Other than my first and only new system, a 286/16 with everything, other folks shit I could put in to service do things that they were suppose to be under powered to achieve.

I just chuckle when folk say that...😉

PC-Engineer wrote on 2021-08-11, 19:51:

H3nrik V! wrote on 2021-08-11, 18:13:

I love the overview this sheet provides! Very nice work indeed!

Thanks - It makes sense in context, because it was a continuous upgrading of the parts 😉

So much sense - it is a complete timeline with historic data. I'm honestly a bit jealous that I never thought of something like that ..

This is bringing some memories of my old systems back!

The first computer we had was a P1 - a family computer so don’t know much about it.

First computer I owned myself was a Dell Optiplex GX110 I think, with a PII. Was really fond of that computer and quite gutted when a family member threw it out, had a lot of fun and lots of my early computer experience with it.

Second was a Pentium III Tiny(?) tower, then my first self build a Sempron 2600 I think. After that an Athlon 64 3400, right up to my i5 2500k build and onto my current system:

i7 4770k
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC
GTX 1070
1TB SSD + 2x 1TB HDD
16GB Corsair 2133 CAS11

Fairly modest machine by today’s standards, but on the other hand, still runs anything you can throw at it!

britain4 wrote on 2021-08-12, 21:32:

Fairly modest machine by today’s standards, but on the other hand, still runs anything you can throw at it!

You think your machine sucks? The post I made in 2014 is still current. My sandybridge Celeron which even sucked in Jan 2012 is still in my main pc. Runs internets just fine. Excluding monitor and case only spent $400cdn. Only upgraded ram to 8gb and 512gb ssd since purchase. 10 years is a good run. In the early 2000s I told everyone about electronics pushing the limits of physics, but everyone thought I was full of it.

I have had to replace my laptop once in the last 10 years, but mainly due to insufficient ram or components baking themselves. Amazingly the one I got in 2017 is slower than the 2012 model it replaced despite being at similar price points.

P2-350 / P3-550
TNT1 (Diamond Viper550)
SB128PCI
ASUS P2B
(lasted me a long time till I build the Celeron 400 and moved over to that one)

Celeron 400 s370
TNT2 M64 PCI 16MB
Solo-1 iirc
MS-6159

Athlon XP 3200+ (Barton)
Radeon 9600 256MB/ GF7600GS 256MB/ HD4670 DDR3 1GB
Onboard Realtec iirc
GA-??? (A FS OEM KT-600 board)
(Was my mothers PC which slowly passed into my hands. Was not located at my own place since I didn't have internet but she did so I kept it there for years)

Coppermine 1000MHz
Don't remember the GPU but iirc it was some GF2MX
Don't remember
Intel D815EEA (with broken floppy controller)
(Main rig for a short while. Later relegated to experimental stuff)

Athlon XP 2000+ (Palomino)
GF7600GS
Don't remember
ASUS A7V333
(Short lived when the IBM Deathstar suddenly died. I Killed the motherboard while trying to repair that system :'( )

Athlon64 3500+ (s939)
GF7600GS / Radeon 9600 (yes I later downgraded it)
Don't remember sound but probably onboard
MSI but don't remember exact motherboard model number. AGP and 2 DDR1 slots VIA chipset.

PhenomII 4x BE 3.2GHz
HD5670 1GB / HD6850 1GB
Onboard / ASUS Xonar some cheaper card
MSI 770-C45
(Lived for 10 years when it finally died)

i5 4460
GA LGA1150 board
Radeon 260X
Onboard
(Basically helped me through this whole COVID ordeal when my PhenomII died just before the 1st lockdown -_-. Lived for only 1 1/2 years because of apparent harddrive issues which I have yet to resolve).

Now using some handmedown older i7 for the time being.

These are not all rigs I ever had, but all the ones I considered my 'main rig' at the time. Multiple entries means item got swapped during its active lifetime.
I listed them this way because this was just more convenient to me (and easier for me to remember the parts I used).

edit:added some minor clarifications

I don't know how some of you guys can remember what systems did you used 20+ years ago. You should tell me your secret... what do you eat or drink? 😀 I'm just 41, and I have a difficulty to remember the system overall, not the specific parts... buy I'll give it a try because I loved reading this thread.

So...

1. Cyrix 150+ @120 MHz + 32 Mb RAM + some PCChips VXPro chipset mainboard. This was my first system I built from second hand parts...
2. some Toshiba Tecra with P233MMX. I don't know what model, but I'm sure it was a Tecra with Pentium 233 MMX - not PII 233!
3. some PII on an Abit BE6. I still have the board
4. a pimped up Pentium III @1 GHz + purple Palit Geforce4 MX440 64 Mb AGP. This was my all time favorite desktop/tower system! Still have the box of the graphics card(that's why I know the exact model 😀)
5. Compaq EVO N400C with a Pentium III @1GHz. This was my all time favorite laptop system!
6. some cheap socket754 or 939 Sempron. This was my shittiest system ever!
7. Intel Dual-Core E5200 @3GHz + Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 + 2x1 Gb ADATA @800MHz + Gainward Geforce 9500GT Silent 512Mb RAM + some 320 Gb Samsung Spinpoint HDD. Later changed the mainboard to ASUS P5Q SE PLUS(the Gigabyte board died due to a lightning strike) and added 2x1 Gb ADATA @800HMz memory modules. Still have this system running Lubuntu at my father's place, but now with a Core2 Duo E8400 on board.
8. FSC Amilo Pro V5505 Core2 Duo laptop
9. in 2012 I bought to my wife the cheapest ASUS (X54??) laptop on the market with a Celeron B815 CPU. A couple of yeas ago I upgraded the CPU to a second gen mobile core i5 + an SSD + 4Gb RAM(6Gb in total). She is still using this system, mostly only for browsing the web or playing cartoon DVDs for my daughter.
10. Core i5-3470 on some ASUS board + 8Gb RAM + 250 Gb Samsung EVO SSD. This is my "main" system running Lubuntu. I think i's been a year or so, the last time I powered it up! It's just collecting dust... because...
11. ...my daily driver is a Lenovo Thinkpad L480 with 8th gen i5.

I also have a Dell Optiplex 3040 Tiny system with a Core i5-6500. I don't know what to do with it, probably I will set up the system for my little girl, but she asked me to paint it in pink & purple combination and also buy a pink LCD... sooo... I'll probably do that!

My list going back to mid 90's, always loved overclocking and watercooling and feeling like you're getting some performance for free as long as it was 100% stable.
Still have a lot of this stuff

CPUS

Pentium 100 ( the only pre built I ever bought a Packard Bell multimedia)
Pentium 166MMX (this is when I started overclocking) @ 233,262
Celeron 300a @450/504
Pentium IIII 700 @933
Athlon Tbird 1.4 @ ?
P4 2.53 @ 3.0+? (watercooled)
Athlon 64 3200 @ ? (watercooled)
Athlon 64x2 4400 @ ? (watercooled)
Core i7 i920 @ 4.2ghz (watercooled)
Core i7 3770k @ 5.1ghz (watercooled) the longest I had as a main rig and the best, such a perfect golden sample this one.
AMD 3700X -> present (Booooo to no real overclocking) 😢

GPU's (still have about 8 of these)

Cirrus Logic onboard 4550 or something
3D Blaster pci Rendition verite
3dfx Voodoo 1
Riva TnT 16mb
Matrox G400 max 32mb
3dfx Voodoo 2 12mb
Voodoo 2 SLI
Geforce2 GTS 32mb
Geforce3 Ti500 64mb
Geforce4 Ti4400 128mb (watercooled)
ATI 9800XT 256MB (watercooled)
NVIDIA 8800GTX 768MB (watercooled)
ATI 5870 1GB (watercooled)
ATI 5870 1GB Crossfire (watercooled)
Nvidia 780Ti Classified 3gb (watercooled)
AMD 5700xt 8gb -> present

Motherboards (some might be a bit guessy, still have the last 5)

PB OEM 430FX
Abit PX5 430VX ?
Abit BX6 440BX
Asus P3bf ? i815
Abit KT7 A raid
Asus A8N Sli Premium Nforce 4 sli
Gigabyte (can't remember model, for i920, still in my sons PC with a Xeon 5670)
Asus Z77 Sabertooth (died)
Asus Maximus IV Formula Z77 (watercooled, in an overkill XP rig atm)
Asus Tuf Gaming X570 Wifi

Sound
Various Soundblasters then mostly onboard stuff from Z77 onwards
Also have a load of old Dell XPS, IBM 300GL's and Packard Bell retro systems that I've bought and restored in the last few years.

My Desktop computers were built around those components:

CPU's
Intel 486DX2 66MHz (This was not actually mine, was father's, but I used the most of it)
Intel Pentium 166MHz (no MMX)
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ T-Bred S462 (@1.8/256K)
AMD Sempron 2800+ S754 (@1.6/256K)
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ S754 (@2.2/512K)
Intel Core i3-550 (Still around and in use)
Intel Core i7-4770 (Still around, but not in use)
AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 3350G (current)

GPU's:
Trident 8900D 1 MB ISA (From 486 DX2)
Trident 9680 PCI 2 MB (From Pentium 166)
No-Branded ATi Rage PRO LT 8 MB PCI (Upgrade for Pentium 166)
XFX GeForce4 MX440 AGP8X 64 MB (From AMD Athlon XP 2200+) - Dead - Fried mainboard and GPU
GeCube ATi Radeon 9600XT 256 MB AGP 8X (Upgrade for AMD Athlon XP 2200+)
Zogis GeForce 6800XT 256 MB AGP 8X (Upgrade for AMD Sempron 2800+) - Dead - Went back to the Radeon 9600XT
XFX Radeon HD4650 AGP8X 512 MB (Upgrade for AMD Athlon 64 3200+)
Apple Radeon HD5670 512 MB (Integrated into iMac MC509BZ/A)
Integrated GPU from Intel Core i7-4770
Integrated GPU from AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 3350G

Mainboards:
PC Chips 486DX Mainboard
A-Trend ATC-1020 Socket 7 (Intel 430VX) [Dead in 2003]
ASUS A7V8X-X Socket 462 (VIA KT400A) [Dead in 2006]
Gigabyte GA-K8NS Socket 754 (NForce 3 250)
Apple iMac MC509BZ/A Mainboard
Lenovo IdeaCentre B550 Mainboard
AsRock A320M-HD (AMD A320) Socket AM4 [Current]

Sound:
SoundBlaster 16 ISA
Creative PhoneBlaster (SoundBlaster + 28.8K modem) ISA
All the rest are Integrated audio

The "main" systems were in their final configuration:
Intel 486 DX2 66MHz / PC-Chips Mainboard / 8 MB RAM / 540 MB HDD / SoundBlaster 16 / Creative 2X CD-ROM / 14.4K Modem
Intel Pentium 166 / ATC-1020 Mainboard / ATi Rage PRO LT 8 MB / 48 MB RAM EDO / 4.3 + 2.1 GB HDD / Creative PhoneBlaster / LG CD-RW Drive
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ / ASUS A7V8X-X / 512 MB RAM DDR333 / 80 GB Seagate Barracuda IDE / Radeon 9600XT 256 MB AGP
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ / Gigabyte GA-K8NS / 2 GB RAM DDR400 / 160 GB Samsung SATA HDD / Radeon HD4650 512 MB AGP
Apple iMac MC509 BZ/A / Core i3-550 / 12 GB RAM DDR3 1066 / 1 TB Hitachi HDD - Still in use
Lenovo IdeaCentre B550 / Core i7-4770 / 8 GB RAM DDR3 1333 / 256 GB Corsair SSD - Dead PSU - Can't find a replacement 🙁
AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 3350G / 16 GB RAM DDR4 3200 / 512 GB NVMe Adata SSD - Current

For me a mothership PC is not a daily driver, but a PC that has a lot of convenient functions that helps set up other retro PCs.

So for that, I don't have a strictly mothership PC, but I'm planning to set one up.
The one that currently fills the role is my XP rig.
It has a many-in-one card reader, so it's convenient to image and move data to CF cards and I added a new 250GB hard drive which is shared on my retro network with a lot of drivers and games.
Sadly no floppy drive or mobile rack bay.

My previous mothership PC is still at my parents'.
It has:
AT form factor Socket370 mainboard, I don't remember what exactly
433MHz Celeron
256MB SD RAM
Nvidia Riva TNT2 M64 (currently taken out for testing)
Ensoniq AudioPCI
~10GB Quantum Fireball hard drive
Mobil Rack Bay
Some random floppy drive
Some random CD drive
Windows 2000 Professional
Sadly no built-in CF card reader or big enough hard drive to act as a retro server.

My plans for the near future to separate server functions from the rest.
The server will probably be my current Pi-Hole thin client once I get a new one.
The mothership PC however something that has the best things from the previous two. So basically something like the XP PC, but with floppy drive and mobil rack bay. Maybe I'll just add a 3.5" card reader to the Celeron build above.

bearking wrote on 2021-11-01, 07:04:

I don't know how some of you guys can remember what systems did you used 20+ years ago. You should tell me your secret... what do you eat or drink? 😀 I'm just 41, and I have a difficulty to remember the system overall, not the specific parts...

I can remember the stuff I bought in the 90s very well. I didn't have much money, and parts were pretty expensive. Every upgrade was a struggle. Stuff I got between 2000 and present day I had to look up, because most of it is not worth remembering.