You know you're a n00b when....

desktop · Nov 23, 2013

I'm sure we all have stories to tell of those good ol' days when we first owned a computer. My first computer was a Packard Bell, which I got at a Rent-A-Center. This was back in the 90's. I thought it was the most amazing thing mankind had ever invented, but then I felt the same way about Ramen noodles (I swore they were a Godsend to single guys, lol).

Back then I was using Outlook Express for my email and one day I couldn't get the darn thing to work, so I found a computer chat room and described the issues I was having. After discussing it for a bit one of the guys said, "Well, looks like you'll have to use snail mail for a while." I said, "Where can I download that?"

0078265317 · Nov 23, 2013

I know the feeling. My mom didn't know how to turn on the computer much less anything else at first.

MoodyBlues · Nov 23, 2013

Nice topic, desktop.

I had a Packard Bell, too. That would've been circa 1990, I believe. It was a 386SX 20, and had a whopping 130MB hard drive. :laugh:

However, my first computer was a Commodore VIC-20, circa late 1981. That was quickly replaced by a Commodore 64. Had to connect it to the TV in order to have a display, and programs were run from a tape drive. Ah, the good old days.

Dngrsone · Nov 24, 2013

My first PC was a piece of crap that I paid to much for... monochrome display, 8088 processor. I stuck with my Commodore 64.

My second one was a hand-me-down 386, which I fixed up and began learning the ins and outs of Windows on.

unnamedny · Nov 24, 2013

My first pc was Pentium 133 with amazingly fast 16mb of ram 1 whole gigabyte hard drive and snappy floppy. I think it needed drivers for every damn piece of hardware it had.

shelliewnj · Nov 24, 2013

I had a commodore 64 as well. Our next computer was a tandy.

I was between 7 and 10.my parents couldn't figure it out and were reading the manual when they found me having already put together all the pieces, playing a game I had brought home from school.

Slug · Nov 24, 2013

I still remember buying my first modem, a 14.4kbps Zoom internal card that cost almost a month's wages. Then spending hours fine-tuning the AT* commands in the config file so that it would connect reliably to both the USR Sportster and Courier modems used by my 'home' BBS. I can still tell the two models apart by their handshake tones.

It's still in a box in my loft, along with the pair of 8MB 3dfx Voodoo2 graphics accelerators (for SLI Quake2 goodness!) and my very first 16-bit Soundblaster audio card.... who else remembers the torture of massaging their config.sys and autoexec.bat to ensure that no shared INT borked the sound of their chainsaw in Doom?

desktop · Nov 24, 2013

MoodyBlues said:
I had a Packard Bell, too. That would've been circa 1990, I believe. It was a 386SX 20, and had a whopping 130MB hard drive.

You had me beat—mine only had a 80MB HD and 8MB of RAM! Thinking back on this is laughable, but back then we thought this was awesome.

SiempreTuna · Nov 25, 2013

My mother still occassionally refers to her mouse as a hamster ..

Years ago, when the accounts dept at the multi-national I worked at got their first PCs, I (a BI consultant) got an urgent call from one of the junior managers. Went upstairs, found the guy's computer, turned it on and he said "That's all I needed to know" - he hadn't been able to find the "On" switch :eek:

MoodyBlues · Nov 25, 2013

desktop said:
You had me beat

Unforgiven · Nov 25, 2013

Slug said:
I still remember buying my first modem, a 14.4kbps Zoom internal card that cost almost a month's wages. Then spending hours fine-tuning the AT* commands in the config file so that it would connect reliably to both the USR Sportster and Courier modems used by my 'home' BBS. I can still tell the two models apart by their handshake tones.

It's still in a box in my loft, along with the pair of 8MB 3dfx Voodoo2 graphics accelerators (for SLI Quake2 goodness!) and my very first 16-bit Soundblaster audio card.... who else remembers the torture of massaging their config.sys and autoexec.bat to ensure that no shared INT borked the sound of their chainsaw in Doom?

I loved having the external modem. I just looked cool.

I think I still have one of those floating aroung somewhere.

MoodyBlues · Nov 25, 2013

Unforgiven said:
I loved having the external modem. I just looked cool.

US Robotics!

That was my go-to brand because it just worked with *nix.

patrickt · Nov 25, 2013

I bought a Commodore Pet for the kids to learn about computing. My son did, my daughter didn't. I didn't think I'd need to and then in about 1982 I bought a Columbia "transportable". It was a 32-pound "portable" computer. Still, at the time, it was awesome.

I have since explained to people it's harder for adults to start from scratch now. When I started there was no graphics, no color, now WYSIWYG, no hard drive, no CD/DVD, no USB, no Bluetooth, no sound other than system beeps. There's a lot more to learn now.

sfbloodbrother · Nov 25, 2013

patrickt said:
I bought a Commodore Pet for the kids to learn about computing. My son did, my daughter didn't. I didn't think I'd need to and then in about 1982 I bought a Columbia "transportable". It was a 32-pound "portable" computer. Still, at the time, it was awesome.

I have since explained to people it's harder for adults to start from scratch now. When I started there was no graphics, no color, now WYSIWYG, no hard drive, no CD/DVD, no USB, no Bluetooth, no sound other than system beeps. There's a lot more to learn now.

Ya, learning now is harder because theres so much more of it

Dngrsone · Nov 25, 2013

I think it went as low as $133MB in 1987, but then a shortage pushed the price up toward $500MB in 1988.

That is, according to an article I read recently.

At that time, I was working on mainframes-- around 3KHz 24-bit with 256Kb RAM and a total of 20MB storage on two hard drives with 18" platters.

Slug · Nov 25, 2013

MoodyBlues said:
US Robotics! That was my go-to brand because it just worked with *nix.

USR worked with everything. They virtually "wrote the standards" when it came to serial comms, which is why so many BBS had racks of the things. My 'home' had eight pools, four Courier and four Sportster, each with (iirc) six modems. Remember, this was back in the dial-up era, when you downloaded messages/newsgroups in a packet, composed replies offline, then uploaded another packet to minimise online time (and hence cost). The trick was to listen to the handshake, determine which pool you'd connected to, and kill/redial until you hit the Couriers as you'd shave a few seconds off the connection time.

Re memory pricing: it was a long time go, but I'm sure the 8MB (2x4MB DIMMs) I put into my first "self-build", a 386DX/40, cost me almost

saptech · Nov 26, 2013

Yes, US Robotics was the goto modem during those times to have. I was able to get 2 from my first computer job with a large bank around 1991.

My very first computer I bought was a Radio Shack Tandy laptop with 2 floppy drives, no hard drive, but it did have an internal 9600 baud modem. I used it to get on BBS systems. I thought I was the shizim back then. This was around 1990.

desktop · Nov 27, 2013

It amazes me how much has been invented just in my lifetime—8-tracks, cassettes, Walkmans, VHS, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, laptops, cell phones. I remember a time when a computer took up an entire room and a calculator cost hundreds of dollars. In fact,[SIZE=-1] me and my niece were just talking about this the other day and I was telling her how much calculators used to cost and now you can find them for a buck at the dollar store.

[/SIZE]My first "art" job was working for a company that produced Yellow Page ads. We all worked on old Mac[SIZE=-1]s using programs like PageMaker and MacDraw. These little Macs always reminded me of the drones from Silent Running and I think I even nicknamed mine Huey. We've come a long way since then, which really wasn't that long ago. I'm not THAT old (lol). But I still think back fondly to those days of working in a DOS environment, wrangling out squares and lines of type to create Yellow Page ads.

Now I just fire up my modern PC, open Photoshop, Word, whatever fancy program I need and it's done in a third of the time.

Sigh....the good 'ol days

[/SIZE]

lunatic59 · Nov 27, 2013

desktop said:
My first "art" job was working for a company that produced Yellow Page ads. We all worked on old Macs ...

I got a few years on you. I started in an Ad Agency art dept. and we had to illustrate layouts, spec' type, paste-up mechanical boards, cut ruby and amber masks ... *THOSE* were the days. My only complaint with modern systems is that typography still isn't where it should be, but no one notices anymore,

You know you're a n00b when....

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