Shagittarius wrote on 2026-02-01, 23:23:

My first ATX machine was a P200 MMX probably sometime in '96. Until then I'd never dealt with soft-power and it took me an evening of reading the manual at a bar to figure out that the fact that I hadn't connected the powerswitch to the MB was the reason I couldn't get my new machine to boot. I was 21 at that time.

Mine was assembled for me, and it was the first time I bought a PC magazine. I didn't touch motherboard power connectors until I replaced the i430TX/MMX with a VIA/K6-2, and I don't know much of any of those parts now work because they have been in storage for decades.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2026-02-01, 23:29:

Were you not in this school lab, and actually used these PCs to know what kind of PC this was, or in retrospect, realize what PC […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on 2026-02-01, 22:59:

School PC might not have a HDD at all.

Were you not in this school lab, and actually used these PCs to know what kind of PC this was, or in retrospect, realize what PCs were in this school lab you are imagining?

Library PC might automatically load a searchable catalogue.

Did you use this library PC, and know how they worked, or in retrospect, realize what these "PCs" really were doing to make a searchable catalog possible?

Home PC is owned by an angry dad who knows every hiding place.

So certainly you learned to do this from experience when your Dad caught you using the computer, but then now he could not catch you using a floppy?

The one thing those PCs all had in common is a FDD and power switch!

Uh huh.

It was very mechanical. We could eject and escape even if the angry dad switched power off at the fuse box, which actually happened once!

So he did catch you, but did not catch you? I mean, what does using a floppy matter at this point since he was on the prowl to mess with you anyway? Kind of makes as much sense as LCDs were viable and inexpensive, everyone else denies it because they are gamers.

I am not sure about you, but I was a kid for more than one year, and I was clearly referencing memories from across various years. I've also indicated my family did not own an IBM compatible, and I've referred to other families (yes, other angry dads).

One angry dad powered off the machines at the fuse box. One never caught us. One was my dad, but he didn't have IBM-compatible. One wasn't angry, and instead took his kid to the shops to buy a cheap Commodore so that we wouldn't touch his work PC.

Again, I don't know about you, but I attended several different schools and they each had different computers: Some had BBC Acorns, some had early IBMs, one had a Commodore. The last school I attended may have had some Pentiums, but I seem to remember "turbo" buttons too. Now that I think of it, a pattern seems to be that school libraries always had newer tech than teaching rooms.

The school I was mostly thinking of had only genuine IBMs. The computer teaching room had a mix of IBM XTs and some newer PS/2s. Many of the XTs had two 5.25" drives, which I think means no HDD. Some XTs had only one FDD, but that doesn't mean they had a HDD. The teacher apologised for how old they were. The IBM PS2/s were arranged in the middle of room with backs faced to the teacher, but there's another mundane reason why I used an XT: On the first day of class we were each issued exactly one disk, and mine was a 5.25", so the teacher knew any of my school work was on an XT.

And no, I can't remember that teacher's name.

The very last computer I was taught computing on was a PowerMac G5 and that was in the postgraduate building of a UK university. It's hardly worth comparing an XT to a G5. Anything newer (or older) has been in a work setting.