I was going through some OLD backup CDs and found a couple of pictures you guys might find interesting. This is my setup during the heyday of LAN parties, upgrade wars, the GHz rush, etc. These would be from around ~1998-1999; I was 17 or 18. I would have stitched these together from scanned film photos (hence the odd shape) and added the labels in Photoshop 3.0 which I pirated from my high school. Even back then I felt need to post pictures of my crap on forums. 😜

I still have the .psd file with layers too, so I rendered out a higher-res & sharper version just for you guys!

Some of this stuff is still around in my storage room - the two 5x86 machines got merged into one and re-housed in a small-footprint desktop case. (One of them had a PC Chips M919 which I tossed after it got super flaky and I stuck all the good hardware into the other one.) I gave the SGI Indy to a friend, along with the Tandy laptop & Mac LC. At least they went to a good home. 😀 The Zenith Ultrablack monitor eventually died and was replaced by something far less interesting. I sold the Thinkpad on Ebay (which was already well established in 1998!) after getting a much better 365ED.

(Fun fact: I bought a car on the then-brand new Ebay Motors in 2000. Everyone thought I was insane at the time.)

I used to lug that K6-2 to LAN parties all over the place in its monster tower with its plethora of salvaged SCSI drives and 16" monitor (I eventually replaced that with a 21" SGI CRT!) I don't even want to think about what that setup must have weighed; it's just how we rolled back then. I sadly tossed it out in around 2005 but I vaguely remember its motherboard being an unreliable giant turd.

I still have the Casio keyboard and probably every floppy disc in the photo, and the pink mini-CRT is sitting right here connected to my MSX.

Also of note, under the big globe: every issue of US PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World from ~1995 to whenever this pic was taken. Also some mixed other stuff like UK PCG, PC & Amiga Format, and probably some 4x4 off-roading mags knowing my young self. These were later destroyed in a basement flood and all had to be thrown away. 🙁 I do still have most of the coverdiscs.

Anyone else have some vintage photos of their gear?