyed building your computer in the 90s?

I did. I was 17 and it way easy. Most kids these days are stupid and tech illiterate.

>>59444086
I don't remember what PC my dad bought in the 90's, but it came with MS-DOS, and eventually upgraded it to 95 and later 98.
It was crazy mesmerizing for me, probably why I knew more about computers then all my friends.
I learned DOS first.

I did, but I wasn't as autistic about the internals as I am now with windowed cases.

I was actually around 16 when I did mine back in around 96 or so. It was relatively easy. I burned a motherboard when I was around 19 when I upgraded, there were probably more fragile back then.

It was also very common to upgrade easily within 2-3 years.

In only ~1.5years speed ups were DOUBLE. Now it's boring.

>>59444086
I would be more excited if my computer was in a modded case for something like a dectalk speech synthesizer.
But it was all the same when I was 15 ('97).

>>59444086
no one on /g/ would be able to afford the parts

>>59444086
No. I don't like to fuck with BIOS from that era.

>>59444086
In the nineties before all the webshops you had these big computer fairs. I only went to one once and it was a bit after the peak.
Looking back though, getting your parts from these fairs (bartering, timing, having to run around the hall) was fun.

>>59444086
I did. It was easy, cost-efficient and fun.

It's not as much fun now, as speeds don't double as often as they used to.

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mid-90's computer building:
>upgrade CPU
>holy FUCK WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON THIS IS AMAZING
>this voodoo card HOLY SHIT I DIDN'T KNOW THIS WAS POSSIBLE

today:
>upgrade CPU
>"well, at least Prime 95 says it's faster.."
>go back to browsing 4chan

>>59444086
I did it several times

Fuck Molex connectors, hurt my fingers trying to unplug them many times becore I discovered the tweezers trick

>>59444467

Literally still using a 10 year old laptop as my only computer.

In come ways I'm glad I can since I've been saved a lot of money, on the other it shows how stagnant things have gotten that I can even do this.

Besides the web, which is pure cancer these days.

>>59445363
>tweezers trick
Enlighten me good sir.

b..but I did. and brain exploded playing Interstate I76 or Mechwarriors Mercenaries.

>>59444086
It was OK. It was less of a thing so slotting in some extra RAM or a 3Dfx Voodoo 3 felt like doing open heart surgery.

The 80s was worse, having to reconfigure autoexec.bat for every other piece of software...

>>59444086
Yeah, I did. Fucking newfag....

I miss computer fairs so badly. Those were the fucking days. I was like 12 when the one by my house closed.

No, I wasn't into computers in the same way I am these days.

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>>59449311

>no internet

>>59449311
>I wasnt even born back then
>2017-2000

Where are the mods when you need them?

>>59449311
Internet became popular in the 90s. Enjoy your ban.

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>>59444086
It was in fact a lot more enjoyable than today.

Back then you needed separate cards for sound and networking (in the early 90s you needed a disk controller card aswell). So the average gayman rig had three cards, or four when VooDoo showed up.

These days you have only one card installed (or none if all you do is 4chan), yet people still buy fullsized ATX boards and cases.

I'd say the greatest home-built era would have been from Socket-7 to Socket-A, peaking at the Abit BP6.

>>59444086

I did

I used to try to RAID 0 drives and us SCSI and all other kinds of shit to make up for the shit hard drive seek times

thank god for SSDs

upgrades used to make a big difference, adding RAM meant you could listen to winamp AND browse at the same time

today the difference between doubling your ram from say 8 to 16gb is hardly noticeable

>>59444086
It was fun. Unless you want to try installing a DIP chip into a socket without fucking up.

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>>59449944
Oh shit. I thought this was the 80s thread. Time to gtfo.

>>59449890
True that.

Average 486 those days, in AT case would have:
- Multi I/O card - for dual COM, Centronics and IDE ports
- Sound Card - if any
- Graphics card

The case would be littered with ribbon cables for ports and disk drives, at least 4, usually 5, often six.

Some more intresting computers woud have a hardware disk caches.

Starting from pentium era, some interfaces were integrated into the mobo - like IDE or com ports, killing the Multi I/O cards.

Things were fun. Especially when someone wanted to have more then one hard drive.

>>59444086
I thoroughly did. Like others have said, upgrades mattered.

Add some ram:holyshit
Add a new sound card:holyshit
Add a 3dfx card:holyshit
New processor:brain explodes

Now you upgrade and it's like, "well, that browser window opened a little faster, that's nice".

>>59444086
Remember this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealMagic

Not really because setting up hardware was 100x shittier and more difficult than today.

>>59444086
I did. Most cases had more room than that old HP, but a lot of things weren't nearly as idiot proof. Ribbon cables weren't keyed, lots of opportunities to plug something in upside down or one pin off and let the magic smoke out. More jumpers and crappier chipsets. God help you if you wanted to run more than 2 hard drives in the same system.

>>59444086
>easy to build something nice and professional looking since gaymers and consumertards hadn't taken over the whitebox market yet
>upgrades actually meant something in practical use rather than numbers-jerking
>all kinds of cool options
>good hardware was actually visibly better than shitware in most average use cases
sure
>good hardware was ridiculously expensive
>even if you did shell out, it would be useless as a 100% daily driver in less than 10 years
>in the modern era I can buy all of that nice '90s hardware for pennies and build a decent system with all kinds of free software and games because abandonware archives are great
come to think of it, I'm very okay with 2017.

>>59449890
>Abit BP6
I literally owned one of these and had dual Celeron 400s

>>59444086
>Golden Age
>Overclocking
>Jumper pins
>Case cover optional
>Beige case obligatory

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>>59448218

Wasnt necessary, oems put out high quality products in those days

Yep, but as i live in a shit country with almost restricted marker it always was like
>it's another soyo motherboard shit itself up episode.

Still i miss that feel of connecting the PSU floppy cable to the FDD.

>>59452128
>implying I have case covering on in 2017

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>>59452905
soyo wasn't even that bad

no, building them sucked.


sharp edges everywhere.
fucking molex connectors on everything
those shitty ribbon cables

>>59444086
It must have sucked putting hundreds of dollars on hardware that was rendered obsolete in a couple years.

>>59447805
What do you want, a fucking cookie?

I still want a beige case and not a black dust collector

>>59453130
Then why aren't you getting one? The ATX standard hasn't changed in 20 years.

>>59452856
This guy's got it.
Lots of OEMs actually engineered their shit and brought something unique to the table instead of just putting their logo and plastics on a generic Foxconn base, you still got great shit if you rolled your own too, though, and it was cheaper as well.

>>59444429
I miss my dad taking me to trade fairs in the late 90's/early 00's
>saw a stand selling boxed copies of Bleem
>PSX games on my PC?!
>shit blew my mind

>got some extra RAM for my old 122MHz Pentium that was all I had then
>saw a demo stand running Quake 3
>thought I'd be able to play that with my new RAM

>got a neat IBM branded hourglass thing filled with blue gel that I still have

>>59444086
i remember paying £2000 for a 'pc' in the early 90s - it was a cheap, tinny, zero design piece of shit then & it's the same now

microsoft regressed everything

microsoft facilitated trash cans, for 3 decades
what you get with a total, complete, obliterating licensing monopoly

the most damaging, destructive monopoly in human history

>>59454375
why microsoft? people ask - they go with the minimal solution - microsoft gained a gui filing system, the one for the PC, they managed to maintain it - they are still trying to remarket that 'marginal solution now', but it's almost over

>>59444086
no that shit was SHARP

>>59454387
> managed to maintain it

ruthlessly mainted it with their 'pc license' .. what do they provide?

the GUI/filing system would have been part of a BIOS by now, but it's their 'market' .. we have PCs which are down while they 'upgrade' we have slow shitty desktop of no design (because they had to keep 'remarketing' their only product). We have viruses, a market for (and virus 'cleaners'), from the singular provider.

It's disgusting .. it's 90s. The registry, their crap filing system that needs "defragging". They never advanced it; now it's fixed, because they can't maintain it.

>>59453209
Even the latest ones have bad ventilation and psu is on top

>>59444086
>Would you have enjoyed building your computer in the 90s?

I did rebuild my pc's since the 80's
it was full of sharp egdes and stupid manuals
Yes the upgrade where exicting but not as enjoyable as they are now.

Working with-in limitations was suffering.
But I miss 3dFx though ;_;

try upgrading from a commadore64 to a pentuim1 200MHz MMx with 3dFX voodoo1
trust me you'll never look back.

it was like going from snail to a flaming rocket.

> razer sharp edges on cases
> harddrives had to be put in like cd-roms so no sideway harddrive space like today's cases
> shitty 4 pin molex that won't fit sometimes and you would have to force it in, also hard to unplug at times
> crappy large ide cable
> airflow sucked, in fact, there wasn't even a front vent in most 90s case, you were lucky to even get a case with fans on it
> having to fiddle with slave/master jumper on cd rom and harddrives

meh... 90s computer building sucked.

>>59444126
Oldfistbump. Mom taught me DOS at age 8 or 9, back before windows. Our computer had a monochrome yellow screen, and one of those sweet 5 1/4" floppy drives you had to twist the arm shut, so the disk didn't creep out.

>>59447805
>My computer's sole task is browsing 4chan

>>59455173
yeah - those ribbon cables would fit, but only 1 way

>>59454421
>the GUI/filing system would have been part of a BIOS by now
you sound retarded senpai

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>Playing Monkey Island II on the Amiga 500
>Permenantly changing the 11 floppy disks
>Upgrading to Amiga 1200 with 260MB harddisk
Life does get better

>>59454582
It's not hard to mod them with extra fans.

Also, PSU on top is actually GOOD since it allows you to cut candid holes for fans in the bottom.

>>59444361
Awww, the lack of a 3 click quick setup option too much for your ADD brain?
Never mind BIOS setup from that time was very limited and most hardware setup was done with DIP switches on the motherboard.

>>59449890
>440BX
True masterrace

>>59444105
This

The only real difference was some bios being a bitch to navigate and you needed a microscope to identify power headers

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>>59444086
I would, but I grew up with macs. Got my first PC when Apple comitted sacrilige by switching to x86.

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>>59444086
>tfw you could see CPU transistors with a naked eye and solder extensions and make mods to it to make it faster

>>59444128
Case windows are the worst thing to happen to PCs.

>>59460651
No, you couldn't.

In fact, no single chip CPU, 90s or earlier, had transistors big enough for that.

>>59459839
What really rustles my jimmies is that 440BX could have 1GB of memory but its direct successor the i815 was limited to just 512MB.

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>>59444467
>OC my CPU considerably
>works on first try
>seems pretty stable without prime95
>launch a few old games and a newer game
>working flawlessly might be loading a bit faster even idk
>realize i don't like games anymore
>go back to posting on 4chan

>>59444086
Yes, because there would be no stupid rgb leds, michael bay transformer cases or other gayming related shit.

>>59444086
Technology employing ribbon cables is just superior.

>>59464091
i810/i815 were budget solutions not meant to replace the 440BX.

Intel wanted you to go i820 and Rambus.

Of course, the high latencies of Rambus didn't work well with Pentium 3s, so Intel designed a new CPU to specifically tolerate high memory latency.

And thus Pentium 4 was born.

>>59452824
Thanks. I never knew that these almost 20 years.

>>59464091
Even worse, there were a shitton of i440BX boards that would only take up to 384MB, no matter how much actual memory you put in them. I'm looking at you, AOpen.

>born in 1997
>never got into building computers until P4 and Athlon
>tfw never experienced the hardware advancements of the 90s

>>59464726
You needed special 256-meg sticks with lots of chips. 440BX had a cap on how much it would store on the individual RAM chips.

The cheap 256-meg SDRAM modules had too few chips.

>>59464676
>longer bribeline...

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>>59464775
1GHZ BABY!!! OMFG!!!

>>59464091
I had a Soyo mobo with VIA chipset that supported 1.5 GB RAM, in 4 dimm slots. Of course, never used with those RAM prices then, you needed two 512 meg sticks and two 256MB.

>>59464776
Nope, it was a BIOS issue. And the terms you're looking for are single and double-sided memory. I had an AOpen board (and some other cheapo boards too) which wouldn't take 256MB sticks even if they were double-sided (the type needed for i440BX iirc)
In contrast, I had a nice VIA Apollo board which took 1,5GB of SDRAM like a fucking champ. That thing was a beast with a Radeon 9600xt and a 1.1GHz Coppermine.

>>59464775
You started building computers when you were 8?

I did.

I guess youre insinuating that its only enjoyable now because of case windows and other ricer shit.

>>59464907
Not him, but I was born in '97 too and I started with the P4 and Athlon too, at 11.

>>59464907
Why not? I could do it when I was 10

>hurr building computers is hard

>>59464860
512MB SDRAM sticks are fucking unicorns, I don't think I've ever seen one in person.

>>59444467
>1999
>buy a cheap Celeron 300A and overclock it to 450
>buy a cheap Riva TNT
>run Unreal Tournament
>HOLY SHIT THIS IS AMAZING

>2017
>buy an expensive i7 and GeForce
>cannot OC above 10%
>run android ass simulator
>it runs like crap

But hey at least I don't have to solder resistors to make fans bearable

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>>59444467
>alone in the dark
>white kid surrounded by black guys

>>59450803
Well depends on how often you upgrade

I went from a 2010 laptop to a PC that would be between very good and great on logicalincrements and the difference is quite notable

>>59464934
>born in 97
>Has been allowed to post on 4chan for 2 years already

I want to get off this ride

>>59454343
Haha I bougth free PSX emulators back in the day as well.

This CD had ePSXe, Connectix, Bleem, EmuRaiden and three ripped games. Where did those years go?

>Would you have enjoyed building your computer in the 90s?
I did enjoy it, yes.

>>59444086
>have shitty Elpina motherboard
>old ass Compaq case
>PCI slots too deep
>literally have to bend the bracket on every PCI card I try to put on it

How often did this happen? It seems everything fits perfectly nowadays.

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>>59466569
I don't miss going to black market for pirated games. Unreadable CDs and floppies, shitty cracks, shitty translations everywhere.

I don't think any modern OS can make me feel like trying Windows 95 (installed from a dozen floppies!) for the first time though.

>>59466654
The general quality of PC cases went up quite a bit, but I remember having to slightly bend the brackets a couple times in the last few years.

>>59444086
Built my first when I was around 14 in 2000 so I sort of had to deal with things like IDE cables or older style power connectors wanting to be a bitch, glad those aren't a thing anymore.

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>>59466683
>Never having the same feeling again when you watched this waiting for Windows 95 to finish

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>>59466789
Needs more drums.

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>>59466762
>tfw you got the molex stuck

>>59444128
only benefit windowed cases are for me is to be able to quickly see if i need to clean out dust and it's nice to be able to make sure all the fans are working without opening it up

these days fucking everything is full of LEDs so i guess people want to be able to show that off but i really don't give a single fuck. not like i have any friends to show it to anyway

>>59466824
Stuck? Molex plugs can get stuck?

The problem I always had that if not aligned perfectly, you'd push one of the stupid pins out of the plug when trying to connect the damn thing.

>>59466824
>>59466839
Or just the ones that would go bad so you had to switch to another but then oh no you ran out so you gotta get a splitter and then another splitter and then one of the things on one of the splitters breaks

>>59466789
god fucking damn in I SWEAR I see the logo shimmer even though it's a jpg

>>59466789
trying to set up a pre-ATAPI CD drive in Win95 gave me PTSD though

>>59466947
We MSCDEX now

>>59455173
> airflow sucked, in fact, there wasn't even a front vent in most 90s case, you were lucky to even get a case with fans on it
no need for it as the hardware didnt produce that much heat

>>59467821
This. "Gaming" GPUs used to have these tiny weeny coolers if at all

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>>59464843
fugg, I remember that issue.

Pic related also comes to mind. Motherfucking MMX! Are you ready to MAKE YOUR MULTIMEDIA SCREAM?!

Turns out a lot of these have been archived:

https://archive.org/details/boot-magazine-issue06-mmx-feb-1997

Gonna read through all this shit and remember the glory days.

>>59467974
Ironically, they were louder than coolers on modern 150W cards

Still have my beige Antec case from Circuit City. Oh, and the PIII I put in it at the time was free because somebody at the time thought it wouldn't work with windows 98.

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>>59450775
>>59449890

cable galore

>>59469055
>that BNC ethernet connector

>>59464907
Basically what >>59464944 said. Building a PC is just an electric jigsaw.

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>>59469669
>token ring network topography

>>59466900
fuck, i see it too

>>59469742
only thing i was ever scared of is mounting the cpu. used to get the store to mount it for me which was free then i'd do the rest myself.

>>59465356
thatsthejoke

>>59444105
All you need to build a computer is the ability to read your motherboard manual. Putting some parts together does not mean anything.

>>59464843

I also remember that issue. Now we 17 years later and don't even have 5ghz. WTF

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>>59466789
>>59466820

>that early mid 90s blue aesthetic

>>59465186
Second-hand store (I think they sell parts from scrap PCs) I used last month to get DDR3 sticks for notebook sells them for the equivalent of 8$.