Marcham wrote to All <=-
Hey all, looking to see what some favorite 486 machines from the 90s might have been. Running a Thinkpad 770X right now and it's a great machine, but would like a desktop that's a bit interesting. Unlike the 80s, everything from the 90s feels beige and boring. Anyone have any favorites with a bit of something special going on? Cheers.
I loved the design of the PS/2 series, but the MicroChannel
architecture makes finding parts tough. I think they made some models
with PCI bus later on, but that might have been pentium-era.
Back then, I didn't run anythig name-brand. Everything was
custom-built, you'd buy a motherboard, power supply, case, and move
your hard drive from machine to machine.
Old thinkpads do rock - some of the best keyboards out there.
... Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
As for ThinkPads; ah I miss those machines. Used to ues them before switching to macOS. The best keyboards you'll even find - agreed. Well, at least I have this beast to play around with for now.
Marcham wrote to All <=-
Hey all, looking to see what some favorite 486 machines from the 90s might have been. Running a Thinkpad 770X right now and it's a great machine, but would like a desktop that's a bit interesting. Unlike the 80s, everything from the 90s feels beige and boring. Anyone have any favorites with a bit of something special going on? Cheers.
I loved the design of the PS/2 series, but the MicroChannel
architecture makes finding parts tough. I think they made some models
with PCI bus later on, but that might have been pentium-era.
Back then, I didn't run anythig name-brand. Everything was
custom-built, you'd buy a motherboard, power supply, case, and move
your hard drive from machine to machine.
Old thinkpads do rock - some of the best keyboards out there.
... Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
Re: Re: Favorite 90s 486 machAh, that's a fun little machine; i've never had a chance to play around with C Windows CE. Always thought all the Workpad devices were Palm based too.
By: Marcham to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Oct 02 2020 06:24 pm
As for ThinkPads; ah I miss those machines. Used to ues them before switching to macOS. The best keyboards you'll even find - agreed. Well, least I have this beast to play around with for now.
The oddball device I want (again) is an IBM Workpad Z50. Looked like a 10 in connect mail via IMAP, and Word and Excel were usable.
Ogg wrote to All <=-
Hello Dennisk!
** On Sunday 04.10.20 - 06:40, dennisk wrote to Marcham:
Amazing how 4MB today is absolutely laughable. And yes,
this further makes me think about building my own 486
machine. I'll have to seek out parts on ebay. - Sent from
an IBM ThinkPad
I've got parts, perhaps I should put them up on e-bay. I'll
never use them except maybe as replacement if a part dies.
IO cards, RAM, 2 x Sound Blaster 16's, network cards, video
cards, hard disk or two.
Me too. I have a handful of 128K or 256K modules that I am
willing to free-cycle. I still have many ribbon connectors.
Me too. I have a handful of 128K or 256K modules that I
am willing to free-cycle. I still have many ribbon
connectors.
I've got so many ram sticks from 64M to 128M, they are just
laying in drawers here and there, even a small bag full. I
don't even know how I got them all, there was just this
period of time I kept finding them. I should sell them, if
anyone wants them.
Tracker1 wrote to Dumas Walker <=-
On 10/3/2020 5:45 AM, Dumas Walker wrote:
Hey all, looking to see what some favorite 486 machines from the 90s
might have been. Running a Thinkpad 770X right now and it's a great
machine, but would like a desktop that's a bit interesting. Unlike the
80s, everything from the 90s feels beige and boring. Anyone have any
favorites with a bit of something special going on? Cheers.
I actually skipped over 486s. I had a 386DX40 which, because I didn't run Windows on it, seemed to me to be more responsive than the 486 at work.
While at a client's office, I did have chance to briefly use a 486DX2-66 that seemed pretty snappy. I was early in my career and a little cash strapped so, buy the time I went looking for a new (to me) computer, I
wound up with a used Pentium.
A 386DX40 is probably faster than many of the slower 486's... First
time I was really impressed at a jump was my oc'd 1ghz AMD Duron from a 5x86@133, next was i7-860 with an SSD... next that I really noticed was
my current system r9-3950X coming from my i7-4790K.
I've also had a tendency to get the fastest storage option (until
current gen, still using pci3 nvme) and maxing out ram, again, not
quite on this one 64gb vs 128 for my mobo/cpu.
Usually buy top of mid-range every 3-5 years or so with a mid-cycle upgrade. The hand-me-down is usually faster than whoever I give it to
was already using.
Marcham wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
Ah, that's a fun little machine; i've never had a chance to play around with C Windows CE. Always thought all the Workpad devices were Palm
based too.
On 10/3/2020 5:45 AM, Dumas Walker wrote:
Hey all, looking to see what some favorite 486 machines from the 90s
might have been. Running a Thinkpad 770X right now and it's a great
machine, but would like a desktop that's a bit interesting. Unlike the
80s, everything from the 90s feels beige and boring. Anyone have any
favorites with a bit of something special going on? Cheers.
I actually skipped over 486s. I had a 386DX40 which, because I didn't run Windows on it, seemed to me to be more responsive than the 486 at work.
While at a client's office, I did have chance to briefly use a 486DX2-66 that seemed pretty snappy. I was early in my career and a little cash strapped so, buy the time I went looking for a new (to me) computer, I wound up with a used Pentium.
A 386DX40 is probably faster than many of the slower 486's... First time
I was really impressed at a jump was my oc'd 1ghz AMD Duron from a
5x86@133, next was i7-860 with an SSD... next that I really noticed was
my current system r9-3950X coming from my i7-4790K.
I've also had a tendency to get the fastest storage option (until
current gen, still using pci3 nvme) and maxing out ram, again, not quite
on this one 64gb vs 128 for my mobo/cpu.
Usually buy top of mid-range every 3-5 years or so with a mid-cycle
upgrade. The hand-me-down is usually faster than whoever I give it to
was already using.
--
Michael J. Ryan
tracker1 +o Roughneck BBS
Dennisk wrote to Tracker1 <=-
A 386DX40 is probably faster than many of the slower 486's...
poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Dennisk <=-
Dennisk wrote to Tracker1 <=-
A 386DX40 is probably faster than many of the slower 486's...
Those were interesting times. AMD's 386 was fast, 486SX versus DX,
clock doubled 486es versus single speed, competing CPUs from Cyrix,
AMD and IBM, VLB versus EISA...
My favorite PC at the time was an ISA bus 486dx/50. Surprisingly, it
was faster at gaming with an ISA card than a VLB dx2/66.
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Dennisk wrote to Tracker1 <=-
A 386DX40 is probably faster than many of the slower 486's...
Those were interesting times. AMD's 386 was fast, 486SX versus DX,
clock doubled 486es versus single speed, competing CPUs from Cyrix,
AMD and IBM, VLB versus EISA...
My favorite PC at the time was an ISA bus 486dx/50. Surprisingly, it
was faster at gaming with an ISA card than a VLB dx2/66.
On 10-09-20 13:25, Ed Vance wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
I was given a old ISA network Card for the 486 and I put it in but
haven't figured out how to use it along with this XP box.
I've searched for Drivers for it but couldn't find them at the Manufacturers web site.
Would there be a generic Network Driver in MS-DOS 5.0 or IBM DOS 7.0
that I could used for Networking? Thanks in advance!
The ISA Network Card has a CAT 5 connector and the Linksys Router still has some empty port sockets.
While typing this, my mind got to thinking about someone has made a Adapter with a LAN connector to use with a C=64, now that would be
awesome to have all of my PCs connected together!
... Hillbilly Dining: fast food is hitting a deer at 65.
A 386 DX40 would be faster than a 486 SX system. But I don't think 486 SX systems were all that prevalent. I think a friend had one, and it was pretty slow. Any 486DX would blow that 386 out of the water though.
As I upgrade less frequently, each of my machines seems significantly faster, though the later updates less so than the previous.
Tracker1 wrote to Dennisk <=-pretty
On 10/6/2020 4:42 AM, Dennisk wrote:
A 386 DX40 would be faster than a 486 SX system. But I don't think 486 SX systems were all that prevalent. I think a friend had one, and it was
slow. Any 486DX would blow that 386 out of the water though.
There wer a TON of those... most of the retail systems from that era
were 486SX class, because people saw 486 and didn't know better...
often the same today, they see Intel Core i7, and if it's 4-6yo, it's slower than a Core i3 today.
As I upgrade less frequently, each of my machines seems significantlyfaster,
though the later updates less so than the previous.
Yeah, I used to have a 1-2 year turnover in the late 90's throught the early 2000's... Since around 2010 or so, it's been less of an urgency.
I really wanted to get to 16core and up to 64gb though, as I was facing some bottlenecks with some work projects.
Of course, I have to use my work laptop for everything, which is 4c,
32g and sometimes that bottlenecks... at least it has an nvme (slower) which helps some. It's tollerable as long as I'm not doing anything
that requires a full set of services up at the same time.
Some software is PostgreSQL, some MS-SQL, and spatterings of RabbitMQ, Redis and others, not to mention API, worker systems, and UIs. So when
I have to put different things up to work on locally it can take its' toll. WSL2 and Docker help a lot in making it easier to reset/teardown and test though. I cringe when I have to work on something tethered to Windows, which I don't have to too much.
----
Adside: on the web app front, I do get it... I've seen some horrible things... called a car dealer last night to chew them out at how poorly their site worked on a phone... tempted to see what the payload looks
like from a simulated phone now... (doing it now).
libertybuick.com
On simulated android, with 4g low (1500kbps down, 300 up), it's 5.5s
for dom loaded time and about 13s to full render... 3mb payload size,
1.8 was JS (fucking ridiculous, that's with privacy badger and ublock origion), without ublock+pb it's 2.7mb of JS... With caching enabled another 1.5mb of JS for the search screen (500k with blocking enabled). Sluggish AF on my actual phone... my desktop is an r9-3950X, so other
than simulating network throttling, rendering is *FAR* faster than my phone with iirc 4 or 6gb ram.
By contrast for the main application I'm working on, it's ~700kb for
the full site/application and will load 400kb for a charting/graphing library if you hit that area, and another library around 250kb (rich
text editor) if you use that area of the application (both for admins only). The total load is under 2s in similar conditions and meets AA accessibility guidelines (govt work) ... the other application I work
on is under 400kb payload and actually has SVG overlays on scanned
images (the images themselves far outweight any JS payload for that
app). These are for the full applications though, not singular pages
that could have been done mostly static + vue/svelte/hyper or similar
(If I were working on the former car site). I also actively review and push back when other devs try to bring in new modules... I swear every
new dev tries to include moment.js
10-07-20 08:59 poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Dennisk about Re: Favorite 90s 48 mach
Howdy! Poindexter,
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Dennisk wrote to Tracker1 <=-
A 386DX40 is probably faster than many of the slower 486's...
Those were interesting times. AMD's 386 was fast, 486SX versus DX,
clock doubled 486es versus single speed, competing CPUs from Cyrix,
AMD and IBM, VLB versus EISA...
My favorite PC at the time was an ISA bus 486dx/50. Surprisingly, it
was faster at gaming with an ISA card than a VLB dx2/66.
The Compatiable PC's that My Section used were hand me downs when the Boss got a newer PC.
I had been reading Popular Electronics and Radio-Electronics magazines and had a C=64 at home when the ITT DOS v2.11 XT w/10MB HDD got put on the desk.
A Zenith 286 came next, but to Me it seemed to be slower than the XT when writing to its 20 MB HDD when it was used for downloading reports from a Dial-Up connection.
The next PC was a Dell 386 that had DOS 3.0 & Win3.1, I liked it better than the Zenith 286.
Thinking about that Dell, I came to work one afternoon and saw someone on th 1st Shift playing Solitaire.
They were moving each Card individually up to the Suite Stack and I said: "Why don't You just double-click on the Card instead of moving it to the Stack?", they try double-clicking a Card and saw it went on the Stack, and asked Me: "How did You know to do that?" and I told them I clicked on HELP at the top of the window and read about how to do that.
I've already wrote in this Thread about getting a 486DX33 built so I won't g on about how much I like it.
I still have it but haven't turned it on lately.
I was given a old ISA network Card for the 486 and I put it in but haven't figured out how to use it along with this XP box.
I've searched for Drivers for it but couldn't find them at the Manufacturers web site.
I uuess I was just too late to get those Drivers for the 486 box.
When the 486 was built I ordered MS-DOS 5.0 to come on it.
Years later I was at a Salvation Army Thrift Store and found a IBM DOS 7.0 C and added it to the 486.
Would there be a generic Network Driver in MS-DOS 5.0 or IBM DOS 7.0 that I could used for Networking? Thanks in advance!
The ISA Network Card has a CAT 5 connector and the Linksys Router still has some empty port sockets.
While typing this, my mind got to thinking about someone has made a Adapter with a LAN connector to use with a C=64, now that would be awesome to have all of my PCs connected together!
Just Dreaming...
73 de Ed W9ODR . .
... Hillbilly Dining: fast food is hitting a deer at 65.
Dennisk wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
My favorite PC at the time was an ISA bus 486dx/50. Surprisingly, it
was faster at gaming with an ISA card than a VLB dx2/66.
That is interesting. The 486 I'm using now has a VLB video card, and
when I tried an ISA, it was definately slower. Was the 50MHz CPU and
AMD one?
poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Dennisk <=-
Dennisk wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
My favorite PC at the time was an ISA bus 486dx/50. Surprisingly, it
was faster at gaming with an ISA card than a VLB dx2/66.
That is interesting. The 486 I'm using now has a VLB video card, and
when I tried an ISA, it was definately slower. Was the 50MHz CPU and
AMD one?
No, an Intel 486 DX/50.
Some machines are blessed. I had an intel dev board running a
Pentium/75 that felt faster than Dell P/133 systems. Later, I had a
IBM Aptiva, a Pentium II/266 system with a Matrox add-in 3d card that
was an amazing gaming system and kept up with P3/500s with native 3D
cards.
Yeah, its weird how some systems can 'feel' faster. I think the Windows set in many cases matter. I've always tried to keep the OS as lean as possible, which makes my computer feel snappy compared to others. Software choice matters a lot. Video card also makes a difference, ram, CMOS configuration.
in many cases matter. I've always tried to keep the OS as lean as possible, which makes my computer feel snappy compared to others. Software choice matters a lot. Video card also makes a difference, ram, CMOS configuration.
Switching to Linux and getting rid of Windows will make any machine "Snappier". ;-)
HusTler wrote to Dennisk <=-
Re: Re: Favorite 90s 486 mach
By: Dennisk to
poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Oct 13 2020 08:51
pm
Yeah, its weird how some systems can 'feel' faster. Ithink the Windows set
in many cases matter. I've always tried to keep the OS as lean as possible, which makes my computer feel snappy compared to others. Software choice matters a lot. Video card also makes a difference, ram, CMOS configuration.
Switching to Linux and getting rid of Windows will make any machine "Snappier". ;-)
Switching to Linux and getting rid of Windows will make any machine "Snappier". ;-)
Switching to Linux and getting rid of Windows will make any machine "Snappier". ;-)
Linux is good for programmer or techki person
Linux is not refine like windows but Coming better
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