Disruptor wrote on 2023-06-11, 21:42:
2) The machine is best for scrap. The only thing to preserve is the GPU - this one is really good.
But it's kind of unique. The Pentium IV had one of the highest single-core performance ratings. Records had been reached in overclocking with fluid nitrogen, even.
Some instructions are so quick on Pentium IV (2 cycle) that it broke code (loops) in older OSes and applications.
That's why later CPU generations had been made artificially slower for sake of compatibility
"Update: Intel Pentium 4 (tested on Irwindale Xeon) appears to execute the LOOP instruction in two cycles, noticeably faster than older and newer Intel CPUs.
That explains why NDIS crashed on 2.2 GHz P4s in 2001—those were the first Intels capable of executing 1,048,576 LOOP iterations in under one millisecond.
Ironically, AMD’s K7 (Athlon) also needed two cycles per LOOP iteration (according to Agner Fog’s tables), and that’s why Intel hit that particular barrier first,
since the Pentium 4 ran at significantly higher clock speed, if not higher performance."
https://www.os2museum.com/wp/those-win9x-cras … -fast-machines/
VivienM wrote on 2024-10-09, 22:28:In my view, family computers were the norm in most homes (that had computers) prior to the early 2000s when the price of new com […]
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douglar wrote on 2024-10-09, 20:43:Most new PC's had some version of Windows installed on them by 1990. Windows 3.0 was out.
Novices could get around and start Wo […]
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kolderman wrote on 2024-10-09, 18:30:
I thought family computers themselves were a 90s thing.
Most new PC's had some version of Windows installed on them by 1990. Windows 3.0 was out.
Novices could get around and start Word or Print Shop without getting dirty in DOS.
And DOS only computers often had a simple menu system set up on them to prevent the shock of C:\>_
I'm not sure family computers were that much of a thing until email, ebay, and ISP's became common place.
In my view, family computers were the norm in most homes (that had computers) prior to the early 2000s when the price of new computers plummeted.
The computer cost a lot of money, there was one, and that was that. As the kids got older, computers got cheaper,
and the Internet became more and more important, then the number of computers in a household would go up.
The only exceptions I knew back in the day were where the parents worked themselves in computers as self-employed consultant types.
In that case, they'd often keep the older computers around primarily for the kids to use for word processing and games and whatnot.
A 386 or Mac IIcx or whatever in 1995 or even 1998 was a perfectly acceptable computer to type something up in WordPerfect or MS Word 5.1
(as an aside - isn't it funny that the most legendary version of WordPerfect for DOS and MS Word for Mac are both 5.1(a)?).
I knew someone in 1999 whose younger brother had a Mac IIfx - this was a US$10,000 machine when it was new, a decade earlier
- the dad did something with computers and was a big Mac guy and so there were a whole bunch of old Macs around.
I think it was very different in other countries (North America adopted family/home computers much before, say, France),
but I remember, when I was in school in 1994, the teacher expected homework to be typed, and all the kids except three in a class of ~30 had computers at home.
Some Macs, mostly DOS or DOS/Windows.
This was pre-mainstream Internet, Canada didn't really have online services like AOL/CompuServe/etc that reached a particularly high level of popularity, etc
- the main purpose for buying these computers was homework for the kids, CD-ROM encyclopedias, maybe a Quicken-type personal finance program for the parents, etc.
The other thing I would note is that the computer industry targeted these buyers.
People too young to remember this era like to mock the Mac Performas and other similar bundles (Packard Hell and AST certainly sold a ton of these on the Wintel side,
as I'm sure did others), but that's what was being sold - a package with a computer, a mediocre 14"-15" CRT, and a software bundle - CD-ROM encyclopedia,
light version of a personal finance program, and the ubiquitous works program (MS Works, ClarisWorks, etc).
The expectation was that an inexperienced family could go down to a non-specialized store, pick up one of those bundles, take it home,
and basically everything for basic home computing was in the box. (Meanwhile, the knowledgeable people bought computers
without all this bundled stuff from specialized dealers - that's how Compaq, IBM or Apple sold their serious machines.)
As the Internet became more mainstream and as there were fewer first time computer buyers over the 90s,
those big bundles gradually got smaller and smaller and now, you basically don't get any productivity software with a new computer.
I think it really depends. Some homes were like this, some like that.. 🤷
Some had gotten their first 8-Bit home computers in the early-mid 90s, even! 😨
I'm afraid I do lack the experience to make a proper statement. 🙁
According to my dad, though, Atari STs as family PCs weren't uncommon to be found in homes of the 80s.
They had a GUI and could be used for both games and productivity applications.
The Amiga also was common among teenagers in this country, of course, but the Atari STs had more productivity software.
Universities and work places could use 640x400 resolution with the SM124 monitor, which was similar to Hercules graphics on PC.
Another popular home PC of the 80s was the PC1512/PC1640 here in Europe.
It was cheap, it was quick, it was compatible and a complete set.
Comparable to the Tandy 1000 series in over seas, maybe.
So I assume it was also used as a family PC at one point, especially since it had a GUI.
The rest of the MS-DOS world probably used Norton Commander or X-Tree Gold.
(Or PC-Tools Desktop, Norton Desktop etc.)
The plain DOS command line experience was a thing from before 1986, I think.
Many users had used file managers if they had to work with their PCs beyond running a word processor.
VivienM wrote on 2024-10-09, 22:28:
I think it was very different in other countries (North America adopted family/home computers much before, say, France),
but I remember, when I was in school in 1994, the teacher expected homework to be typed, and all the kids except three in a class of ~30 had computers at home.
Some Macs, mostly DOS or DOS/Windows.
I'm speaking under correction, but here in Germany it was quite different at the time.
Kids were pretty much expected to write homework by hand from elementary school up to the highest classes, also to improve handwriting skills.
Of course, mechanical typewriters were known for decades and weren't forbidden, but teachers saw typed homework always with skepticism.
You got this teacher's look as if you were a cheater, as if you hadn't written your homework all by yourself.
The only exception were essays, in which you wrote novel-like stories about a given topic.
That's when teachers didn't mind use of a typewriter. You were seen more as a writer than a student here - and writers use typewriters, of course.
Computers.. Computers were also seen as an enemy by teachers. They didn't understand them.
Except math class teachers and tech class teachers, of course. They were all a bit nerd by heart.
The normal German teachers, however, had a distant relationship to computers.
They didn't say "print the document with the PC", but "we must let it go out of the computer".
I'm not sure how the reactions in the 80s were, though, when kids had their C64 and needle printers, running GeoWrite.
Back then computers were always a topic, but to many teachers they were a magic black box.
Anyway, the only thing teachers liked were digital cameras, I think.
That's when modern technology was welcome.
Our presentations at school were still done the old school way up to 2010s, I think.
Power Point was known by principle, but many teachers couldn't let go of overhead projectors from the 1950s or so.
So you had to print your presentation out, give the papers to the teachers, they copied them on transparent foils
and on another day you would carry over the overhead projector from the other class room and start your presentation.
In colour, sometimes, even. Yay! And if you wanted to point on to something, you had to use your ink pen and draw on the hot foil.
Laser pointers did exist, but not for free use by students.
Math teachers and IT teachers had their own laser pointers. They loved them! ^^
Speaking under correction, though!
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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