An early version IBM PS/2 55SX 386SX-16 with 4MB memory and a 60MB HDD from mid 1989.

I traded 1000 golf balls recoved from water hazards at nearby courses for the computer complete with IBM VGA monitor, model M keyboard and a mouse. This must have been 1992 as the one I traded with, a friends father was a goverment employee and the policy back then was to replace computers within 3 years to avoid failures and expensive support and service deals.

Later I upgraded first to an almost new Olivetti 486SX-33 early 1994 that I sold less then a year later to build my first custom build late 1994. I figured it was a better deal to sell the Olivetti and build a DX/2-66 more or less from scratch then to just buy a DX/2-66 CPU. Just when I was going to buy the parts AMD released the DX/2-80 so I bought that one along with an Asus PVI-486SP3 motherboard, a Sounblaster Pro 2.0 and 4MB memory. I did keep 4MB 72pin memory, a VLB Cirrus Logic 5428 video card and a 210MB HDD from the Olivetti and sold that computer with an 80MB HDD, 4MB 30pin memory and an ISA video card from a non working 386 DX25 I butchered to get a case for the DX/2 build. I still think I actually made a profit.

During 1995 I did build a few Pentium systems, this is when I started to make money helping local people and small companies with custom computer builds and other computer related stuff. I didn't really replace my Asus 486 system until late winter / early spring 1996 when I did an all new Cyrix 686-166+ build for my self. The Asus PVI-486SP3 system lived on a as a secondary system.

Predator99 wrote:

Do you still have this monitor? I own the full documentation incl. circuit diagrams, let me know if you need it.

No, that was 25 years ago (I suddenly feel old). I don't remember what happened to that monitor, other than I replaced it with an NEC multisync (bought for $40 back then, which back then was a steal because they didn't realise it could do VGA with an adapter cable).

I can't say that this is very retro, but I once owned a fairly weak computer when I was a kid. My memory is fairly bad, but I do remember being barely able to run Battle for Middle Earth II and that it would probably be a great late 90's retro gaming machine if I still had it. After that, I got a small Acer Aspire desktop (I'm pretty sure it was an X1200). That one still wasn't very strong with a GT 220 and it probably wouldn't make a good mid 2000's gaming rig in it's current state (ruined case and cannibalized for parts), but it ran Portal and all the Bethesda games out at the time, and that was fine with me.

My first own (as in nobody else used that but me) PC was something like this:

- Pentium 4 2 GHz;
- 512 MB RAM;
- some Asus motherboard;
- GeForce 4 Ti4200;
- 120GB WD HDD.

It came in the InWin S506 case:

That was in 2003, I think, so it was a really beast of a machine. I also got a Logitech cordless keyboard/mouse combo and a NEC 17" LCD screen (both really cool for the time). Before that I only used to play on my father's 486DX2 laptop and my aunt's Pentium 2. So yeah, I loved that Pentium 4 machine dearly. Played a lot of Morrowind with a silly amount of mods, a bunch of X2: The Threat, a lot of KOTOR 1/2 and so on.

My first own (as in bought with my own money) PC was a crappy Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop in 2007, ha-ha. Integrated graphics = no games at all. During most of my college years I used to rent small rooms that didn't have any space for a table/desktop PC, and I really needed the mobility. Went through several laptops and it was actually only 4 years ago that I could afford myself a proper gaming PC.

jheronimus wrote:

My first own (as in bought with my own money) PC was a crappy Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop in 2007, ha-ha. Integrated graphics = no games at all. ...

Also available at the time was the Inspiron 1420, a little bit smaller but with a discrete graphics option unlike the 1525. It was the GeForce 8400M, however, so perhaps you had dodged a bullet after all.