Fall 1994

November 1994

November 1994

June 1997

June 1997

June 1997

pbuser wrote:

Do you have any other ads featuring Packard Bell computers ?

Maybe, Packard Bell wasn't a frequent advertiser in Dutch pc magazines, if I have others they most likely come from leaflets.

Nvm1 wrote:

Nice post/ads, good to see the setups from those years and the sometimes odd way of advertising.
Also a lot of brands/names that are now gone forever 🤣

I like these 90's ads, especially the ones with females promoting boring beige boxes 😊

Yes most brands are long gone and almost all retailers are gone too.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

I don't know why today's youth complain so much about the prices of computers today. I think computer prices today are a bargain.

Yes and no. You can still build a € 3000 pc if you want to, but you can also buy a cheap € 500 pc.

you can build a very capable gaming PC for around $1000 USD, even less.

It's been 25 years and yet the sight of some of those desktop PCs makes my heart flutter! As a young teenager, I used to look at these pictures, knowing I'd never get a PC like that (my father insisted on getting overpriced IBM PCs that were always a year behind on specs - on the up side, they all survived perfectly and are excellent machines for retro gaming!).

I saved all my old PC games magazines - I own every single PC Gamer issue from issue 0 (yes, a test issue which I got from one of the staff since he knew I was a huge fan - it contains an unreleased interview with Terry Pratchett) all the way to issue 130 where I couldn't afford the subscription anymore (I finished college and was unemployed for two years). It's really a trip back in the past to read them - it makes me recall the excitement of seeing games that pushed the boundaries of what was possible at the time.

Also Google Books has a ton of infoworld magazines

Thanks for scanning and sharing.
Here is one I just scanned myself from Hoog Spel no.29 August 1994.

Challenge: Find an ad that has a Cyrix Cx5x86 for sale.
Even the book series "Upgrading and Repairing PC's" seems unware of its existence.

I have many french mags from the mid-nineties up to 2000, but I kinda wish I kept the older edition of the Surcouf store paper catalogues, which were about 100-150 pages long...

Some ads from end of 1994/early 1995:

gerwin wrote:

Challenge: Find an ad that has a Cyrix Cx5x86 for sale.
Even the book series "Upgrading and Repairing PC's" seems unware of its existence.

Not trolling here, but what’s so special about that CPU apart from that it seems to be rare?

One of the last Dutch pc hardware retailers, MyCom, filed for bankruptcy earlier this week: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/148390/mycom-vraa … sement-aan.html

Who will be next?

The whole race to the bottom only leads to misery and monopolies..

SpectriaForce wrote:

Not trolling here, but what’s so special about that CPU apart from that it seems to be rare?

I did not say it was special. Though I do think it is the most practical socket 3 CPU. Since it can switch between 33/66/100 MHz by software or a case switch without reboot.
But regardless of that; I did read about AMD 5x86s and wondered what a Cx5x86 would have cost instead.

SpectriaForce wrote:

One of the last Dutch pc hardware retailers, MyCom, filed for bankruptcy earlier this week: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/148390/mycom-vraa … sement-aan.html
Who will be next?
The whole race to the bottom only leads to misery and monopolies..

Sorry to hear that...
People that placed orders and payed in advance will get nothing now.

gerwin wrote:

I did not say it was special. Though I do think it is the most practical socket 3 CPU. Since it can switch between 33/66/100 MHz by software or a case switch without reboot.
But regardless of that; I did read about AMD 5x86s and wondered what a Cx5x86 would have cost instead.

I didn’t know that. I have very little knowledge about non Intel and non AMD CPU’s and I am not that deeply invested in DOS (gaming).

gerwin wrote:

Sorry to hear that...
People that placed orders and payed in advance will get nothing now.

Probably, they are the last ones in the row of debtors.

One of the reasons why so many smaller retailers go bankrupt is that most people focus so much on the prices, they compare prices online and buy at the cheapest retailer. That will probably be some big name (e.g. Amazon) or some ebay seller who can’t do math.

I remember the large MyCom stands from the HCC dagen. If only I could step into a time machine and visit one more time a pc fair 😀 I would rob a bank and buy everything that’s now considered retro and save it from e-waste 😊

SpectriaForce wrote:

One of the reasons why so many smaller retailers go bankrupt is that most people focus so much on the prices, they compare prices online and buy at the cheapest retailer. That will probably be some big name (e.g. Amazon) or some ebay seller who can’t do math.

I remember the large MyCom stands from the HCC dagen. If only I could step into a time machine and visit one more time a pc fair 😀 I would rob a bank and buy everything that’s now considered retro and save it from e-waste 😊

Yeah that is the way of the world. Sometimes they even admit it: Amazon being a serial monopolist, Large SSD manufacturers stating they are gonna drop prices to outcompete the smaller producers. I am also kinda bored with this Intel/AMD/ARM non-competition.
In the 90s it was more interesting, though I am positive that there will always be sufficient remnants of that time for hobbyists to tinker with.

I've got a few scanned ads from that time period. Just individual ads though, no full-page spreads. I'll go from oldest to newest.

This modem ad actually wasn't scanned by me, it was sent to me by a friend back in 2002. Age unknown, I'd guess around ~1988 or so.

Again, not scanned by me, but instead sent to me by a friend several years ago. From 1989.

No picture of the laptop itself unfortunately, just a list of specs. The only reason I scanned this ad was because of the typo, and my at-the-time comical reaction of "800GB hard drives will never happen!" Again, age unknown, but I'd guess 1995.

I scanned this "Zero Footprint PC" ad because I thought it was a cool system and wanted one so bad back then (hell, I STILL want one). From 1998 according to the copyright date.