Double post

In my country most people could not afford a computer in the early 90s. But some of us had fathers who had the opportunity to bring a computer home from work and we got to play kings quest and pacman clones. Amazing! But most got their first computers with the internet boom in the later 90s. It was the future!

Out of interest, how did you get ahold of a computer?

One cool thing about retro computers is that I can occasionally snag a computer or a piece of hardware for a tiny fraction of the original cost. I have lots of fancy gear that I never experienced as a kid.
I'm now the coolest kid in 1995.

I was not 'wealthy' in the 90s either.

2000$ in 1990 was a shitload of cash.

What I had going instead, was being 16ish, and having a summer job at a mom&pop computer repair/retail place, and not having any bills to pay.

Even on sweatshop levels of pay (which is what I got working there, along with a lot of experience working on PCs then, and exposure to a lot of fun games) it's reasonably straight forward to just save those pennies, then be very picky about what you bought with it.

I have some very fun memories of those 'wild west' late DOS PC days.

I remember very well, that Compaq Armada 1530 I got as a factory refurb.

These days every kid has a laptop or tablet at school.

I brought my own, back in the 90s. Lots of leery eyed teachers, as I recall.

I loaded it up with FusionPC and ARDI Executor, so that I could use the Mac version of Claris Works, which afterward, a decent number of teachers were somewhat approving of my lugging it around. 'Not having an excuse' for failing to turn in typed homework seemed a decent selling point.

The pentium mmx in it was barely strong enough to halfassed emulate system 7 on a fake '030 (fusionPC did not emulate the MMU, which seriously crippled the emulation for mac games anyway, but it was enough for schoolwork software.)

It had an ESS sound chip, and had native soundblaster emulation, so I could play Duke3d, Doom and pals, but it wasnt good enough for Quake, as I recall.

Joakim wrote on 2024-02-03, 17:51:

In my country most people could not afford a computer in the early 90s. But some of us had fathers who had the opportunity to bring a computer home from work and we got to play kings quest and pacman clones. Amazing! But most got their first computers with the internet boom in the later 90s. It was the future!

Out of interest, how did you get ahold of a computer?

There are some differences in my country. People started buying PCs almost from 2000, so DOS is relatively far away from most people.
I was able to collect old hardware because around 2002-2008, a large amount of computer hardware that had been eliminated from North America and Europe was shipped to our country in containers, and I happened to live in a coastal area, so there was plenty of second-hand hardware on the market. , and the price is not expensive.
Some people buy these hardware to assemble their own office and gaming computers, while only a few people (I am one of them) buy older hardware because of their collection and love.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-03, 18:03:

One cool thing about retro computers is that I can occasionally snag a computer or a piece of hardware for a tiny fraction of the original cost. I have lots of fancy gear that I never experienced as a kid.
I'm now the coolest kid in 1995.

yes！that's really cool

qdsong88@ wrote on 2024-02-03, 14:51:

these DOS games failed to arouse my interest

i guess you haven't tried the right games.
try these:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/871/fables-fie … te/screenshots/
https://www.mobygames.com/game/316/indiana-jo … creenshots/dos/

Loom is an interesting game especially if you dont like a lot of dialog.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/176/loom/

MCGA version looks nice (FM Towns version, too).
Once had the EGA version, borrowed from the local city library, if memory serves.
Playing it got me depressed for a week.. :(

Edit: No offense, the game as such is high quality content. It's just the atmosphere.
The EGA version looks more grim. Reminds me of Wallace&Gromit, which also depressed me as a child. Despite me liking the characters as such.

qdsong88@ wrote on 2024-02-04, 06:49:

I was able to collect old hardware because around 2002-2008, a large amount of computer hardware that had been eliminated from North America and Europe was shipped to our country in containers, and I happened to live in a coastal area, so there was plenty of second-hand hardware on the market. , and the price is not expensive.
Some people buy these hardware to assemble their own office and gaming computers, while only a few people (I am one of them) buy older hardware because of their collection and love.

That's interesting. I am assuming your country is not India because here, I don't recollect a market for retro PCs.Anything less than a core 2 duo is an impossible find/scarce and insanely overpriced. The pc hardware market is also extremely volatile.

In 1995 we upgraded our Apple IIe to a 468/66 I was 15
I played a few games on the Apple but I was always more interested in "traditional toys" like Lego
Maybe it was because I reached my mid teens, maybe because computer games had become more advance, who knows?

Even now with my fond memory of dos games, I spend more time playing Win9x titles. I guess around the same time we finally got decent CPU, storage and 3d Acceleration not holding back games as much as earlier dos years.

Also a late bloomer.
1993 Atari 2600 clone. Only had some boring integrated games.
1994 NES clone. Contra and Turtles mainly.
1996 Compaq Deskpro 286 with amber CGA screen. Wolfied Paganizu Jill of Jungle.
1997 IBM PC 330 486 SX33 Wolfenstein 3D was the first game i copied from a friend. Then Supaplex. Then got DooM and Warcraft 2 and rest was history.
Did not have or get into early Windows 9x gaming.
Really did not like the early 3D aesthetics.
Of cource if I got my 1999 P133 with Voodoo. I played Quake 2 and Half-Life. But this was the internet starting era with a 33kb modem. Interesting new stuff, strange flash games and jokes, porn, Napster pirated MP3 music. Hey i was 15 years old then. 😂 Then got a Celeron 333 and started the DivX pirated movies era. Millions on millions of burned CDs of pirated movies to watch and trade. Returned to gaming few years later. Return to Castle Wolfenstein with my new AMD Athlon computer. It even ran Half-Life 2 but crawled with Doom3. Well HL2 was a better game overall.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2024-02-05, 07:22:

Also a late bloomer. 1993 Atari 2600 clone. Only had some boring integrated games. 1994 NES clone. Contra and Turtles mainly. 19 […]
Show full quote

Also a late bloomer.
1993 Atari 2600 clone. Only had some boring integrated games.
1994 NES clone. Contra and Turtles mainly.
1996 Compaq Deskpro 286 with amber CGA screen. Wolfied Paganizu Jill of Jungle.
1997 IBM PC 330 486 SX33 Wolfenstein 3D was the first game i copied from a friend. Then Supaplex. Then got DooM and Warcraft 2 and rest was history.
Did not have or get into early Windows 9x gaming.
Really did not like the early 3D aesthetics.
Of cource if I got my 1999 P133 with Voodoo. I played Quake 2 and Half-Life. But this was the internet starting era with a 33kb modem. Interesting new stuff, strange flash games and jokes, porn, Napster pirated MP3 music. Hey i was 15 years old then. 😂 Then got a Celeron 333 and started the DivX pirated movies era. Millions on millions of burned CDs of pirated movies to watch and trade. Returned to gaming few years later. Return to Castle Wolfenstein with my new AMD Athlon computer. It even ran Half-Life 2 but crawled with Doom3. Well HL2 was a better game overall.

What a similar experience! Only, I skipped 286,386 and started with P133. Happiness comes from empathy！

stealthjoe wrote on 2024-02-05, 00:43:

qdsong88@ wrote on 2024-02-04, 06:49:

I was able to collect old hardware because around 2002-2008, a large amount of computer hardware that had been eliminated from North America and Europe was shipped to our country in containers, and I happened to live in a coastal area, so there was plenty of second-hand hardware on the market. , and the price is not expensive.
Some people buy these hardware to assemble their own office and gaming computers, while only a few people (I am one of them) buy older hardware because of their collection and love.

That's interesting. I am assuming your country is not India because here, I don't recollect a market for retro PCs.Anything less than a core 2 duo is an impossible find/scarce and insanely overpriced. The pc hardware market is also extremely volatile.

Not in India. The years I played with the old hardware are very impressive and full of memories. But later, due to policy (such as environmental protection) and other reasons, the country no longer accepts obsolete hardware. And after about 2006, as computers became more common, old hardware became less valuable and less interesting

I had some decent computers back in the 90s. My dad would buy them . I think one was second hand he got pretty cheap and it had a lot of games on it already. So I was able t play Doom, Quarantine, and a bunch of other DOS games, then there was a computer game rental store near by and my dad took me a few times and I rented Robocop, Batman returns and Ultrabots. I wish we kept those computers, but mom gave them away along with a very nice Apple II e which I loved.

Over recent years I have found some retro computers to satisfy my nostagia along with hundreds of games (I had a somewhat small PC game collection and noticed some of my games were missing. So I went looking to re-purcahse them. Leisure suit larry 7, Mario is missing, Out of this world, X-wing. ) So I managedto get them all back and then I started buying more .......)

Anyway I love using actual proper hardware to game . I love playing my old games. Some of which I never fininished or even started. I was able to finally finish Doom as before, I only ever played the shareware . Same with Quake. I only ever played the shareware in software rendering. Now I have beaten the game with 3dfx.

I still need to finish Doom 2 after I complete Sigil 1 and 2.

Retro gaming to me is more fun than modern gaming. Though I still enjoy that but not as much anymore.
I was lucky that my dad was into computers , mostly for work, but he didnt mind me gaming . He used to take me to the flea market to check out the latest computers and games there.

I always check thrift store for computers and parts, and I find a good amount. I mainly just keep about 4 computers at all times, and the others I fix up and then sell. I have a 486 DX 2 - 66 , a Pentium 1 233 MMX, a pentium 3 800, and a pentium 4 3.4ghz machine .

I currently have another P4 with lesser specs , and a P2 i need a PSU for it to get it running and then as i dont really need a P2 , ill sell it.
Also i'm lucky that while my wife isnt a gamer in any way , she doesnt mind my hobby at all.

Law212 wrote on 2024-02-05, 15:03:

I had some decent computers back in the 90s. My dad would buy them . I think one was second hand he got pretty cheap and it had […]
Show full quote

I had some decent computers back in the 90s. My dad would buy them . I think one was second hand he got pretty cheap and it had a lot of games on it already. So I was able t play Doom, Quarantine, and a bunch of other DOS games, then there was a computer game rental store near by and my dad took me a few times and I rented Robocop, Batman returns and Ultrabots. I wish we kept those computers, but mom gave them away along with a very nice Apple II e which I loved.

Over recent years I have found some retro computers to satisfy my nostagia along with hundreds of games (I had a somewhat small PC game collection and noticed some of my games were missing. So I went looking to re-purcahse them. Leisure suit larry 7, Mario is missing, Out of this world, X-wing. ) So I managedto get them all back and then I started buying more .......)

Anyway I love using actual proper hardware to game . I love playing my old games. Some of which I never fininished or even started. I was able to finally finish Doom as before, I only ever played the shareware . Same with Quake. I only ever played the shareware in software rendering. Now I have beaten the game with 3dfx.

I still need to finish Doom 2 after I complete Sigil 1 and 2.

Retro gaming to me is more fun than modern gaming. Though I still enjoy that but not as much anymore.
I was lucky that my dad was into computers , mostly for work, but he didnt mind me gaming . He used to take me to the flea market to check out the latest computers and games there.

I always check thrift store for computers and parts, and I find a good amount. I mainly just keep about 4 computers at all times, and the others I fix up and then sell. I have a 486 DX 2 - 66 , a Pentium 1 233 MMX, a pentium 3 800, and a pentium 4 3.4ghz machine .

I currently have another P4 with lesser specs , and a P2 i need a PSU for it to get it running and then as i dont really need a P2 , ill sell it.
Also i'm lucky that while my wife isnt a gamer in any way , she doesnt mind my hobby at all.

You have a good father and a good wife. How lucky you are!
My dad?In the 1990s, he didn't even know what a computer was.But I can’t blame him, because all the fathers of my friends don’t know 😄

My dad snagged me some oddball Wyse 286 and 386 systems, after the police department/city he worked for underwent an equipment upgrade.

Got a few old MFM seagate ST-250s, some EGA cards, an interesting no-name memory card with 72pin simm slots on it, and pals out of the deal.

Nearly all of them were banged up and not very serviceable, but I was able to conjure 2 working 286s and one working 386 out of the deal.

I'd say this was around 1995? I had no use for 286s at the time, and my 'newly married' sister wanted a computer, but had a budget of 0$, so she got the 386 with EGA. I offloaded the 286s at the mom&pop I worked at for a few bucks.

Kinda wish I had kept them.

I spent some years in Indonesia in the 80s and understand your comment that in most of Asia around that time computers were quite the luxury item. There was still a market for them though - and that was supported by cheaper hardware clones and pirated software. My parents would take us to an old multi-storey mart to buy food, handicrafts and cassette tapes - but my favourite shops were the ones selling pirated software fairly cheaply, so I never had a legitimate copy of anything until 1991 when I entered the PC world with a 386SX with legitimate Windows and Office. Didn’t upgrade my computer again until 1998 though, to a PII 300, but we did have other computers at home by then.

Mind you, I also recall that when I came to Australia in the late 80s not everyone seemed to have a computer here either - maybe many of the older generation saw them as a waste of time so didn’t buy them for the home, and lots of kids were more into sports than computer games e.g. we played tons of cricket and football in the street as a kid but in my home area that just doesn’t happen any more. According to this study - https://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_ … /805968/744.pdf - it was around 10-15% of houses with computers in the late 80s, and still only about 50% of Australian households had a computer by 1998.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-02-03, 18:03:

One cool thing about retro computers is that I can occasionally snag a computer or a piece of hardware for a tiny fraction of the original cost. I have lots of fancy gear that I never experienced as a kid.
I'm now the coolest kid in 1995.

That's why I collect. While from a wealthier country, we were not particularly wealthy so we had a Compaq Pressario 486DX with 16MB RAM and 500MB storage for longer than was reasonable. We only had it anyway because we didn't go on vacation too.

Now that I am in the top 10% of incomes I can afford to waste some money and time on being the coolest kid in 1998.