Gateway 2000s of the 486, pentium I and pentium II generations

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gf99b@reddit

My first computer was with a hand-me-down Gateway 2000 486 like the one of the left (or second pic), which ran Windows 3.1. I remember the cow wallpaper and playing for hours in Microsoft Paint. Had the matching Gateway 2000 "Vivitron" monitor and keyboard.

Hope to have one again someday for reminiscing, plus to have a DOS/Windows 3 PC I could use for era-appropriate software and OPL MIDI playback using a Soundblaster card.

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echocomplex@reddit (OP)

I remember seeing them everywhere, but despite being mass produced, it seems hard to find them in good shape and for a reasonable price in the 2020s. If you think you might want one, I'd suggest looking and buying as soon as you can. As with a lot of nostalgic electronics I think the price is only going to get sillier over the coming years.

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gf99b@reddit

Honestly, you can't really find any old (pre-2000) PC around here. The closest I came was an AT&T desktop with a 386, but it was claimed within just a couple hours of being listed. In addition to Gateway 2000, I've also wanted actual IBM stuff but again they're about as rare as hens teeth around here.

I've had somewhat better luck finding old Macs around here, which is why (right now) my collection is mostly 68k Macs. But even finding those can require some patience.

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echocomplex@reddit (OP)

I mostly buy stuff online. There are particular things I really want, like these gateway PCs, and if I'm relying on them to pop up in local classifieds or so, I'm going to be waiting years or may never see them pop up. We're mostly past the days of businesses getting rid of things this old or people finding these in their basement or garage and sticking them by the curb.

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gf99b@reddit

My problem is, especially with things that have a lot of plastic parts, they usually get damaged in shipping. I've only bought one computer online and had it shipped, that was a ThinkPad that I bought from a fellow in Canada. Sellers, especially those that are not in the hobby or know next to nothing about old computers, don't always do a good job packaging the computer for shipping. Also the shipping costs can be astronomical.

All of my old Macs (at least those equipped with hard drives) still had the original owner's files on them. It can be helpful in dating how long the computer was in regular use for. My first one, a Classic, had some files for the original owner's business and it appeared the computer was used all the way up until 2002.

I wish we had a VCF show closer to where I live. They always seem to happen on the coasts, although they sometimes happen in Chicago which is still like a seven-hour drive for me. I know that's where a lot of people get their computers, especially more obscure or interesting stuff.

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echocomplex@reddit (OP)

I got a tandy 486 PC and the HDD suggested it was used by a church. They used it from 1993 all the way to around 2006 or 2008, with only the original 200MB HDD! And it was a slow 486, a 486sx25! Looked like it was mostly used for email and word processing so I guess you could make do.

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echocomplex@reddit (OP)

Theres a vintage computer meetup that happens regularly in Wisconsin, I've seen them post in this subreddit. I wonder if that would be close enough for you to hang out with those guys. Looks like fun. I'm on the East Coast though so that's quite far from me 🙂

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Velocityg4@reddit

I really love the looks of those early CD ROM drives which didn’t all use a standardized design yet.

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DeepDayze@reddit

Many CD drives used a caddy then rather than loading via a tray.

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Velocityg4@reddit

Yea, I had one like that back then. Actually have one now on the same model Macintosh IIvx.

I also had one where the entire CD-ROM drive slid out and the top opened up to load a CD. Wish I knew who made it. I think NEC made one but the front looked different on the one I had. It was flat.

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BCProgramming@reddit

The CD-ROM drive I had that worked that way was a Mitsumi 1x drive and had it's own special 16-bit ISA card.

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echocomplex@reddit (OP)

This one is a mitsumi 1x drive and it is connected to the mitsumi connector on a sound blaster pro. Given the creative logo on the CD drive, it may have been from an early creative multimedia kit where you buy both a cdrom and sound card packaged together. I was happy to find out the CD drive still works pretty well. It is really slow though which can be a bit of an issue for games that stream video off the CD.

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DeepDayze@reddit

The slide-out drives were pretty darn neat no doubt.

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PunkyB88@reddit

I remember my Packard Bell CD drive vibrated like crazy

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RetroTechChris@reddit

Love these! Love my Gateways!! The other day someone commented on one of my social media feeds that "Gateways are trash." That person got blocked. LOL! These were built like tanks... the model in the middle there has, what, like 12 screws to take the cover off? I have a 486DX2/66 in that case... and it has PCI slots on the mobo!!

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echocomplex@reddit (OP)

Can't agree with you more! Someone on another site was dissing gateways recently saying they were junk, and I'm like, really??? Mine are all good quality components for the time. The only bone to pick that I have with any of these three are that the case for the p75 is a huge pain to get off, and the pii uses fragile plastic panels on the sides instead of having a full metal cover that includes the sides like older machines did. The motherboards and cpus are all good Intel ones, the video and sound cards are all name brand for the era like creative, ati, s3 trio etc. The 486 is built like a tank and weighs about as much as one.

I just need a good example of a vivitron 15 and I'm on my way. My current one is damaged and very flakey with the video winking out or rapidly changing sizes and flickering unless I get it propped up just so. I already had the pcbs reflowed for potential bad solder joints and it sadly didn't help.

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i1045@reddit

When I was in university, the computer-labs were full of these Gateway 386 & 486 systems. I love that aesthetic.

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funnyascancer@reddit

I know people online always criticize the uninspired, boring beige boxes from this era of computing, but I personally love them. Seeing them just brings me right back to those days when I was first learning about computers and how they work.

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echocomplex@reddit (OP)

As far as beige boxes go I think gateway put some effort into having attractive designs.

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