Hi guys. I found this forum a week or so ago, which is weird since I've been on a hardcore retro PC fix for the past few months. I considered myself a retro 'guru', until I came here, that is. You guys are on a whole different level. I feel humbled! Anyways, here's a bit of my computing history.

The family got our first computer second hand back in 1993 or so. It was an Amstrad PC1512, bone stock. I was 12 at the time. I remember fiddling with stuff for a few days until I got Bad Street Brawler loaded up for the first time. It was awesome! The next year I started taking computer classes at school. They were all Mac's, but they had a direct link to the University, so it was my first exposure to the internet. That was pretty cool. In 9th grade I got my first real job, and I used most of my money for computer goodies. I bought a 128k ram card, a single density 3.5" drive, and a 20 meg hard drive for my Amstrad, and I thought I was a pimp. A whole 640k of ram, are you kidding me?!

That winter (95-96) I saved up and bought a Tandy 2500 SX/33 from a local Sheriff. Unfortunately, I also needed a monitor, so I put one on layaway at Radio Shack. By the spring I got finally got it, and while it was quite a bit more powerful, it didn't really feel like that big an upgrade. That was until I bought a sound blaster and a 2x CDROM for it. Wow, Blake Stone, Cyberia, Doom, with sound? That computer is what really got the party started. I only had 2mb of ram for it and couldn't run too much at first (namely Doom), but I did a two day internship at a local software firm, and one of the guys there GAVE me two 1mb 30 pin simms...

Shortly thereafter computers totally consumed my life. I bought an Acer 486 DX/2 50 (oc'd to 66) from that same computer friend if mine. That's when I could play even COOLER games, like Command and Conquer and Duke Nukem 3D. Something still felt missing though, and I wanted to get my hands dirty. Wait, they have a computer store at the mall, and they sell PARTS? So I can BUILD my OWN computer?! So there I go, my first computer build. I was a 16 year old on a budget, so I had to go cheap. I got a Jetway VXC mobo along with a Cyrix 6x86L 150+ (120mhz). I OC'd it to 133mhz (166+ I think) and even though it had a crappy FPU compared to a Pentium, it was light years faster than my 486. Destruction Derby, which was fairly choppy on the 486 ran smooth as butter on the Cyrix. Later I saw a 3DFX VOODOO card and HAD to get it.

I kept that system for a bit, until I fried my mobo experimenting with overclocking. Apparently Jetway put the clear CMOS jumper right next to the 3 pairs of pins which selected the bus speed. Closing the jumper and turning the power on fried my motherboard. Damn! Another friend of mine had a Jetway VXD motherboard lying around, with the caveat that the CMOS battery socket didn't work. I figured I'd upgrade the processor as well, so I went ahead and got the best value for the money at the time, a K6-233, to this day my favorite processor.

During this I had upgraded to Voodoo2 and played MW2:Mercs all the time. I had that AMD system jacked way up. At first I ran it at 75mhz bus speed, but at 225mhz to get the overall system running fast. I decided to gamble and found out that it had the hidden 83 mhz bus speed, and so I ran her up to 250mhz. Although it wasn't the fastest system at the time, I was definitely the quickest; I would ALWAYS be first to drop into a game, even against people running new dual PII's. I'm sure their frame rates were better, but none were as nimble.

The highlight of my adolescent computing experiences was when I worked for Second City Computers in Chicago for the summer of 98. This was at the height of the Socket 7 era, so this is what I remember the most. Unfortunately after that, I had several family upheavals and had to get rid of most of my stuff, and I got out of the computer scene for the most part.

Now that I'm financially stable I've been slowly working to get some computers together for some nostalgic computer gaming. There's nothing like doing it on original hardware, as troublesome as it is. This forum looks like it's a big help for people like me.

This has been VERY long winded; but before I go I figured I'll give everyone a rundown on my current and planned retro PC's:
Sony Viao, P166, 2.1gb hd, 128mb ram, Voodoo1
K6-2+ 550, 384mb ram, 40gb hd, dual mismatched Voodoo2's

I also have a line on a 486 class machine from a guy at work, and I have a NEW Evergreen 133 upgrade chip coming in the mail. I got it from Amazon and I think the guy has one left. It was just over $20 after shipping! I've also been keeping an eye out for another Tandy 2500 SX. I probably wouldn't use it too much if I get a 486 machine, but I think it'd be cool having the machine that got me going.

Ok, I'm finally done! Thanks, and I look forward to participating.

Digitaldrifter