|
| 1st computer:
In 1986, super fast 8Mhz, came with 256K but bought upgrade to 768K (but DOS could only access 640K), HUGE 10 MB hard drive and MS-DOS 3.2. Ordered the computer and 2 weeks later Zenith doubled the hard disk size for the same price. With WordStar, 13" yellow monitor, for just $2500. By buying through Iowa State saved almost 50%. To save money bought the 8088 instead of the 80286. The 8 Mhz speed made it actually faster than the 286 in some operations. A couple of years later, I put a 30 MB hard card in the computer for a total of 40 MB. To take data in the field we bought a Radio Shack 100 and upgrade the memory to 32 KB. Still have the Model 100. At work, I got to use a Lisa with twin floppies. My wife the Zenith at home.
At work my wife had a 386 Zenith portable computer with a $2000 hard drive. I think it was a super big 80 MB. I had the portable IBM 386 with the plasma (kinda orange) screen. http://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/alf/ps2_p70/ running Windows 3.0 and then the office upgraded to 3.1. Boy what an improvement 3.1 was. IBM was going to a smaller portable and my boss bought 5 or 6 of these computers. This would of been 1992.
2nd computer:
Gateway 486 DX266, with a 40 MB hard disk, probably paid about $2000. A lot cheaper that the first computer (relative for the speed) and a lot faster. Saw the add in PC Mag with the cows on the side of hill in IA. Gateway was still very very young.
Then in '99, we had a had a computer made with a AMD Athlon chip and it cost about $2000. Then a few years later we got this (Dell) computer I am typing on running Vista (running a dual core AMD chip) and it cost about $1500. I bought a new computer last from HP running Vista and it cost $465 with taxes.
I still have all of the motherboards of the computers that we have purchased. I also still have that 10MB hard drive. It is a monster. You can probably stack 4 1TB drives beside it.
What is funny is that the smart phones are faster and more powerful than a lot of computers that I have purchased. Iowa State put out a mips performance for the mainframes that had been purchased during the years. The 8088 was faster (mips wise) than the IBM computer that IState purchased in the mid 60's. I know that DOS could not talk to but one terminal, but it was interesting comparison. | |
|
11 years in computers
