Doing some math i paid at the time roughly 400€ for 2 sticks of 256MB. I remember that those modules were so expensive that we only had like 10 in stock. Young and with money to spend. I bought my Voodoo3 the day we received it in store and didn't even blink.

Early 1999 we assembled pII350 for use in the classroom training for mcp mcse, had novell 3.12 or something and win98.

Mid 1999 I used my moms pc she was paying for on every paycheck. it was a Dell dimension pII 400, 64mb sdram?, 9gb hdd, Ati graphics, Toshiba DVD, speakers, sub woofer,xerox printer. I put a Trust Voodo2 Dragon 12 mb sli card in it but that card was total utter fkin crap. My mom was laid off and had to return the system. I bought an external HP CD writer LPT 7 print port interface and burnt CD-roms with data that i had to wipe from the hdd before returning it.

Dec 13 1999 i borrowed money from my mom and bought a 700£ system built off hours in the backroom of a pc-store from a classmate. No name tower beige(still using it) Intel440bx, p3 450, 128mb sdram, 13gb hdd, Riva TNT2 Ultra 32mb, Nec cdrom, SB pci, borrowed more 150£ from mom to buy a crt 17" siemens. I thought i bought it cheap but since p3 500 and p3 550 was around it wasnt a good buy.

2002 bought an adaptercard "T-slot" could use 1300 celeron on same motherboard. Lightning took the first intel440bx and I bought a used Tekram P6 bx-an. it had the same slots buses.

2005 finally bought oem win xp pro sp1 with new hardware, external usb drive 250gb failed in 2009?

2007 bought new motherboard Asrock 4coredual-VSTA p4 3.0ghz, 2x1gb ddr2ram, still in same tower case from 1999.

2013 same system still. got 5 different sized hdd on ide, sata and a pci-card with extra ide slots.intermittent upgrades of grapics card and burners as they dropped in price.

First 13gb drive C:\ failed, in 2003? lost some fine porn 🙁 second C:\ drive fail was in 2008? i use norton ghost to backup so if C:\ fails swap drive or buy blank and put image on, i hate reinstalling windows. In 2006 i installed Os, antivirus, games, players, drivers, updates, 3-4 hours every day after work for 4 days and on the weekend and next week still finding software missing i had installed before hdd failure. After that i started using norton symantec ghost. I have had drive up 15-20 minutes after mechanical failure and/or crippling malware/virus infestations. And or bad driver updates proven irreversible with uninstalls. Saved like a month in frustrating hours re-installing.

I believe that was a upgrade year for me.

IIRC I sold and used money from this to pay for newer rig

Smaller AT case
FIC 503+
K6-2 3DNow! 450MHz
Monster 3DFX Voodoo Banshee 16MB
5.1GB? WD HDD with bad sectors
SB-16 ISA (sigh)

I remember the system specs afterwards

Celeron S370 366@550MHz
Abit BE6-II w/ HighPoint 366
96MB SDram
Monster Viper 770 32MB non-ultra
Soundblaster 128
Forget the HDD maybe 20GB 7200?

Motherboard went out rather quickly and another board did not fix issue. After that messed with a MSI K7 Pro and Athlon 750Mhz for a short time till caps went out. Just before going into college (2001) I went to a computer expo and picked up a ASUS Tusl2-C and a Taulatin 1GHz setup.

I was a newly wed, and was still paying some debts, so had a decent but quite old setup. As far as I can remember:

- Asus P5AB with Intel 166 MMX, 64Mgs of RAM and PS/2+USB headers that I had absolutely no use for
- Asus V3400TNT/TV AGP 16MB (had so much fun with nagravsion and moreTV.. 🤣)
- Sound Blaster AWE 64 value
- Modem Blaster 33.6 PNP
- Surecom 10mb PCI NIC
- 3.5 and 5.25 floppy drives
- Phillips 4x CDR and a Lite-On(?) 32x(?) CDROM drive
- Quantum 5GB(?) HDD
- Noname, but not-so-crappy AT midi tower
- ADI 15" color monitor
- Lovely Focus 2001 keyboard (how much I miss them...🙁)
- A4tech serial mouse
- Quickshot 5 joystick
- Quickshot Soundorce 600 speakers (still actively using them)

Wow! 1999 was the year I was finally upgrading my five year old Pentium 75 MHz. (with the FDIV bug!) and I had a pretty fine rig indeed! My setup, however, came mostly from the second hand hardware a friend of mine would sell me after being constantly upgrading. This was back when computer stores started to be a usual sight here in Spain and my friend took a job in one of the most famous store chains back then (Jump).

- Unknown motherboard with VIA MVP3 chipset
- AMD K6-2 350 MHz. CPU
- 128 MB of RAM
- Sound Blaster Live! I obtained second hand
- ATI Rage 4 MB AGP VGA card
- Guillemot Maxi Gamer 3D Voodoo 1 add-on card (later on a Voodoo2 card 8 MB card!)
- 2X Creative Encore CD-ROM (from an old SB16 bundle)
- Sound Blaster 16 ISA (from a bundle, it was a royal pain in the ass to configure this computer with two SB cards)
- 4 GB + 2 GB hard disk

it was seriously bad in 1999,
some 133MHz Pentium with a Trident 1MB card...
in early 2000 I upgraded to a p3 600 coppermine, what a nice jump.

but still, as slow as that p133 was, I could play most games I wanted...

I personally didn't own a computer until 2001 but I utilized my grandparent's machine which was an eMachines eTower 366id. The specs of it were:
32 MB SyncDRAM
366 MHZ Intel Celeron processor
4.3 GB HDD
5x DVD-Rom Drive (Comes useful for some older games that came on a compilation DVD such as Postal X)
4 MB ATI 3D Rage Pro video card
Windows 98 First Edition
Crystal Fusion sound card (Can't give specifics since I forgot them)

At the time it was a semi-decent rig though it is not great for gaming, the HP Pavilion xt953 machine I got 2 years later was much better but still behind since it had an 11 MB Intel i810 video card that had troubles on games such as Kingpin: The Life of Crime and Half-Life. I plan on converting that eMachines computer to be a DOS machine for those games that just act weird for me in DOSBox such as The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, Terminator Future Shock and SkyNET in 640x480 mode (Lags terribly on my current machine in that mode) and Blood so I can play it at a much smoother framerate (Runs fine on DOSBox but still has its moments of bizarre skips).

I can't remember that far back because I've had so many since then. 🤣

Pentium 133 MMX with 32Mb RAM, 2Gb HDD, Creative SB32, S3 Virge VX, and Samsung 15Gle.

Pretty sure this was my config in '99:

Asus P2L97 motherboard (Intel 440LX chipset)
Intel Pentium II 333 MHz (later upgraded to Intel Celeron 766 Mhz via Coppermine-adapting "slotket" adapter.)
128 MB or 384 MB PC-66 RAM (Don't remember precisely when I bought that insanely expensive 256 MB DIMM.)
Asus PC-200 SCSI card
Seagate Cheetah 10K 9 GB hard drive (don't remember precise version, but it was the full 1.6" tall monster.)
SCSI internal ZIP drive
Plextor SCSI CD burner - don't remember precise model.
ATI All-In-Wonder 128 Pro AGP.
Random generic mid-tower ATX case.
*MIGHT* have still been using my ISA Sound Blaster AWE32, or might have switched to the onboard audio, I don't know now. I know the AWE32 died before I upgraded the motherboard in early 2000 to an Apollo Pro 133A board, but I don't recall exactly when.
Viewsonic 17" CRT

When I was toddler, I had Goldstar 386 system which formerly used in my mom office (one of the first computer usage in my mom office and one of very first computer I had at home), it using Windows 3.1 (I think). And I don't know what is specification because I am toddler then 🤣 😁

In 1999 I was using a Dell PII 450mhz that I bought brand new in late 1998. I used that PC up until mid to late 2000 when I moved to a PIII 850 Mhz.

Dell XPS R450
Intel PII 450Mhz
128MB RAM
DVD and Decoder board
CD-RW
100MB ZIP
17" CRT
HP Printer and Scanner
Paid I think about 2500-2800 for it.

home built:

Intel Pentium III 600MHz slot 1 CPU
MSI 6163 Pro 440BX ATX Mainboard
128MB PC100 SDRAM
IBM 7200RPM UDMA HDD
Pioneer DVD-ROM Drive
3.5" 1.44MB FDD
Matrox Millennium G200 8MB AGP
SLI Canopus Pure 3D II 12MB PCI
Sound Blaster Live!
Vasco ATX Full Tower Case (overkill)
19" Sony Trinitron CRT Monitor
Altec Lansing ACS500 Pro-Logic 2.1 Speaker System
Windows 98

Ran games like Half-Life and Unreal 1 really well. Only parts I have left are the CPU and the storage drives all still working. All other parts were sold. I used the monitor for years until I got my first LCD then I gave it to my brother, wish I hadn't. The speakers went wrong last year tried to fix them but wasn't able to and dumped them. 🙁

I know this is an old thread but thought I'd add my system. I was in college and still living at home at this time so had extra cash.

I think I had the following, if I recall correctly:

BX motherboad with Celeron 300A
256 or 512mb RAM
10GB HD
CD-RW
Voodoo 3 PCI
Diamond Shotgun dual 56k modem (wish I still had this, if only for the sake of it being such and oddball device)
SB AWE 32

Memory is a bit fuzzy so specs may be slightly off. But pretty sure on the CPU, graphics and modem.

A second hand Tandy 1000 SX from my sister who had moved a few cities away with her new husband. I was 16...

1986 Tandy 1000 SX
CPU: 8088-2 @6 MHz (downclockable to 4.77 via key combo during POST)
RAM: 640K at that point, I'd bought a memory upgrade for $40.00 from 384K using Radio Shack's outdated PAPER in-store catalogs!
FDD: 360K 5.25" TEAC X2
GFX: TGA
SND: 3-Voice Tandy
OS: MS-DOS 3.31 for The Tandy 1000 SX

Software
Deskmate II
Professional Write
GWBASIC

GAMES
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Bugs
Tetris
Legacy of the Ancients
Microsoft Adventure
Burger Blaster

I remember spending an entire week of 9th grade in bed sick as fuck with Chicken Pox playing Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny, Burger Blaster, and Legacy of the Ancients on that thing when I was not asleep or studying. I wish I'd kept it, was was a very nice, clean setup with it's original Tandy CM-5 Color Monitor and Tandy DMP-12 Dot Matrix Printer. It would have been an EXCELLENT Retro Setup.....but damn the Programmable Interrupt Timer just had to go out on it in 2000 (ERROR I/O OF 8253).

I sold my old system and built a new one. I don't remember the details but it was roughly:

Asus Slot 1 motherboard
Intel Pentium II 300 MHz
RAM (don't know how much)
IDE HDD (don't know how much)
Some ATI AGP card work@play I believe

I had a Voodoo 2 already so that went into this machine.

The machine as so fast (I upgraded from a P 133).

I too was in college during that period residing in hostel. I didn't have any PC at that time. But one of the well to-do friends had a P2 or P3 (don't remember the specs) in which he used to play Caesar III, AoE, Half Life etc. and we used to watch all night. Occasionally we used to get some timeslice as there was so much demand(we are from the third world you know). My father bought me an obscure local brand PC for my final year project in 2001(P3 850MHz, ECS P6STP-FL, 64 MB RAM, Win98, 20GB HDD). I made good use of it for AoE all-nighter.
Edit: Oh nostalgia, what a Golden period. How could I forget to mention the Two player marathons of NFS2:SE?

In 99 I was playing a lot of PlayStation games 😎

I'd gone off PC games a bit and my machine was out of date, but with some cool parts.

Orchid Righteous 3D 😎
Soundblaster AWE 32 😎
FIC PA-2007
IBM 6x86 233 😒
CD Burner
LS-120 Drive

The following year I got back into PC hardware and had a maxed out Super 7 system, still on a budget:

FIC VA-503+
Voodoo3
AWE64 Gold
K6-3+ 450@500
Promise Ultra100 w/FastTrack BIOS
2xIBM 60GXP in Raid 0

Celeron 266 😵 ---> upgraded to Athlon T-bird (700 @~800MHz IIRC) in 2000
ASUS P2L-B ------------> Abit KT7-RAID (never used the RAID feature actually)
64MB SDRAM ----------> 128MB SDRAM
3D Blaster Banshee AGP (already an upgrade in 1998 from a... SiS 6326 !!!)
Yamaha ISA soundcard
Altec Lansing ACS-90
15" CRT

...that's what i can remember. Upgraded HDD to Maxtor DiamondMax D740X 40GB (2001?), graphics to Radeon 8500LE and sound to SB Audigy OEM (2002). P4 Northwood 2.4C, Chaintech 865PE, 256MB DDR Corsair XMS in 2003, with Avance B-301 ATX server case + 400W ATX PSU, Samsung 955DF 19" CRT, and Altec Lansing MX5021 speakers & subwoofer. Yeah!

1999 was upgrade year for me.

Old system: Pentium-133, 32 Mb ram, S3 Virge, Sound Blaster 32
New system: P3-450, 128 Mb ram, Riva TNT2 Pro, SB Live!