30 Old PC Ads That Will Blow Your Processor

[durkada]

Good times!

I get very nostalgic over the 8-bit days. The hobbyist, completely non-mainstream, aspect of computers lent the whole thing an allure that is hard to explain. Computers are so ubiquitous now, that seeing one isn't nearly as mind-blowing as it once was. There is also something charming about an era before compilers, when every computer was its own experience -- its own strengths, limitations and quirks.

Most of all, I miss the manuals. Today, we get useless sheets of paper telling us how to install a printer. Back in the day, you got a telephone book sized manual with every device that told you how to communicate with it. Now, that's off limits to the hacker.

Old,
Jon

[Xonticus]

Remember assigning com ports before plug n play?

Holy crap. -_-

I remember all of those computers with different O/S's from each other trying to add more functionality from each other. I remember my first printer that you had to feed it with the side teeth track things, had the holes on each side of the paper that you could tear off, and that annoying ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzTTTTT back and fourth noise it made. I believe they were called "dot matrix printers"
(edit: they still make those printers.... built to last!)

Anyone else remember the BBS's? (bulletin board systems) We had to go down to the library and get a list of bulletin phone numbers, you go home and dial in to the persons computer and could only see what was for download, like the newest programs or games. I need to dig out my old faxmodem and find some BBS's that are still around...

I also remember mastering DOS when I was younger, and then Windows 3.1 retail box came out (I still have it) which was simply a DOS GUI that allowed for multitasking. Oh, the fond memories....

[gtmtnbiker]

Anyone else remember the BBS's? (bulletin board systems) We had to go down to the library and get a list of bulletin phone numbers, you go home and dial in to the persons computer and could only see what was for download, like the newest programs or games. I need to dig out my old faxmodem and find some BBS's that are still around...

Yup, I remember those days. 300 or 1200 baud modems. I would be up (high school) until 2-3am downloading stuff from the BBS for my Atari 800.

Occasionally, a bunch of us from the BBS would meet at the library and get a large meeting space. We would setup our monitor & Atari and start swapping games. I had a pretty large collection of 300+ pirated games. I realized that I wouldn't play those games long before moving onto the next one. The games that I actually bought 20-30 of them were the ones that I really played for a long time.

[Xonticus]

I also remember going to local computer shows where I could obtain diskettes of the latest shareware games, hardware and vendor mailing lists. They are still around of course, but they were much bigger back then. I still have my handwritten Wolfenstein 3d disks.

[AmishSamurai]

My Dad used to work at an Office Depot, so he got most of the stuff for cheaper. He was telling me about how him and his uncle thought that a 24-meg RAM expansion would have them set for life, and how obscenely expensive that RAM was. Nowadays I think each of us shit 24 megs of data daily.

BBS systems were a bit before my time. I started using computers around the advent of AOL (curse it's name). I remember mastering Windows 95 before my parents did.

[Betamax001]

I feel so young compared to all of you! My family's first computer was a Windows 98 Sony VAIO from around 1999/2000. I do remember playing computer games at my grandparents house (I also remember watching the Original Star Wars tapes there too) The only game i remember is a Peanuts painting game where you colour Peanuts images. I wanna say it was Windows 95, because it must have been around 1995 or 1996 or so.

I do remember at my old elementary school they had some old Apple computers I think a couple were Apple ]['s and maybe some early Macs. It was about 10 years ago so I can't really remember. I wanna say it was a mix of both depending on the room. But it wasn't until our family's VAIO that I started getting into computers. And judging by the prices seen in these ads, thats probably why we never had a computer until around 2000. And my parents weren't that well off financially until the end of the 90's or so.

[vash23n]

I forgot about my first computer. A Tandy... 1000, I think. Black screen with green text and you had to use those awesome big floppy disks that were actually floppy. I remember I had one game called Pyramid Hunter or something like that. Pretty much a predecessor to Tomb Raider with a stick figure instead of a hot, abnormal-chested woman.