this changing world of ours

[rkruger]

1995: Pentium 2 at 386 MHz with 64 MBs of RAM and 8 GB hard drive.

Wonder how you got a Pentium II two years before it was released?

Anyway, started with a Commodore 64 myself (with 64KB of memory), and recently built a PC with 12GB of memory.
That's around 180000 times more memory now compared to back then!

[kitamesume]

1995: Pentium 2 at 386 MHz with 64 MBs of RAM and 8 GB hard drive.

Wonder how you got a Pentium II two years before it was released?

Anyway, started with a Commodore 64 myself (with 64KB of memory), and recently built a PC with 12GB of memory.
That's around 180000 times more memory now compared to back then!

actually pentium 2 @ 350+ mhz stock starts at 1998.

[TorturdChaos]

First computer I remember playing with was an old IBM my dad had bought back in 1986 (same year I was born ).  It was bad ass because i had a dual floppy drive .  I had a double sided hand written sheet of instructions just so I could turn it on and boot up WordStar to type up homework .
Finally got a computer upgrade in 6th grade (1997ish)  to an HP with windows 98 SE  (Hell of a jump ).  Don't remember the CPU but i do remember it had 64mb of ram and a 4gig hdd (still have the hdd somewhere, think it even works still ).
Now I have a C2D E8400, 2gigs of ram, and 2.5TB of space in my main machine .

I still remember my first CD player too.  Back when a really cheap one on sale was ~$60 or so I finally convinced my parents to buy me one or my birthday.  It skipped if you looked at it funny and went through batteries like a fat boy at a cupcake factory, but I loved it .

[NaRu]

I remember my favorite portable CD player. It was a Panasonic Shockwave

(click to show/hide)

[kitamesume]

lol, i remember playing a battery powered cassette. ah, i think dad owned some 1foot floppy disks thats hidden some where.

[pingryanime]

I REMEMBER DIAL UP WHEN YOU COULDN'T INTERNET AND PHONE AT THE SAME TIME




Though seriously, I remember my first computer... You couldn't ass me to rememebr the specs (Hell, I can't even remember the specs of my CURRENT computer) but I remember it was those old, chunky, 199# era macs, and playing Mech Warrior 2 on it, and it was running at like full capacity.

I can run Mech Warrior 2 on my netbook, which has a hyperthreaded atom single core processor, at full graphical settings, AND run skype + chrome simultaniously with no lag.

Oh and my HDD is 240gb. On a netbook.


Stemming off from my netbook, my mac mini (4 or 5 years old) has a HDD that's 120gb. My netbook has a 2.5, mac has a 3.5. Yeah...


I remember the days of the floppy as well, I still have an external floppy reader in my room

[Havoc10K]

I remember my favorite portable CD player. It was a Panasonic Shockwave

(click to show/hide)

that's mine thank you XD

but man the progress really is incredible, I remember the first PC games I played at my mom's work, they had wolf 3D, the first prince of persia, comanche, formula 1, F22, Colgate, and stuffs, all on floopy disks
monochrome, oh man that was awesome, comparing that to current games it's like OMFG

Imagine time traveling and showing some developer the latest games and observe his reactions would be epic.

as far as my computer entertainment goes I started from :
Atari
Commodore 64C
Pegasus
Amiga
IBM 386 (50Hz) 8MB ram
IBM 486 (pentium 100) 32MB
then i jumped high and
Duron 800 128
Athlon 1.6 512
Athlon XP 2 5000+ 4gigs
next up is Phenom 2 6 core 3,2 8 gigs

[surdumil]

My path was kinda similar, but started a bit earlier.
The local Uni opened up a computer lab room on Saturday mornings to let kids play around with a PDP 11 running RSTS with a room full of DecWriters.
I remember thrilling games like Wumpus, Gomoku, Trek.

Then I had some access to the Uni's mainframe, a Xerox Sigma-9 running CP-V.
This had Trek, Gomoku and... the most awesome... Colossal Caves.

Then came some TRS-80 Model I and Commodore PET, owned by other peoples.

Then Atari, TI99/4A, Amiga... ah, I love the Amiga.

Gritting my teeth, I eventually broke down and bought a Commodore PC-10, so that I could make use of software distributed with an Economics 100 text.
What a disappointing, backwards step from the Amiga!!!

Then came a very gradual progression of bland, generic PC's, with accelerating incompatibility issues from previous PC's.
Eventually, some even performed better and had better games than the Amiga... though it took several years.

So, here I sit with a multi-core, multi-GHz, Multi-GB memory, PC with >1TB HD, that still doesn't give me the kick that those old Amiga games did.
But... it plays hi-compression hi-def anime really well, so, there's been some progress there, anyhow.
And it offers Internet access, which is it's own game, which is pretty cool, too.

[Havoc10K]

Yeah, for some reason I don't get as much in the new games as I did in all those years ago.

Some things change for the better, but in some areas there is no improvement.

Yes, i am talking to you Duke Nukem Forever developers, thank you for killing such a badaas game

[kitamesume]

since we're talking about technology improvements, i`m gonna pitch this in.

AMD's bulldozer seems to be a disappointment for some of us, theres alot of fabricated benchmarks, postpones and no answers from AMD itself. since this news and this news update came out, it shed a light on how screwed AMD currently is. GPU has it's own benchmark and CPU has it's own, complaining about CPU benches not working on their onboard GPU is just nuts.

so long story short, is waiting for the bulldozers really worth it? AM3+ boards costs as much as a P67 board, not to mention the recent "leaked" bulldozer's pricing starts at a rumored 200$. they already have the samples, all they have to do is submit their own numbers and settle this madness once and for all.

on the other hand, AMD thinking going APU is the best way, they're saying "screw discrete GPU, we have wicked onboard!", are they trying to screw their own GPU segment or something? if they manage to make a powerful enough onboard then no one would want to buy a discrete GPU anymore, except those ultra high end GPUs.

[Pharismo]

my first pc was from this processor called 286
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80286

i first used pc before i had 3years old (used = sit on pc and smash the keyboard as any children does).
I was born on 1986

[Lavo_2]

I remember owning and having a cassette player. Now I have a media player that can hold over 100 GB worth of music and supports lossless audio.

There was a time where simply being able to open up Word and play simple games from CDs was awesome. Now I have a netbook which weighs just over 2 pounds that can play some games and Word on the go, and a desktop that doubles as a personal multimedia station for movies.

[pingryanime]

Play minecraft.

Kill 12 hours a day.

[fohfoh]

10 years ago, corn was 38cents a pound. Now, it's an insane pee your pants OMFG BARGAIN when Safeway sells it for 38 cents a cob.

Less than 10 years ago, CAD was half of the USD. Now it's above par. Less than 10 years ago, Gas was 50 cents a litre. Now it's 1.10+ per litre.

Back in the day, the dumbest things on TV was Peewee Herman and Ernest (movies). Nowadays, it's Spongebob... wait, scratch that. Peewee Herman is still fucking retarded.