My old PC from around the year 1999

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vonpedal@reddit

u/zgustv any idea which model pc it was?

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dankwrangler@reddit

I know this is an older post, but what was held in the box up front labeled BASF? Floppy disks? I'm really curious because BASF was a constituent of IG Farben

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zgustv@reddit (OP)

Yes. Those are boxes of 5.25" floppy disks.

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hougaard@reddit

What with all the 5.25 inch floppies, that seems strange 1999?

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Yes, very strange. In 99 CD-Roms were gaining popularity and 3.5 inch floppies had come out. But then I thin you hadda use what you had so if that's what he was using in 99, then more power. (LOTS more power! 8-] )

Danny

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NightmareJoker2@reddit

I would put a 5.25” floppy on my PC today, but alas, I can’t, because I lack the necessary adapter. And before you ask, yes, I’d use it to exchange data with an older system that also has such a drive, but no newer ones. If I get my hands on an ISA SCSI controller one day, this may change.

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hougaard@reddit

I got a USB adapter to 5.25 floppies... https://shop.deviceside.com/prod/FC5025

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NightmareJoker2@reddit

Important information:

[…] The FC5025 is read-only. It cannot write to floppies

I.e. useless and worse than a Greaseweasel. I am looking for a USB 5.25” Floppy drive that is to 5.25” floppies what a generic NEC standard 3.5” USB floppy drive is. Basically, it would show up as a regular floppy drive in Windows, with the 5.25” floppy icon on letter A or B and work with WinImage like a 3.5” USB floppy drive does. Some of the original (not clone!) USB floppy controller chips from NEC did support 5.25” operation. All it took was setting the appropriate configuration by pulling a pin on the chip high (or low, I don’t recall), but the chip has support for all floppy types and would report a drive size change to the USB host depending on what size floppy you put in and what drive was connected after reading track 0.

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dx4100@reddit

Yeah. I suspect that PC was 10 years old or more at that point.

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cjc4096@reddit

Not quite. I'd say 5.25 were still available new pre-built until 93-95.

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algaefied_creek@reddit

Yeah, had a 1993 Unisys with a 3.5” and 5.25” floppy drive. In 1996 or 1997 we replaced the 5.25” floppy with a CD-ROM drive.

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AustriaModerator@reddit

that intel inside sticker tells me it was a 486

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NetDork@reddit

I was building PCs during the Pentium to Pentium 3 days, and my (admittedly fallible) memory says all the ones I recall were blue.

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AustriaModerator@reddit

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3239/2882647473_5ef62eba17_o.jpg

https://www.cpu-world.com/Images/uploaded/0000/63/L_00006366.jpg

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NetDork@reddit

I was working as a tech in a computer store from 1997-2001. I remember seeing an order for a new build PC on the bench that was a Pentium II and had a 5.25" floppy drive in it. I knew immediately it was for my friend's mother, as she was involved in a complicated legal matter where she was dealing with files that were many years old...she had more old floppy disks than I ever saw in one place in my life.

I checked The paperwork and was right.

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DIYnivor@reddit

Yeah, Iomega ZIP drives were all the rage at that point.

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dx4100@reddit

Definitely an old PC even theb

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Razorglance@reddit

OMG!! I had a similar system, with little speakers and a 14" monitor. God at the nostalgia. Thanks for the dejavu.

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dghughes@reddit

People in this thread confused items from years earlier still can exist and be used.

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istilladoremy64@reddit

Still doing my home finances on my C128. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

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the_darkener@reddit

What program do you use?

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istilladoremy64@reddit

I use Master File II to keep records of our chequing and credit card purchases and a custom program I wrote for myself, in BASIC, to keep a record of the money we spend on household expenses out of our savings account. I'll also use TurboCalc 128 (a spreadsheet program) for investment calculations and such.

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the_darkener@reddit

That's awesome!!

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istilladoremy64@reddit

I enjoy the fact that I can still get use out of my C128 today. If you're curious, I've done reviews on both Master File and TurboCalc on my personal Commodore blog, here

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algaefied_creek@reddit

Have you recapped that bad boy?

Done any of the C128 upgrades to effectively have more memory?

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istilladoremy64@reddit

Nope, I've done nothing to it since the day my parents bought it for me in '87. I've considered doing the VDC memory upgrade, but I keep hearing the phrase, "don't mess with a good thing" ringing in my ears every time. LOL!

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algaefied_creek@reddit

Oh by caps I meant “capacitors” as those are a ticking time bomb in old computers.

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istilladoremy64@reddit

I hear ya. But, I don't have the soldering skills to re-cap my "old friend" with any sort of confidence. We'll just keep doing our thing together until one of us kicks the bucket. ;)

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algaefied_creek@reddit

Awe! Adorable and sad! Well if you want I can DM you the discord of someone reliable in Idaho who does mail ins.

She also does casting and streaming

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istilladoremy64@reddit

Thanks for the offer... but being in Canada, myself, the shipping will probably be out of my budget. But, you can always send me the info and if I ever need it I;'ll have it! Thanks!

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algaefied_creek@reddit

DM’d

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Sentrinal@reddit

My first computer was a 386 we got in late 1998, because we were poor and it was $100 in the classifieds.

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algaefied_creek@reddit

Upgraded a classmate’s computer around that time to 16MB of RAM, a sound card, and a CD-ROM drive (I was like 4th grade)…

They got a 386 for peanuts at a garage sale, and I had parts from riding my bike around with a wagon as a trailer collecting garage sale computer parts during the summer to sell to kids and their families when we got back to school.

I think I upgraded them from Windows 3.0 (not 3.1) to Windows 95 as well.

(Thank you 95 upgrade CD)

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danthom1704@reddit

Still using the same speakers

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msartore8@reddit

Did you play Liesure Suit Larry on it?

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jonathanbirdman@reddit

I am a bit amused at how the PC era computers can be considered vintage. On the offer hand I’m liking darn old too.

Where’s the TRS-80 photos? Sinclair ZX-81? California Computer Systems CP/M S-100 in a transparent plexiglass case built by my EE brother, with two 8 inch Siemens floppy disk drives, no hard dive, an Epson MX-80 printer & a Heathkit H19A terminal? Maybe I’ll find them in my basement someday, the pics.

I recall there was a color video card for S-100 with an ad w/a picture of a monkey of some sort. Also some people got read vector-looking graphics to show on their b/w H19As. Oooh Aaaah.

Then there was the Univac at a local university with Tektronix & ADM terminals, & an old punch card machine. Trek. Adventure. So special at age 13.

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glwillia@reddit

i sort of agree. a mac or pc from 2004 offers essentially the same experience (and the same operating system) as a mac or pc from today. however, in 2004 you could still get an SGI machine running MIPS/IRIX, an Itanium running HP-UX, or a Sun machine running Solaris/SPARC. I’d consider the 20 year old UNIX hardware “vintage computing”, the 20 year old PC or Mac not.

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algaefied_creek@reddit

You can get non-x86 machines today like IBM POWER which runs their own UNIX, runs Linux, runs various BSD operating systems.

You can still get Solaris from Oracle or the open-source version, Illumos, and have System V Linux on older or modern SPARC64 hardware as well as x86_64.

You can run MacOS which is certified UNIX on ARM or Intel hardware.

You can run Linux, BSD on ARM, RISC-V and Longsoon (modern MIPS).

So running UNIX and UNIX-like OSes on x86 and non-x86 hardware is still a thing… macOS is one of those UNIX OSes

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lachietg185@reddit

25 years old is not vintage Enough for you?

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prosper_0@reddit

the rate of change in technology was vastly steeper back then than it is today. a 30yo machine has much more in common with your current computer than it does with a 40yo 'home computer'

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jonathanbirdman@reddit

It’s ok. Looking in the mirror has a similarly shocking effect. I’m actually glad people are interested in preserving & getting the old beasts running again.

And yes if one is careful, some useful & fun software can be run.

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jtsiomb@reddit

You are aware that time is not discrete, at least at the scale we're talking about, right? Your deliniation of what constitutes vintage is arbitrary.

If you want my definition for comparison, I consider anything with a noticably different user experience than what we have today to be vintage. By that definition a DOS PC from the mid-late 90s is vintage, while a windows XP machine from 3-4 years later is not. My definition is equally arbitrary, but at least has some justification behind it.

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bort_bln@reddit

It’s crazy how fast progress was back then, this computer looks like it was, idk, 10 years old at that point. Today, my main machine is about 10 years old and it aged much better..

Also my dad was also using a 486 until about 2001, but it at least got a CD-ROM-Drive at one point.

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joypadeux@reddit

Guessing 486 processor ?

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zgustv@reddit (OP)

You are all absolutely right. That picture was not taken near 1999. I just looked at the date on the digitalized picture file and didn't think twice.

I had that machine probably closer to 1990. The 5 1/4 floppy drive, that joystick, no mouse. Definitely DOS era.

Thank you for all your comments. It's great to share these memories.

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BloinkXP@reddit

Those speakers...they were EVERYWHERE.

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Glidepath22@reddit

Tiny screens back then, how did we even compute?

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ExpectedBehaviour@reddit

That speaker placement distresses me.

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arbizukomutil@reddit

Bet you got some serious hours of Falcon 3.0 in with that rig. Soundblaster or Roland for the speakers?

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CalendarSpecific1088@reddit

Falcon 3.0 had a hefty manual. Still have mine.

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vinniegutz@reddit

That's a lot of floppies.

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Prestigious-Case936@reddit

I miss that boot up sound - I am sure I could find it on the internet however if I really wanted it though!

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MeringueOdd4662@reddit

When we could live with a single screen. Now I have 3 and I need one more.

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badteach248@reddit

This looks closer to 95 honestly. No zip drive? No 3.5 floppys?

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torbar203@reddit

to be fair, no ZIP wouldn't be surprising, no matter what the era.

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DrDreMYI@reddit

That’s a healthy floppy collection

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WonderWendyTheWeirdo@reddit

My family wasn't rich in 1999, but at least we had cdrom.

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Psy1@reddit

Hey some people were still using their Amiga 1200 as their main rig in 1999 as you could get it online and to browse the web (most needed help from a user group but not hard once you had the software).

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teknosophy_com@reddit

80s computers: can get online when they're 20 years old Modern computers: SORRY YOUR BROWSER IS FIFTEEN SECONDS OUT OF DATE! YOU'RE AT RISK! SHAME ON YOU!

imagine those muscular dog images here

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Apnu@reddit

Dem floppies.

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sputwiler@reddit

The picture might be that old but the PC is definitely older