Comment by 1123581321

Comment by 1123581321 5 days ago

12 replies

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They stick with you. I remember our first family computer well (an Acer 486 with 40MB drive and 32MB RAM.)

Same for my first computer I built myself out of a TigerDirect order. Made a few mistakes there (K6 generation.)

Having these computers was such a change in our lives that they should be somewhat indelible memories.

xxs 5 days ago

>an Acer 486 with 40MB drive and 32MB RAM.

32MB ram <-- no way. 4 and 8MB were the standard (8MB being grand), you could find 16MB on some Pentiums. So 40MB drive and 32MB RAM is an exceptionally unlikely combo.

32MB become norm around Pentium MMX and K6(-2).

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  • 1123581321 5 days ago

    Haha, I wondered if someone would complain about 32MB. We had the board maxed out. My grandfather’s computer before ours.

    A few months after taking possession, I upgraded the disk to a luxurious 400MB.

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    • Kye 5 days ago

      The classic NAND-me-down. My first personal computer was a "broken" 486 system I got for $25 at a yard sale. All it needed was a hard drive.

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  • netule 4 days ago

    We had a 386 DX with 32MB of RAM. I don’t think it was that uncommon. DOOM still didn’t run super smoothly, though.

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    • Narishma 4 days ago

      Nah, as the other poster said 4 or 8 MB was what was common on 486 machines. Even less on 386. Most 386 motherboards didn't even support more than 16MB.

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  • Kye 5 days ago

    It could have been bought old and upgraded. Not everyone had the luxury of a brand new first computer.

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    • xxs 5 days ago

      Possibly, but even mother boards supporting 32MB would be rare. Perhaps on "DX3"?

      As for a new computer and price - it was like $1000 to get AMD 486DX2-80 with 4MB RAM in '95...

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      • pixl97 5 days ago

        So this depends if it was a 72 pin DIMM board. I don't think you could get there (easily?) on a 30 pin board, but 72 may have had native support for 64 out of the box.

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      • snerbles 4 days ago

        I upgraded a ~1992 Dell 486 DX2 to 36MB (original 4MB + 32MB...or was it a pair of 16MB sticks? hard to remember) around 1997 or so.

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  • cogman10 4 days ago

    Yeah, IIRC my first computer, or at least the first one I really maintained, was a Pentium 2 with 32MB of ram and a 2gb hard drive. Good ole gateway pcs.

    The first first computer I had was an old IBM PC.

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