Looking Back at Old Tech Items

May 26, 2012 Richard Hay All Posts, WindowsObserver

When it comes to tech I must admit I am a hoarder.

Technology advances at such a rapid pace these days it is easy to find yourself with lots of old tech. When you look back and see what tech was 5, 10, 15 years ago and beyond it can be quite a shock to see how far we have come.

I have drawers and boxes full of software, cables, hardware and other sundry tech items from past upgrades over the last couple of decades. I am sure many of you who read this site likely have similar boxes full of old tech.

As part of a project I am working on in my garage, the project being to clean it up, I have decided to go through all my old tech boxes and try to be hard core about finally clearing out some old stuff.

As I was clearing out the boxes I was sharing pictures of some of the items on Twitter and decided this post would be a nice stroll down tech memory lane.

Gaming

Prior to making the leap to an Xbox 360 console in 2010 I was a PC gamer. My favorite games in those years were sports games and first person shooters.

This was the second year of the series.

This was John Madden’s last year as the main cover person.

This was the first year John Madden was not the featured individually on the cover.
By 2006 it took 3 CD’s of data to install Madden 2006.

The original Sims game.

Probably the best trivia franchise ever!

Microsoft Software and various operating system upgrades

Windows XP Service Pack 2. It was standard practice that you could order a CD with the update on it. Internet speeds were a lot slower back then!

This disc would upgrade your Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. Start Me Up! I stood in a line at midnight to buy this in New Jersey!	Windows 98 Second Edition Updates added a few new features to the original Windows 98. In today’s terms it really was a Service Pack.
The Microsoft Plus 98 Companion for Windows 98 added several new features to the OS. It also included a large amount of themes and upgraded system tools.	I think this upgrade, Windows Millenium, or Windows ME as it came to be known, is the one everyone would like to forget about.

Microsoft Beta CD’s of Windows Vista Codenamed Longhorn

Another example of how you would get CD’s from Microsoft. If you were in a Beta program, before the expansive broadband we know today, Microsoft would ship you a set of beta discs via one of the big shippers to get them in your hands as a tester. I imagine they saved a lot on shipping once they could just offer these via downloads.

Old Hardware

This is the Palm M100, which still works with AAA batteries, and was popular around the year 2000. I bought it as a means to keep my schedule handy while in a Navy leadership school. I also got quite good at its special shorthand code to write notes as well. This device was eventually replaced with a Dell Axim.

Here is something you just do not see anymore – a 10GB hard drive! I think my first PC in the early 90’s had a 200MB hard drive and just 4MB of RAM.

We sure have come a long way with tech haven’t we? I hope you enjoyed the stroll down the Old Tech Memory Lane as much as I did.

I would love to hear about any old tech you have around the house or office in the comments below – thanks!

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About Richard Hay

Richard is the Owner of WindowsObserver.com and has been involved in tech for nearly 30 years. His first website – AnotherWin95.com – came online in 1995. Back then he used GeoCities Web Hosting for it and what you see here today is the result of the work he has continued on the site since 1995. In January 2010 his community contributions were recognized by Microsoft when he was awarded the Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for Windows Desktop Experience. In January 2011 he was renewed as a Microsoft MVP but in a new category called Windows Expert - Consumer and in January 2012 and 2013 he received the award for the third and fourth time respectively.

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JohnBick

How about an original IBM PC, complete with Monchrome monitor (and an added 5.25″ 10MB hard drive? Yep, still has the 5.25″floppy drive! (And I still have a pile of those old floppies, too!)
Tom Keller

A computer I use EVERY DAY is my c. 1996 486 IBM clone. It has a massive 40MB hard drive and is loaded with Windows 95. However, I default to DOS to run my Alpha4 (v.6) database. It contains data assembled over at least the last 40 years. (I do have it backed up on my “regular” hard drive, but if I lose my DOS machine I may be in trouble.)
In case anyone is in the market, I am also the proud owner of a 5 1/4 floppy drive in virtually mint condition, not to mention a Tandy SR-80 daisy-wheel printer (2! fonts and ribbons).
Mark

I still have programming books from 1980 (WATFOR, COBOL. BASIC, LOGLAN) and tons of old software, (including a 180Kb single-sided 5 1/4″ floppy that has programs written for the 8Kb Commodore PET) that I haven’t found a home for. Regarding hardware, I had to get rid of much when I moved across the country – several 486′s, a couple 386′s, 286′s and even an XT – most of which were still working. Currently I have 4 desktops at home, along with 5 laptops, wireless routers etc – for 5 people to use! I also have 4 different editions of “Repairing and upgrading your PC”.

Some of the software titles I have include games by Sierra (the Leisure Suit Larry series, Police Quest, etc) Star Trek games and others, and Print Shop in various editions. I also had 8 Canon and Epson ink jet and dot matrix printers that I recently donated to a fundraising garage sale along with 6 monitors.

I may be an incipient ‘hoarder’ of tech, but I am trying to reform… (lol)
Richard K.

I still have a Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 with a home built 16K static RAM expansion pack. Also a Spectrum +3 and a program on disc that can transfer Amstrad games into Spectrum format.
David

Atari 600s and 800s with cassette drive. You know, the drive that took 4.2 hours to load “Eastern Front,” and then burped 15 seconds from completion. Also have cartridges and cassettes for a bunch of games, and several TV adapter switches. Thought about selling them, but my memories of the games are that they’re better than a lot of today’s offerings. Maybe it’s time to pull them out and relive 30-year-old memories, and show my grandkids what their parents played.
John Easley

I still have my old ADAM (80K RAM, built in Word Processing, Daisy Wheel printer, CPM based, and uses Dual Cassette drives). Also have DOS diskettes back to 1.0, Win 3.0, Win 95, 98, NT, XP, and an IBM “suitcase” computer. Us old techs can’t seem to throw anything away, but we have to parts and software to fix most anything!
Guy H

I still have a Timex/Sinclair 1000(1k)with matching printer and 16k expansion pack, Vic 20, c64 and c128 with 2 floppy drives, tape recorder and commodore monitor, a Avatar V-Box with windows 98se, and an old win 95 HP computer given to me at a yard sale which I took because it came with a LCD monitor.
Andy

I recently threw out a program I was saving on 5.25″ floppies from back in the day using an IBM PC/XT. I think I still have a 3.5″ Superdisk drive around somewhere. And I just found my Win’98 Boot Disk on 3.5″ floppy.
Dyrk Trout

When my Windows 95 computer finally died I got a computer running XP. Guess what? No floppy drive to load some of the games and software. So I got a very rare piece of equipment I have used exactly ONCE. A USB floppy drive.Along with that I have a set of “Dummies” books: Windows 95 for Dummies, The Internet for Dummies (With information that even your grandma knows now). and let’s not forget the chapter on how to use FTP!
Steven B.

I still have OS/2 (in original box with manuals) from when I was a tech support person for IBM PS/2 computers! I used to keep all of my old tech stuff (my token ring setup was my first network, as well as ARCnet cabling), the books and disks, the hardware, but realized I was running out of room. I went through all Commodore computers, from the original 4k Pet 2001 all the way up to the not-so-IBM-compatible desktop one!!! All of that stuff got traded along the way and whatever was left, I only got rid of 2 years ago !!! Thank god for hardware recycling depots !!! Anyhow, thanks for the trip down memory lane … it was the best of times, it was the not-so-best of times … LOL !!!
DaveC.

I think all of us techies have this same hoarding problem. I’ve built all my own computers (and my family’s) since 1997, and I probably have enough hardware still kicking around to build at least 3 more complete computers, and I have one complete computer sitting in a bedroom closet. And all this is AFTER I took 3 big boxes of old hardware to the recycling place.
I have cables coming out the wazzoo, countless floppies & CD’s of OS’s, repair tools, backups and favorite program installers.

I should be on TV’s “Hoarders” when it comes to tech stuff…LOL!
http://www.flickr.com/joherrer Jorge Herrera

I recently moved to another city (by tenth time, I gess) and I got rid of a Radio Shack Micro 80 Portable computer. It used 5-1/4″ floppy disks and it didn’t have a hard drive. It had a green screen.
Gary Pewitt

I still have my first computer, an Exidy Sorcerer with 48K of ram. It came with -no- floppies or hard drive. Instead it used a twin cassette settup and 8k rom cartridges for Basic, Fortran, word processor, etc..
Don’t have my Bondwell 12 or Commadore 64 anymore but I still have my Commadore Amiga 1000 with the added on 60 Meg hard drive. Also an Amiga 3000 with a 90 Meg drive. I also keep all of the computers I have built. From my first PC clone with 4 megs of ram to the one I am using with 8 Gig of ram and 3 1/2 Tbytes of hard drives. The next one I’ve started will have 2 SSD’s for Windoze and Linux, 2 2T hard drives and 32 Gigs of ram. Onward and upward.
C E

I still have all my old PCs.

I worked for a county government in California. I was denied the purchase of a new computer with a 40MB hard drive and 4MB of RAM in favor of a PS/2 with 500Mb of RAM and a 20MB hard drive because a program analyst said it was somehow better. I gladly traded to her for her old computer which had more than the PS/2.
Billy

I still have coopys of Windowns 3.11, Windows 95, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows XP Home, and Windows 7. Also SIM 72 memory chips.
- http://www.windowsobserver.com Richard Hay
  
  Billy – as you saw above I have those as well and can just not bring myself to get rid of them in the clean up process!
Howard

The first IBM compatible I had (1984ish) where I worked didn’t have a hard drive, only a 5 1/4 floppy and used MS-DOS 3.0. I added a 10meg hard drive later on. It ran at a blazing 5 MHz and had a turbo switch that bumped it up to 8 MHz!! Like you I still have some of the first computers I owned like a Commodore 64 & 128, and a Hyundai with a 286 microprocessor that ran at 15 or 20 MHz!!
http://pcpitstop.com Tom Belle

I have a half a grocery bag full of AOL CD’s that I received in the mail back in the day.
700 hours free! 1000 hours free! The glory of the Internets can be yours!
Burt

I still have two of the original Compaq ‘suitcase’ computers running DOS without a mouse yet, but with a built-in yellow screen and keyboard (and maybe a 10 MBite hard drive). I also keep all the PCs I’ve built for myself, starting with the 100 MBite hard drive tower with both size floppy drives that ran Windows 95. I still fire them up for the fun of it, and the amazement of my friends.
- http://www.windowsobserver.com Richard Hay
  
  Wow all the past PC’s as well? That is a step above my hoarding habits! Very cool stuff!

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