Hicham Maged's blog Inquisitive curiosity paves knowledge path

PC Old Days are coming back again

Assalam Alaikum wa rahmat Allah.
Peace be upon you dear visitor.

It’s all coming back to me now indeed like Celine Dion sang in here famous song. This blog entry is not about her; but rather I am remembering my old Personal Computer (PC) from the 1990s which is the reasons behind why the old days coming back again plus additional ones placed at the end of this post.

Personal Computer: Geek and Love Story

My early beginnings with PC started many years ago when I was young, when started going through my journey in the technology world when I was around 9-year-old.

Later with personal computer (PC) since I was 13 to 15-year-old teenager. It was new for me at this time, so I was totally attracted to. Hence, I used to work with it in school until I finished high school and joined college by 1994, so during this period I mainly used two desktop personal computers of my own:-

1. 1^st desktop PC: a 486 based computer.
2. 2^nd desktop PC: a Pentium based computer.

A Typical 486-DX Desktop PC (1994)

My First Personal Computer (PC)

When I entered college, it was the suitable time to have my own 1^st desktop PC. I still remember this one which goes back to the year 1994 with specs that are very funny in terms of nowadays hardware specifications in 2005; however it was up-to-date machine during this time, so here are my 1994 specs in Egypt:

• Motherboard: Intel 440LX chipset.
• CPU: Intel 486 DX-100 processor with 66-100MHz clock speed.
• Display Card: VGA card based on Intel chipset with 1MB capacity.
• Monitor: TVM 14 inch screen size.
• RAM: KingStone 8 MB EDO RAM.
• Hard Disk: Western Digital Caviar 1.0 GB disk capacity.
• Floppy Drive: Sony 3.5 inch drive.
• Keyboard – Mouse: connected on serial COM ports.
• Sound Card: SoundBlaster 16 compatible card.

I still recall the “Turbo Button” in the case that boosts up the clock speed from the normal mode (66 MHz) to the full mode (100 MHz) when you press on. In addition, my hard disk was considered very new as the normal trend was using the 512 MB capacity, same goes for the display card as 1MB video card and for the RAM which was normally 4 MB.

Microsoft MS-DOS Command Prompt

Microsoft MS-DOS/Windows 3.11 Duet
At these days, the legacy Operating Systems (OS) was MS-DOS; I used to work on the traditional MS-DOS versions starting from 3.30 till Microsoft released the latest version of MS-DOS 6.22 with enhancements.

I still recall in order to play games properly, I used to add, edit and tweak the parameters by dropping codes and commands into the two MS-DOS infamous system files autoexec.bat and config.sys in order to place the proper variables to run the SoundBlaster card. I also recall the nightmare of personal computer users at these legacy times which was optimizing the DOS conventional memory according to the LIM 4.0 protocol for EMS/XMS memory, and oh my when I was looking for best geek-tips for that matter in parallel with the zipping process that was usually done under MS-DOS through the command prompt.

On the professional level, it was normal to run AutoCAD 386 and AutoCAD 12 under MS-DOS, in parallel with 3D Studio R4. These applications are the grandfathers of both AutoCAD under Windows and 3D Studio MAX which we know today respectively.

Microsoft Windows 3.11 Desktop

Meanwhile after, I started using Microsoft Windows 3.11 family which was somehow semi-revolutionary to use commands in a GUI mode instead DOS-prompt mode, however technically, Windows 3.x was a shell over MS-DOS that can run in 386 enhanced mode which means more accessibility and good managing for memory in one way or another in these legacy times.

Shortly after, when Microsoft released Windows 95, it was full-revolutionary operating system that used its own 32-bit architecture – starting from the OSR2 version – instead of the typical 16-bit architecture of both MS-DOS and Windows 3.x.

Additionally, I remember that I was not ready to fully utilize Win 95 so I used do this trick: I placed the (c:\windows\win.com) command line for Windows 3.x in the “autoexec.bat” system file in order to instruct the PC for launching Windows 3.11 automatically instead of typing it at MS-DOS command prompt.

LOL

A Typical Pentium II (2) Desktop PC

My Second Personal Computer (PC)

In 1998, it was time to make an upgrade to face the needs of my college work, so I got my 2^nd desktop PC which was pretty good enough for my civilization to upgrade from the MS-DOS era to Windows 9X/NT era, and it was configured as follows:

• Motherboard: Intel BX chipset.
• CPU: Intel Pentium II processor with 333MHz clock speed.
• Display Card: AGP Intel i740 chipset – 8MB capacity.
• Monitor: TVM 15 inch screen size.
• RAM: KingStone 32 MB DIMM RAM.
• Hard Disk: Western Digital Caviar 6.4 GB disk capacity.
• Floppy Drive: Sony 3.5 inch drive.
• CD: Sony CD-ROM 8X Read speed.
• Keyboard + Mouse: Serial COM ports not USB like today.
• Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster 32 Bit plus Multimedia speakers.
• Modem: Rockwell Modem 56KFlex which supports V.34 technology.

I myself laugh at this now; however it is a history for love and geek. Thus, my reasons for PC Old Days are coming back again will be are presented in the next post about the Classic MS-DOS Games which is another story from the legacy technology time!

Operating Systems for Personal Computers

Resources on PC and OS

Finally, if you are looking for additional information about classic legacy hardware, software and operating systems, feel free to check the following on-line web-pages:

1. Personal Computer History
   1. PC History
   2. Computer History Museum
   3. Chronology of Personal Computers
2. Operating Systems for Personal Computers
   1. Operating System Reviews
   2. History of Operating Systems
   3. Operating System Technical Comparison
   4. Wikipedia: Operating Systems
3. Operating Systems Screen Shots
   1. Graphical User Interface Gallery
   2. DigiBarn Screen Shots of Operating Systems and Applications

Salam,
Hicham

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Tags: personal computer
Categories: Tech
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