My Old School Computer

AthlonXP

AthlonXP

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Oct 14, 2001
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Well guys after cleaning out some stuff from my parents place I fell upon a few of my old parts from my very first self-built computer.

Here are the following parts i am going to use:

Case: Chieftech Dragon Case (Black)
PSU: Antec 350w
Motherboard: Abit Kt7A
CPU: Athlon T-Bird 1.33ghz ( I coulndt find my 1ghz tbird)
HSF: Thermosonic Thermoengine w/SilenX 60mm fan
GPU: Geforce 3 Agp Card
HD: WD 40gb ata 100 7200rpm drive
Rom: Kenwood 72X cdrom Drive
Network: Linksys 10/100 card
Sound: Soundblaster PCI


Now as for OS i am up in the air on this should I go with windows 2k or go with Windows 98SE?? Anyhow I will get some pics up once I start putting everything together. I also wanted to start this thread to see who else has done this in the past?
 
Wow, first computers FTW. Mine would be utterly useless today, but it'd be a nice walk down memory lane to play with it again. ASCII-art games were awesome when I was 10.
 
yeah this is the 1st one I built but yeah I will get some stuff together this weekend and post pics, but I posed in this forum as my first built machine was an amd rig.
 
I got a chuckle after seeing that system referred to as old school, and very first computer.

I stumbled upon my very first computer the other day too-

Case: Custom
PSU: Custom
Motherboard: Custom
CPU: MOS 6502 at 1.79Mhz
RAM: 16KB
HSF: None required
GPU: GTIA chip
HD: Atari 410 tape drive
Rom: 10KB
Network: None
Sound: Pokey chip 4-channel sound

I will say one thing, back in the day, PCs sure were much more quiet. And by 'PC' I mean 'personal computer', not an IBM clone. :D
 
That config is actually still a very usable one, as long as you have enough memory, and aren't looking to play today's games on it.

Short answer: If you have less than 256 MB, then Windows 98 SE.

If you have 256+ MB, then Windows 2000.
 
yeah I will be using probably 512mb as thats what I had to start with. I mean i will probably throw linux on it as well, but its just a rig to be built for fun.
 
yungin'

My first pc was an ibm 286 running at 5 mhz with a 5mb HD compressed to 10mb and cga graphics. It was so freakin fast at the time and cost an absurd amount.
 
fuelvolts said:
yungin'

My first pc was an ibm 286 running at 5 mhz with a 5mb HD compressed to 10mb and cga graphics. It was so freakin fast at the time and cost an absurd amount.
Click to expand...

How old do you think I am?? Besides this is my first machine I built not the first one i used.
 
I ran XP pro on my Tbird 900 with 512mb ram, for a long time. No problems, although a tad slow:eek:
 
Heh I still have both of my PCs back at my parent's house. My first computer was an old Apple IIe right around the time they stopped making them (1992 I think). First one I built myself was not until a while later, a whopping 120mhz (I thought it was so fast!) though I honestly don't remember what all else is in it other than a Tandy card heh. I do remember having to upgrade it a bit later on to play Red Alert in Windows mode and spending a ton of time with that game though.

The first computer I ever used I don't remember too much about as I was pretty young. It was my Dad's IBM something-or-other. I do remember playing around with QBASIC and the (then) brand new and 'amazing looking' Chuck Yeager's Air Combat :) This was in the very early 90s I think, and I was born in '83 for ref.
 
Since you have 512 MB, use Windows 2000. If you use XP, you can expect a bit more disk thrashing; still quite usable, but not nearly as nice.

You'll still be able to run almost any app out there, with reasonable performance, as long as it's not some highly demanding 3D game.

You can still play older games, such as the Jedi Knight II / Jedi Academy series, with reasonable eye candy, and at a somewhat decent resolution (1024 x 768 for certain).
 
AthlonXP said:
Here are the following parts i am going to use:

Case: Chieftech Dragon Case (Black)
PSU: Antec 350w
Motherboard: Abit Kt7A
CPU: Athlon T-Bird 1.33ghz ( I coulndt find my 1ghz tbird)
HSF: Thermosonic Thermoengine w/SilenX 60mm fan
GPU: Geforce 3 Agp Card
HD: WD 40gb ata 100 7200rpm drive
Rom: Kenwood 72X cdrom Drive
Network: Linksys 10/100 card
Sound: Soundblaster PCI
Click to expand...

Your first machine looks identical to my current machine. I am running XP SP2 without any slowness (then again, I haven't used any new systems. I don't know how fast they are running.)
 
I miss my old Apple IIE. Bought it used and it came with like 50 games. I loved the one where you went around digging for oil. The first time I went to my friends house and he had a 65mhz computer running Wolfenstien... It was all over though. I had to upgrade. I spent more time with 3d sickness from the tight corridors but it was worth it.
 
Jakalwarrior said:
I spent more time with 3d sickness from the tight corridors but it was worth it.
Click to expand...

:) Glad to see I wasn't the only person that suffered from that back with the early shooters. I got that from all of them, but suffered through it for the greatness that was Doom, Duke, ROTT, that StarWars one (name escapes me), and Wolf heh.
 
MattyC said:
that StarWars one (name escapes me)
Click to expand...
Dark Forces.

Those games would occasionally give me a huge headache, but usually I was extremely tired at that point anyway and a good night's sleep would get me back to normal.
 
AthlonXP said:
Well guys after cleaning out some stuff from my parents place I fell upon a few of my old parts from my very first computer.

Here are the following parts i am going to use:

Case: Chieftech Dragon Case (Black)
PSU: Antec 350w
Motherboard: Abit Kt7A
CPU: Athlon T-Bird 1.33ghz ( I coulndt find my 1ghz tbird)
HSF: Thermosonic Thermoengine w/SilenX 60mm fan
GPU: Geforce 3 Agp Card
HD: WD 40gb ata 100 7200rpm drive
Rom: Kenwood 72X cdrom Drive
Network: Linksys 10/100 card
Sound: Soundblaster PCI


Now as for OS i am up in the air on this should I go with windows 2k or go with Windows 98SE?? Anyhow I will get some pics up once I start putting everything together. I also wanted to start this thread to see who else has done this in the past?
Click to expand...

I had a very similar system back in the day.

Case: Antec SX1040
PSU: Antec 350watt
Motherboard: Abit KT7-RAID (Later ASUS A7V-133)
RAM: 512MB Micron PC-133 SDRAM
CPU: AMD Athlon (Thunderbird) 1.33GHz
I can't remember what heatsink I used, but it had a black label Delta fan.
Video: Geforce 2 GTS 64MB (Overclocked to hell and back)
Hard Drive(s): Maxtor 40GB HDDx2 RAID-0
Optical Drives: Kenwood TrueX 72X CD-Rom drive
Network: 3Com 3C905B 10/100 Base-T
Sound: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!
 
Hell I'd run windows 98 or dual boot with 2k so you can play some of the older games that wouldn't run on 2k.

Anyway hell I still see systems that old in production. I think old school I think older then p2's.
 
Man I always wanted to do a sweet retro build like this

I have a voodoo something or the rather laying around. Drop a thunderbird and some ram with dual modems for that "shotgun" effect. Then watercool it all lol. overkill
 
haha sweet!

i remember my first adventure into raiding was raiding 2 40gb western digitals on my baby...a kx7-333r, also had its sdram counterpart. man i loved those boards, i actually have the what was it...the Ka7 i think was sdram, running dos and win 98 to play my old old games
 
atari030 said:
I got a chuckle after seeing that system referred to as old school, and very first computer.

I stumbled upon my very first computer the other day too-

Case: Custom
PSU: Custom
Motherboard: Custom
CPU: MOS 6502 at 1.79Mhz
RAM: 16KB
HSF: None required
GPU: GTIA chip
HD: Atari 410 tape drive
Rom: 10KB
Network: None
Sound: Pokey chip 4-channel sound

I will say one thing, back in the day, PCs sure were much more quiet. And by 'PC' I mean 'personal computer', not an IBM clone. :D
Click to expand...

I just knew there would be one guy at least that would have to show his "Old School Prowess" by telling this kid that his computer is not old school. You must get tons of vagina when you tell chicks about your Pokey chip.

Anyways, I say if your doing all of this for the "walk down memory lane" go ahead and install the same OS that you did when you built it.
 
AthlonXP said:
Well guys after cleaning out some stuff from my parents place I fell upon a few of my old parts from my very first computer.

Here are the following parts i am going to use:

Case: Chieftech Dragon Case (Black)
PSU: Antec 350w
Motherboard: Abit Kt7A
CPU: Athlon T-Bird 1.33ghz ( I coulndt find my 1ghz tbird)
HSF: Thermosonic Thermoengine w/SilenX 60mm fan
GPU: Geforce 3 Agp Card
HD: WD 40gb ata 100 7200rpm drive
Rom: Kenwood 72X cdrom Drive
Network: Linksys 10/100 card
Sound: Soundblaster PCI


Now as for OS i am up in the air on this should I go with windows 2k or go with Windows 98SE?? Anyhow I will get some pics up once I start putting everything together. I also wanted to start this thread to see who else has done this in the past?
Click to expand...

Well at least we have one thing in common. AMD. My first computer was an AMD 386 clone.
 
TheToE! said:
I just knew there would be one guy at least that would have to show his "Old School Prowess" by telling this kid that his computer is not old school. You must get tons of vagina when you tell chicks about your Pokey chip.
Click to expand...

Actually, I just thought it was a fun comparison bringing the really old stuff into it. And that's why I brought it up in a techie oriented computer forum - figuring other people here would have some appreciation of it, not so I could be insulted by some jackass.
 
Win98 and Win2k dual boot definitely. Neither one will take long to install on that rig and you get the best of both worlds.

Win2k for everything that will run on it just fine and Win98 for the stuff that won't run on 2k. I used that setup for a good long while and it worked out great. I only had 256 meg of RAM at the time as well so it will fly with 512.

Mine for that generation was T-Bird 1.33@1.57, Asus A7V133 (still have this board sitting here), 256 meg of Micron RAM PC133@157CL2, Radeon 32meg DDR, about 7 hard drives, DVD ROM and CD burner. Network was a Linksys 10/100 card, I ran two PSUs on it, a 300 watt ATX and 250 watt AT and the case was a no name deal. That computer lasted me until I upgraded to an XP1800+, Asus A7V266-e and Radeon 8500. I sold that board at one point and I now have it back again and it's running a 1700+ right now which is my son's system.

 
my first pc was as follows

386sx16
4meg ram
45 meg hdd
CGA card with EGA monitor
2400 Baud Modem

those were the times.. the monitor was funky and only worked when turned on its side, i got so use to it, normal position monitors felt "funny"
 
Man, those were the days..

Yea, the kenwood drives were the bomb when they were out. Literally no other cdrom was better than it. (I'd still bet if they'd use that tech in dvd drives it'd be the same way today)
 
djgizmo said:
Man, those were the days..

Yea, the kenwood drives were the bomb when they were out. Literally no other cdrom was better than it. (I'd still bet if they'd use that tech in dvd drives it'd be the same way today)
Click to expand...

You know most of those drives died very early deaths right?
 
haha, your old school computer IS my current computer, except I have a moderately better processor...

*one of these days i'll come out of the stone age..... when something actually warrants it.... *
 
i was in 9th grade and built this in Oc.t 2000

750 Slot A Athlon Thunderbird @ 1.02Ghz 10X102 @ 1.9V
512MB PC133 CAS2 CL2
3D ProphetGF2 GTS 64mb/w Blue orb cooler 232/385

tiff001.jpg
 
ALL4AMD said:
i was in 9th grade and built this in Oc.t 2000

750 Slot A Athlon Thunderbird @ 1.02Ghz 10X102 @ 1.9V
512MB PC133 CAS2 CL2
3D ProphetGF2 GTS 64mb/w Blue orb cooler 232/385

tiff001.jpg
Click to expand...

If you mod a stock Opteron low profile 4-heatpipe cooler to fit that 750, it will run way way cooler and way quieter.

My retro system is as follows:

Socket A- Athlon 750 with 900 core @ 1080 (10x108) with a modded Opteron 4-heatpipe cooler
512 or 768MB PC-133
Voodoo 5-5500 with two Socket 7 heatsinks (runs at 183Mhz stable)
Sound Blaster Awe64 Gold
CD drive
40GB HDD
floppy
250w Dell PS
Re-wired Micron PII tower case
Win98SE

Don't remember what MB is in it.. but I wish I had a KX-133 chipset so I could pump the CPU speed up a bit more as I am hitting a FSB wall on the board.

This system was built for old DOS Glide games and Win98 games although I really haven't used it much at all. I'll have to break it out again soon and play around with it.
 
ALL4AMD said:
i was in 9th grade and built this in Oc.t 2000

750 Slot A Athlon Thunderbird @ 1.02Ghz 10X102 @ 1.9V
512MB PC133 CAS2 CL2
3D ProphetGF2 GTS 64mb/w Blue orb cooler 232/385

tiff001.jpg
Click to expand...

Those look like the 60x60x38mm Deltas. Are those fans 7k or 8k RPM? If they are the 8k, how could you stand to be around that thing? I can take a hell of a lot of noise for the sake of cooling computers, but those 8k Deltas were too much for me. The really high pitch "squeal" they put out could be heard up a floor and across the house. I mean this literally and I only had one of them. Pulled it off and put my 7k 60x60x25mm Delta back on. I decided to raise the CPU temp on the T-Bird @1.57Ghz a few degrees by doing that but I no longer pissed off everyone in the neighborhood.

I actually still have that fan in a tub somewhere. I guess I'll need to remember I have it if I get a neighbor upstairs that annoys me. Oh, the damn thing will almost take off in flight with the amount of air it puts out. It was funny hooking it up to an old AT PSU I had with some extension molex cables, turning it on and watching it go flying across the table.

 
I found my first computer, specs as follows

9 rows
7 beads/row

Oh it's an abacus.
 
ok I will be posting my stuff up tomorrow morning. I am in the process of installing everything back into the case.
 
SmokeRngs said:
Those look like the 60x60x38mm Deltas. Are those fans 7k or 8k RPM? If they are the 8k, how could you stand to be around that thing? I can take a hell of a lot of noise for the sake of cooling computers, but those 8k Deltas were too much for me. The really high pitch "squeal" they put out could be heard up a floor and across the house. I mean this literally and I only had one of them. Pulled it off and put my 7k 60x60x25mm Delta back on. I decided to raise the CPU temp on the T-Bird @1.57Ghz a few degrees by doing that but I no longer pissed off everyone in the neighborhood.

I actually still have that fan in a tub somewhere. I guess I'll need to remember I have it if I get a neighbor upstairs that annoys me. Oh, the damn thing will almost take off in flight with the amount of air it puts out. It was funny hooking it up to an old AT PSU I had with some extension molex cables, turning it on and watching it go flying across the table.

Click to expand...
yes they r the 8000RPM deltas

cyclone3d said:
If you mod a stock Opteron low profile 4-heatpipe cooler to fit that 750, it will run way way cooler and way quieter.
Click to expand...


lol i sometimes use the machine to do simple task. also under load the heatsink doesn't get warm to the touch ;)
 
forget Win98 or 2K ... throw a couple nics in it and install Smoothwall Express 3.0 on it or another *nix firewall distro and use that old workhorse to protect your new babies..:)
 
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