# What is the slowest computer you ever owned?



## TechPowerDown (Aug 22, 2010)

Just thought i'd ask, I am only 16, so i wanna get a taste for how slow things really were back in the day (Hz wise). The furthest back i can remember is a P3 @ 1200MHz with 256MB of SD RAM 

Edit, I Ment P3 @ 1200MHz


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 22, 2010)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS

1 or 2.8 MHz, don't remember which but it definitely had 1 MiB of RAM (that was a selling point XD).


Pentium II never got close to 1 GHz.


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## slyfox2151 (Aug 22, 2010)

back in 2004 i had a 266 P2? with 256mb ram and 16mb video card ... it lastest a week before i got rid of it 


5 month later i build my first pc... AMD athlon 3000 Venis core with a 6600GT and a massive 1GB of ram lol.



FordGT90Concept said:


> Pentium II never got close to 1 GHz.



yeah lol?


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## ERazer (Aug 22, 2010)

computers @ work, swear they get slower everday


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## newtekie1 (Aug 22, 2010)

I still have a laptop running right now that has a 1Ghz P3 w/ 256MB of RAM.

My first PC that I remember the specs on was a i386DX@25Mhz.

Of course I had a Commador 64 @ 1.023 MHz also...


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## JATownes (Aug 22, 2010)

The first computer I remember as "Mine" was an AMD K6-2 @ 533Mhz, with a nice 3DFx Voodoo 2.  But that was way back then.


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## TechPowerDown (Aug 22, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> I still have a laptop running right now that has a 1Ghz P3 w/ 256MB of RAM.
> 
> My first PC that I remember the specs on was a i386DX@25Mhz.
> 
> Of course I had a Commador 64 @ 1.023 MHz also...



I'm so young i've only herd rumors of the commadors lol


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## p_o_s_pc (Aug 22, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> I still have a laptop running right now that has a 1Ghz P3 w/ 256MB of RAM.
> 
> My first PC that I remember the specs on was a *i386DX@25Mhz.*
> 
> Of course I had a Commador 64 @ 1.023 MHz also...



i also had a i386 but it was because i found them 5 at a flea market for 10 bucks for all of them(boards,psus,hdds,ram,heatsinks,cases,etc) 
was worth it just to play around. but that is the slowest pc i have owned.


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## streetfighter 2 (Aug 22, 2010)

Believe it or not but a lot of classic arcade games like Street Fighter II ran on ~12MHz boards.  Most arcade games that use the JAMMA standard ran on very slow processors.  Of course everything was loaded onto ROM chips and there really wasn't a CPU as we think of it today.

I have an Aquarius in the garage.  I never owned a Commodore but those things were awesome back in the day even running at 1MHz.  They still are really cool to learn about.

The start of affordable computing as I remember it was the glorious 6502 (around 2MHz).  Variants of it are still used today.  That thing is awesome!  If you watch Futurama you'll see there is even one in Bender's brain!







The 6502 is probably the most recognized microprocessor ever amongst those in the know.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 22, 2010)

My slowest, still working machine is a Pentium II at I think 266 MHz.


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## Maban (Aug 22, 2010)

If I remember right I had an IBM Personal Computer. My next PC after that had a 75MHz AMD K5.


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## MilkyWay (Aug 22, 2010)

It was a Celeron Pentium 3 cannot remember the clock speed but it ran on the dreaded windows ME, before that i had a Pentium II at around 200mhz but that wasn't exactly slow for its day.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Aug 22, 2010)

IBM 5150.  I still run it.  I can code BASIC FTW!






5mhz clockspeed, 64k ram, B&W graphics, Amber display (I have orange display), hell yeah!

EDIT:  FYI no hard drives.


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## Maban (Aug 22, 2010)

PVTCaboose1337 said:


> IBM 5150.  I still run it.  I can code BASIC FTW!
> 
> http://bunyk.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/ibm_pc_5150.jpg
> 
> ...



Yeah I think that's what mine was.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 22, 2010)

my first was an AMD socket 7 i believe. like 266mhz and i think it had 32mb of ram and some onboard trident grfx. it was super cool.


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## sneekypeet (Aug 22, 2010)

1.023Mhz of awesomesauce


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## 3volvedcombat (Aug 22, 2010)

I still have the intel

INTEL PENTIUM I at 133Mhz right here- beast chips with bigger dies then i7's 

half as light due to ceramic. 

System had 10gb of storage

and 64mb of ram or less

PS: im a 93'er and yes i had and used a computer that old for 6 months.

Today i used my centrino m processor at 1.4Ghz laptop with 1gb of ram

It has verizon security so i stood there and waited 5 minutes to load Internet explorer 

I decided to fix my computer and im back to speed again


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## trickson (Aug 22, 2010)

The commodore 64 was mine then the first Desk top I had was a 486DX2 66Mh That was super slow 64Mb of Ram !


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## erocker (Aug 22, 2010)

Commodore PET 4016

CPU: 8-bit 1Mhz
System Memory: 16kb
Storage: Tape Drive
Video: ? 40x25 Resolution
Sound: Tone Generator w/Internal Speaker
O/S Microsoft Basic

I'm still using a 486SX 66mhz (I think) in my alignment machine.


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## grunt_408 (Aug 22, 2010)

I had a C64. I used to hate waiting for those darn tapes to "LOAD,8" lol 
but then got a floppy drive and an action replay cartridge lol.


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## Lazzer408 (Aug 22, 2010)

First Windows computer I had was a 286 4mhz o/c'd to 6mhz


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## Triprift (Aug 22, 2010)

Amiga 500 brilliant in its day


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## Bundy (Aug 22, 2010)

My first computer was a Sytem-80. There is a fan page here

Specs:
CPU : Z-80, I don't know how fast it went (not very)
RAM : 16 Kb
ROM:`3.5 Kb with inbuilt basic
Storage : audio cassette, I never bought the optional HDD

A good friend of mine had the same model, I remember us reading up on how to OC these babies back then but it sounded too hard. Had to desolder a crystal off the mobo and replace with a faster one. We also had to retrofit them with earthed aluminum foil to cut down the radio noise that affected half the Tv's in the street whenever we turned them on. I nearly lost that rig over making the old mans cricket go to shit.

Now, I realise I am older than my dad was when I got that first computer

PS - YES I still have it and it still works, 28 years later


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## Mussels (Aug 22, 2010)

my first GF had a 16Mhz mac with 8MB of ram.


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## p_o_s_pc (Aug 22, 2010)

Lazzer408 said:


> First Windows computer I had was a 286 4mhz o/c'd to 6mhz



a 50% overclock  what would it take to get a 100% overclock?


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## n-ster (Aug 22, 2010)

I had a 400mhz once... I don't remeber amd or intel, think it was amd...

When I started gaming more was on some 800mhz processor, idk which again. I was rocking Need for speed III hot pursuit and fifa 2000 all day long xD


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## crazyeyesreaper (Aug 22, 2010)

Commodore PC 10 was my first PC 
http://www.myoldcomputers.com/museum/comp/commodore_pc_10_ii.htm

no idea what the specs were but there ya go that is the slowest PC i have owned / used


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## MohawkAngel (Aug 22, 2010)

It was a Intel 233MMX with 3½  and 5¼ reader 128 megs rams and 10 gigs hdd...this was THE bomb at that time


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## Mussels (Aug 22, 2010)

my first PC that i owned, was a Pentium 90 w/ 32MB of ram and a 512KB video card. i upgraded to 64MB for the extra maps in total annihilation core contingency


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## MT Alex (Aug 22, 2010)

Well, after a couple of TRS-80s and the like, I got one of these babies, which was awesome, it had cartriges instead of cassette tape drives.

The Texas Instruments TI-99.  I used to dick around with "ti basic," making my own text adventures and scrolling character graphics.  I also logged tons of hours playing Parsec, a fantastic space shooter based on Scramble, and Munch Man, a knock off Pac Man type game.


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## theonedub (Aug 22, 2010)

First computer I had was an XT my dad picked up from one of his coworkers. Super basic, monochrome display, ran DOS, and played Colossal Cave Adventure and Chess  First modern (At the time) computer was an IBM Aptiva Pentium 100.


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## Perseid (Aug 22, 2010)

I thought I was going to say the TI 994/a, but surprisingly Wikipedia says that machine was 3Mhz, so I guess my C-64 at 1.023 MHz is the slowest. What did TI do wrong that the 994/a was 3 times the CPU power of the C-64 but so lacking in...everything compared to the awesomeness of the 64.

The first "IBM compatible" PC I had was a 286-16. 2MB of RAM I think. 40MB HDD. Heh.


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## kurosagi01 (Aug 22, 2010)

my first over priced piece of junk desktop my parents bought from pc crap*pc world*


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## Batou1986 (Aug 22, 2010)

my first was an ibm ps1 running win 3.1, still runs today without a hitch amazingly 
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=1274


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## TechPowerDown (Aug 22, 2010)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> Commodore PC 10 was my first PC
> http://www.myoldcomputers.com/museum/comp/commodore_pc_10_ii.htm
> 
> no idea what the specs were but there ya go that is the slowest PC i have owned / used



2 Floppy drives!!!??? WWHHAAATTTT


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## p_o_s_pc (Aug 22, 2010)

didn't you have the P3 when i met you and i had the x2 4600+ at the time?


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## TechPowerDown (Aug 22, 2010)

p_o_s_pc said:


> didn't you have the P3 when i met you and i had the x2 4600+ at the time?



no i had a celly that hit 1.8GHz with a pin mod and 512MB of SD RAM! YAYAYAY


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## Solaris17 (Aug 22, 2010)

p_o_s_pc said:


> a 50% overclock  what would it take to get a 100% overclock?



He-4 

a.k.a. liquid helium.


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## Wyverex (Aug 22, 2010)

My first computer was AMD K6 at 100 MHz with 16 (or was it 32) MB of RAM, which would've been good, had I not gotten it during Pentium 4 era  My family was poor

Nowdays, when I buy my own stuff, I'm quite happy with my configuration


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## shevanel (Aug 22, 2010)

I had a 266mhz machine with 64mb of ram... MMX baby!


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## Lionheart (Aug 22, 2010)

Well my first family computer I should say was so popular but I don't remember the spec's of it, because I was only like 4yrs old or younger, and somehow I reconfigured the whole damn computer and I knew what I was doing, somehow, thats what my older bro's and sister's said lol but it had one of those old big floppy drives

Second family PC we got was a a Pentium 200MHZ with MMX technology 32MB SD RAM and 2MB video card floppy drive and CD ROM drive & a 2GB HDD it was a Packard Bell and all I played on it was some car game called POD and encyclopedia encartia 96 or sum shit lol


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## Nosada (Aug 22, 2010)

25Mhz 486 DX with 4Mb of RAM (and a turbo button!). I had to use a bootdisk and use LOAD HIGH to get X-COM to run. Good times


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## Steevo (Aug 22, 2010)

I found a really old i386DX PC that was used as a frame replay to twinax converter a few years ago. It wouldn't even run tiny linux. It was running some custom software though. The oldest I owned as a personal machine was a 266Mhz Intel. That one desktop case lasted me through 5 upgrades.


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## KingPing (Aug 22, 2010)

The first was a 386 something. I was too young and i don't remember more about that. The second one, i still have the manual, was (it's no longer with us ) a Cyrix 586 100 mhz with 8 mb of RAM


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## HUSKIE (Aug 22, 2010)

mine is a pentium II 266mhz... way back 90's


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## Widjaja (Aug 22, 2010)

Looking at this picture bring backs some good memories.
Street Fighter II, Dune II, Wing Commander, Sid Meier's Pirates, Cilvilization, Colonization & Secret of Monkey Island.

And some bad ones.....Please Insert Disk 2....Please insert disk three.....please insert disk one again.....
And the disk noises.....dit dit dit dit dit dit dit dit............
nrrrrrn nrrrrrrrn! 
nrrrrrrrrrn nrrrrrrrn!
dit dit dit dit dit dit dit dit dit.....

To think....the piece of metal to the left was the 512kb memory expansion card.


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## Solaris17 (Aug 22, 2010)

KingPing said:


> The first was a 386 something. I was too young and i don't remember more about that. The second one, i still have the manual, was (it's no longer with us ) a Cyrix 586 100 mhz with 8 mb of RAM



i feel your lose bro  i just took a moment of silence.


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## shevanel (Aug 22, 2010)

LOL I'll take you way back, the first PC games I ever played was DUNE II and Commander Keen on a 500mhz system


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## CounterZeus (Aug 22, 2010)

pentium 120MHz 16 megs ram (upgraded to 32MB), diamond 1MB videocard(think this was also an upgrade/replacement), 1.2GB hard disk with windows 95. I think I played with with win 3.11 on a 286/386, but that was our spare pc back in the mid 90's and I can't remember specs ^^


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## mm67 (Aug 22, 2010)

This one:





VIC-20, about 1 MHz processor.


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## brandonwh64 (Aug 22, 2010)

The slowest PC i ever owned was when i was 13yrs old and it was a Packard Bell (when they were popular in the US) and it was a 386dx with 4MB of ram and a 256mb hard drive with sound blaster 16 sound. This PC was for playing doom when it came out but doom was sluggish on it so i begged my dad to upgrade the ram to 16mb and it played fine. 

The next slowest PC ive had was a AMD K6 400Mhz 3D CPU with an old socket 7 board that used AGP (the first version) and had 64mb of ram. This PC lasted me a VERY long time and i upgraded the ram to up to 512mb and the video card went from a 3DFX VooDoo 3 2000 to a ATI 7000 to a ATI radeon 9000 at the very end of its days.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Aug 22, 2010)

You could have probably asked what the first pc we ever had was and gotten the same answers.


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## r9 (Aug 22, 2010)

I`v had commodore64 then amiga520(I think that was the model - With 1MB ram ) and then 386 40 MHz and 4 mb ram monster .


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## Completely Bonkers (Aug 22, 2010)

Slowest: ZX81 running 3Mhz Z80 processor, which did all the I/O and GPU work too! It came with 1K RAM and was quickly upgraded to 16K.  That is K. ie just 1024 bytes.

Next up was Acorn BBC Micro. 6502. 2Mhz. Much faster than the ZX81. The 6502 was a more efficient processor (it could do more in a single clock cycle, whereas the Z80 took a few... Mhz is not always better). It came with 32K RAM.  Quickly upgraded to 65C02 4Mhz.  The BBC Micro has some amazing games and arcade conversions. Great first time programming tool with BBC Basic. The best.


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## pantherx12 (Aug 22, 2010)

Had an Atari ST520E when I was a lad, Literally grew up with the thing, been gaming since about 3 

Probably had a bash of it younger but with no finesse.


It was a blistering 8MHZ of POWA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## majestic12 (Aug 22, 2010)

I grew up with an Apple IIe that was extremely slow.  For computers that I've owned, I'd have to say the slowest was my first build when I was  12... It was a 40MHz 386DX with 4 megs of RAM and a 130 meg hard drive (the whole system was built for around $2000 USD).  Significant upgrades later on included a Sound Blaster-16 and a dual speed CD-ROM.  That upgrade alone was over $500.  I love how much cheaper the hobby has gotten since those days.

Edit: I also remember how much tougher those 16-bit ISA bus slots were to get cards into them compared to modern solutions.  I've got a nice scar on my pinky from that Sound Blaster!


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## Tatty_One (Aug 22, 2010)

My first PC was the BBC Micro (Basic), it came with 16kb (yes thats Kilobyte ) of ram and a 4hz (yes thats hertz) processor if my memory serves me correctly.

I think I got it for my 21st birthday (1981), well part paid by my then fiancee (now my wife) and I paid some towards it too.

here is a pic...... the screen was a black and white thing with a 10 inch screen that was less complex than a barcode reader's LCD.


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## BarbaricSoul (Aug 22, 2010)

mm67 said:


> This one:
> http://forums.techpowerup.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=37569&stc=1&d=1282468909
> 
> VIC-20, about 1 MHz processor.



that was my slowest also


CPU: MOS 6502, 1MHz 
RAM: 5K (3.5K for the user) 
Display: 22 X 23 text 
 176 X 184, 16 colors max 
Ports: composite video 
 joystick, cartridge, user port 
 serial peripheral port 
Peripherals: cassette recorder 
 printer, modem 
 external floppy drive 
OS: ROM BASIC


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## El_Mayo (Aug 22, 2010)

TechPowerDown said:


> Just thought i'd ask, I am only 16, so i wanna get a taste for how slow things really were back in the day (Hz wise). The furthest back i can remember is a P3 @ 1200MHz with 256MB of SD RAM
> 
> Edit, I Ment P3 @ 1200MHz



Finally... someone who may be younger than me >


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## Spamhawk (Aug 22, 2010)

I was pretty young back then, like 12 or so I think (I'm 23 now btw) and I can't remember the specs but the only thing I do remember I that it ran windows 3.1, that was the first and slowest computer I owned.


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## Triprift (Aug 22, 2010)

Widjaja said:


> http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/amiga/h/a500ful.jpg
> 
> Looking at this picture bring backs some good memories.
> Street Fighter II, Dune II, Wing Commander, Sid Meier's Pirates, Cilvilization, Colonization & Secret of Monkey Island.
> ...



The noises were epic sounded almost like a chainsaw.

My fav games from it was Wings, It came from the desert and Antheads.


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## Kreij (Aug 22, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> My first PC was the BBC Micro (Basic), it came with 16kb (yes thats Kilobyte ) of ram and *a 4hz (yes thats hertz) processor if my memory serves me correctly.*



The BBC Models used a 6502 processor running at 1.8 Mhz. source

A 4Hz computer would be pointless. It would take forever to process a single keystroke.
You could write faster. 

My first computer was a TI 99/4A running at a whopping 3Mhz and loaded to the max with 16KB of RAM. Second was an IBM PC XT (8088-2 w/ an 8087 math co-processor) that ran at 4.77 MHz (in turbo mode ) and was loaded with 640KB of RAM.


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## Tatty_One (Aug 22, 2010)

Kreij said:


> The BBC Models used a 6502 processor running at 1.8 Mhz. source




A 4Hz computer would be pointless. It would take forever to process a single keystroke.
You could write faster. 

My first computer was a TI 99/4A running at a whopping 3Mhz and loaded to the max with 16KB of RAM. Second was an IBM PC XT (8088-2 w/ an 8087 math co-processor) that ran at 4.77 MHz (in turbo mode ) and was loaded with 640KB of RAM.[/QUOTE]

Lol, I thought I meant Mhz


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## hat (Aug 22, 2010)

I have a 300MHz Pentium 2 in my closet. I was using it in my slot 1 Pentium 3 750MHz system for a while, as I had to find a BIOS update for the board (Chaintech 6BTM0) before it would recgonize the P3.


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## Melvis (Aug 22, 2010)

Officially the Amiga 2000 (still runs) but we also got a commodore 64 many yrs down the track with a bazillion games. ( Couldn't let it go to the trash can, Also still runs)

Then we skipped 10yrs forward to Skt A 2100+ lol


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## mdsx1950 (Aug 22, 2010)

The first comp i ever owned (1998)

Pentium II 233Mhz, 32MB ram, 1GB HDD lol.


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## TechPowerDown (Aug 22, 2010)

After reading all these responses i couldn't imagine going back in time, using some of those right. I'm pretty sure i'd go insane.


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## choppy (Aug 22, 2010)

the first computer i ever bought: p3 800mhz, 64mb ram


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## Jaffakeik (Aug 22, 2010)

My father owned this one back in 1990 when i was 5years old but i remember it like today when i played simple games on it.But my first PC I owned was in 2008 and it was normal gaming pc.
                           !!!!! 
                            !!!
                             !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum


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## wolf (Aug 22, 2010)

I specifically remember MY first pc that was entirely mine to keep and hold and love... was a PII MMX 233mhz, 128mb ram (i think...) and a 64mb PCI Geforce 2 MX200.

Good memories of games like Red Faction and Soldier of Fortune on that box


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## AsphyxiA (Aug 22, 2010)

first computer was a 486 machine that dad picked up from work.  It had 4mb of ram and Doom ran awesome on it!
my next system had a Cyrix MII-433GP <had to look that up>.  It was the shiz and a big upgrade from what I had been using at the time.


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## KainXS (Aug 22, 2010)

aww man 
mine was the IBM  AT the "fast" 8mhz version of it, that thing was my first pc, I used it until 1998, set it on fire afterwards(really did), replaced it with a compaq with a K-6, not even a year after having it got the I love you virus and got wrecked.

first laptop was the powerbook 170, I used it until the big ball in the middle came out and it wouldn't work anymore(took a hammer to it, didn't break) then I got a pentium 2 Toshiba Portege crap laptop

its funny how tough the computers were back then, even when you tried to break them they were hard to break.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Aug 22, 2010)

KainXS said:


> aww man
> mine was the IBM  AT the "fast" 8mhz version of it, that thing was my first pc, I used it until 1998, set it on fire afterwards(really did), replaced it with a compaq with a K-6, not even a year after having it got the I love you virus and got wrecked.
> 
> first laptop was the powerbook 170, I used it until the big ball in the middle came out and it wouldn't work anymore(took a hammer to it, didn't break) then I got a pentium 2 Toshiba Portege crap laptop
> ...



The IBM PC's were amazingly tough.  Built like tanks.  Even the circuits are hardcore.  Mine has that meshing over the inside of the case for protection from ESD (or EMP?) but I am unsure if this is standard.  Too bad I have a standard PC, not AT.  I have an 8088 in mine (AMD made!).


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## p_o_s_pc (Aug 22, 2010)

TechPowerDown said:


> no i had a celly that hit 1.8GHz with a pin mod and 512MB of SD RAM! YAYAYAY



ahh yes pin mods.I lost a few cellys and P3's also a few socket A's along with a P4 478 northwood. 
nothing like pushing wayyy to high of voltage for a good bench score or a CPU-Z validation


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## BazookaJoe (Aug 22, 2010)

My First and Slowest Computer : 1982 ZX Spectrum, 3.5 MHz






But My first actual PC was a 8Mhz Generic PC 286 (15Mhz on turbo), with grayscale CGA, and 40Mb Hdd, and 1.2Mb FDD.

GOOD times.


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## TechPowerDown (Aug 22, 2010)

BazookaJoe said:


> My First and Slowest Computer : 1982 ZX Spectrum, 3.5 MHz
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/100822/Capture062.jpg
> 
> ...



I always wondered what the turbo button on some of my ex step-dads computers were ment for, was it a overclock button?


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## p_o_s_pc (Aug 22, 2010)

TechPowerDown said:


> I always wondered what the* turbo button* on some of my ex step-dads computers were ment for, *was it a overclock button*?



basically yes


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## BazookaJoe (Aug 22, 2010)

TechPowerDown said:


> I always wondered what the turbo button on some of my ex step-dads computers were ment for, was it a overclock button?



Sort of... 

Turning it off was more of an *Under Clock* feature - Many games made originally for XT computers, which typically maxed out at around 6Mhz, where simply too fast to play on 286's, as they actually counted CPU cycles to control the speed at which the game ran.

If it was designed for a 4mhz XT, and you ran it on a 12 Mhz 286, it would pretty much become unplayable as it would be running in fast forward :\

So there was an option to run the PC at slow and high speeds I suppose to suite the needs of whatever you where doing at tie time.

As time went on this distinction got a little confused as it moved on to 386's & 486's... By then I suppose it became more about having a lower power / heat mode depending on the model? as even the slow speeds where beginning to pass beyond 20Mhz...

So yeah the "TURBO" button originally was only there to set the 286 to run at its NORMAL speed, or roughly half its speed by turning it off, for some degree of backwards compatibility, and it just kinda stuck with pc's for a few generations after that during which its actual purpose became a little lost & confused.


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## Mussels (Aug 22, 2010)

TechPowerDown said:


> I always wondered what the turbo button on some of my ex step-dads computers were ment for, was it a overclock button?



back then programs didnt have in built speed limitations, they went as fast as the code could be executed.

the turbo button could be used to make programs faster, or in reverse, it made the faster systems run SLOWER, so that older apps ran at normal speed.


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## Perseid (Aug 22, 2010)

TechPowerDown said:


> After reading all these responses i couldn't imagine going back in time, using some of those right. I'm pretty sure i'd go insane.



When I use the C-64 emulator I can rarely wait for a game to load without turning on warp mode, whereas I used to have to wait the 5 minutes it sometimes took for the game to appear. Some games that loaded from tape took so long to load that it would first load a minigame you could play while you waited for the actual game to load. No joke. Old computers taught patience.


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## p_o_s_pc (Aug 22, 2010)

Perseid said:


> When I use the C-64 emulator I can rarely wait for a game to load without turning on warp mode, whereas* I used to have to wait the 5 minutes it sometimes took for the game to appear*. Some games that loaded from tape took so long to load that it would first load a minigame you could play while you waited for the actual game to load. No joke. Old computers taught patience.



people would be bitching on every forum out there if they had to wait that long now. and some would be getting highend CPU's,ton of ram and raid 0 4 SSD's to get load time down


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## BazookaJoe (Aug 22, 2010)

I had a buddy with a C64 - and some penguin game or something - thing would take AGES to load - then fail and you rewind the tape and try again and again before it loaded.


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## TechPowerDown (Aug 22, 2010)

BazookaJoe said:


> I had a buddy with a C64 - and some penguin game or something - thing would take AGES to load - then fail and you rewind the tape and try again and again before it loaded.



That sounds like th 6th circle of hell


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## p_o_s_pc (Aug 22, 2010)

BazookaJoe said:


> I had a buddy with a C64 - and some penguin game or something - thing would take AGES to load - then fail and you rewind the tape and try again and again before it loaded.



that would be going out of the window while i


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## TechPowerDown (Aug 22, 2010)

BazookaJoe said:


> I had a buddy with a C64 - and some penguin game or something - thing would take AGES to load - then fail and you *rewind the tape* and try again and again before it loaded.



They used to make games on tapes? lol. when did floppy's become a big thing, and i've heard rumors they haven't always been 3 1/2"


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## Perseid (Aug 22, 2010)

TechPowerDown said:


> They used to make games on tapes? lol. when did floppy's become a big thing, and i've heard rumors they haven't always been 3 1/2"



https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...isk_2009_G1.jpg/800px-Floppy_disk_2009_G1.jpg

C-64 used the 5 1/4 inch(orange). I never used a computer with 8 inch.


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## Nosada (Aug 22, 2010)

TechPowerDown said:


> They used to make games on tapes? lol. when did floppy's become a big thing, and i've heard rumors they haven't always been 3 1/2"









Edit: Perseid beat me too it


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## Perseid (Aug 22, 2010)

Haha. Jinx!


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## TechPowerDown (Aug 22, 2010)

Nosada said:


> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Floppy_disk_2009_G1.jpg
> 
> Edit: Perseid beat me too it



lol @ 8 1/2" floppy, maybe those ones were floppy, i never understood why they called them that...


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## Perseid (Aug 22, 2010)

TechPowerDown said:


> lol @ 8 1/2" floppy, maybe those ones were floppy, i never understood why they called them that...



They were thin and floppy, but when 3 1/2 inch came out they used harder plastic but the tech was the same, so they didn't change the name. A lot of kids at school called 3 1/2s 'hard discs' because they weren't floppy and it used to annoy me to no end. LOL


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## KingPing (Aug 22, 2010)

The slowest PC i still have (fully fuctional is a Pentium 2 MMX 200Mhz with 128Mb of RAM, a 3dfx Voodoo 2 12Mb VGA, with a 800Mb (yes megabytes) HD, the HD has a lot of old games in DOS, like Cisco Heat, i played that game a lot, like a crazy kid. I played C&C, and C&C Red Alert for hours on that PC. Good old times


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## DonInKansas (Aug 22, 2010)

Floppy discs were floppy until the 3 1/2 came out.

This is the first comp I remember.....Vic 20 ftw bitches.


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## BondExtreme (Aug 22, 2010)

This was only in 1998 where me and my family started a little late in the computer industry 
We got our first Windows 98 and my goodness.. It was so terrible I don't even want to remember the specs. Thing literally almost burned down.


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## cadaveca (Aug 22, 2010)

BazookaJoe said:


> I had a buddy with a C64 - and some penguin game or something - thing would take AGES to load - then fail and you rewind the tape and try again and again before it loaded.



Pengo. I can remember the theme music all too well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pengo_(video_game)


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## BazookaJoe (Aug 22, 2010)

cadaveca said:


> Pengo. I can remember the theme music all too well.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pengo_(video_game)



That's the one


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## Kreij (Aug 22, 2010)

A little more info on the "Turbo" button for anyone who cares.
Early programs used "no-op" statements to delay the execution of the program. So if you wanted to delay the program 1 second, you did a loop of some number of no-ops and then continued on. This is how the graphics were originally timed.
A no-op statement just told the processor to do nothing (waste a couple of CPU cycles)
As you can guess a program written to run at normal speed on a 1MHz processor would run four times as fast on a 4MHz processor (a good example was the original Space Invaders for the PC). So basically you started the game and the aliens would marched down and destroyed your ship before you could react. rolf. 
Thus the "Turbo" button. To slow down the processor for compatibility with games written that way. A more appropriate name for it would have been "Slow Down" button. You always ran the computer with the turbo on for everything other than incompatible games.

Now programs use timers and the system clock to get actual delay times regardless of the CPU speed.

I would like to see the original 1MHz Space Invaders run on a 3GHz processor just for the fun of it.


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## vMG (Aug 22, 2010)

P2 @ less than 400Mhz and 16mb of ram.

it also ran 56k modem. this was back in the late 90's. like 1998-99.

may have been a P1...


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## t77snapshot (Aug 22, 2010)

Back in 97' (high school) I had a Pentium 2 running @ 233mhz and with 512K of L2 cache.....wow


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## Lazzer408 (Aug 22, 2010)

DonInKansas said:


> Floppy discs were floppy until the 3 1/2 came out.





Perseid said:


> They were thin and floppy, but when 3 1/2 inch came out they used harder plastic but the tech was the same, so they didn't change the name. A lot of kids at school called 3 1/2s 'hard discs' because they weren't floppy and it used to annoy me to no end. LOL



The disk media itself is floppy. The case was not. Hard case, floppy disk. It's still a floppy disk.


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## BazookaJoe (Aug 22, 2010)

Kreij said:


> A little more info on the "Turbo" button for anyone who cares.



And to expand on this a little further let me quickly explain the "*Runtime error 200 - Division by 0*" that many of us old - timers began to suffer as we moved on to newer Pentiums, and our old favorites gave up on us.

Basically as pc's got faster they needed a way to keep the "speed" of programs, such as games, constant so the play experience would be similar from one machine to another.

No longer able to "time" a game based on CPU speed a new method was developed where by every time the game/program started up, a mundane predictable equation such as (FOR EXAMPLE AND EASE OF EXPLANATION ONLY - Yes I KNOW it wasn't this EXACT method - I'm just explaining the general Idea) "10 x 10" would be performed lets say 1000 times. the program would take the time down to the thousandth of a second before and after performing this quick test loop and calculate how long it took to perform the test.

This could then be used to calculate how many loops of said test equation one would have to do to take exactly 1 millisecond, (1/1000 of a second) then, in the game programming itself, if it called for an event to be delayed by lets say 100 milliseconds it would then perform the test loop that many times*100 at that part of the program, an a delay of the same rough amount of real world time would be achieved across a wide range of CPU speeds

By recalculating this figure at start up every time a program was run it was always reasonably well calibrated, and this worked great until round about the Pentium era, where this initial reference loop test began to take LESS than 1 millisecond to perform.

Then when it became time to DIVIDE the number of loops VS time passed, 0 time had passed during the test as the test was only timing down to the thousandth of a second, and as said the reference test took LESS than 1/1000  of a second.

And BAM "*Runtime error 200 - Division by 0*" and yer game crashed :\ and all of a sudden our fancy new pc's couldn't run many of our old classics because they where just too fast.

Note : Technical fellows - I KNOW that this is not the 100% exact method but I'm trying to keep things short here


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## RoutedScripter (Aug 22, 2010)

Belinea very old monitor 16'
I don't even know processor specs but i suspect it was pentium of some kind
32 MB ram
no GPU(integrated)
40 gb hdd


Just had it thrown away like a year ago an i looked inside but don't remember much , it was from 1997.


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## PVTCaboose1337 (Aug 22, 2010)

Posting pictures is a bonus.  Anyone have them in the early 70s or something posing with a computer?  

Anyway, I have pictures of my 5150 somewhere...

EDIT:  Found it!


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## boulard83 (Aug 22, 2010)

I had an Amiga 2000. 

*CPU:* Motorola 68000 (7.16 MHz NTSC, 7.09 MHz PAL)
*Memory :* 256 KB ROM for Kickstart code + 512 KB (Max) / (1 MB Max) of Chip RAM.
512 KB Fast RAM in MMU slot (in some Model As only) / Soldered on motherboard
*Storage :* 3.5" DD Floppy drive, capacity 880 KB


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## MohawkAngel (Aug 22, 2010)

Hey Boulard le Québécois de quelle ville viens tu ???


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## msgclb (Aug 22, 2010)

*South West Technical Products with Motorola 6800 CPU
*

Specs:

Prosessor: 6800 later followed by the 6809
Bus: SS-50, a 50 pins bus
Date: some after July 1975
Ram: up to 48k ram
Media: 300 baud tape recorder
Disk: 5.25 ", used SS SD hardsectored 85K data, 35 tracks, 34 users, 10 sec/track, 4 taken by Dos.
Language: basic OS in PROM
Operating Systems: MINIDOS
Rom: up to 8K, ROM or EPROM
RS-232 type serial interface
Screen and keyboard: Information is entered into the SWTPC 6800 by an external terminal, or any other input device that can be connected to an 8-bit ASCII

Here's a link.

I got mine either late 1976 or early 1977. It came as a kit. I had to solder the chips or sockets to circuit boards, assemble and power up. Guess what, it didn't start! I sat down with the computer store's technician and several hours later we found a missing trace. A little repair and I had my first computer operating.

For storage I started out with a cassette recorder but soon had a 5.25" disk. I later had a 8" disk system. I believe the processor ran at 1 MHz but there were 1.5 MHz and 2 MHz version of the 6800. I later got a 6809.


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## HoboBob (Aug 22, 2010)

Old stuff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_2 same model but with a black and white TV with adapter. I was even lucky to have a joystick.

HoboBob


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## msgclb (Aug 23, 2010)

When I bought my first computer I had a choice of the SWTP 6800 or the original Apple. I choose the cheaper as the Apple was outrageously expensive.

I've also had two different Atari's, then I believe an Amiga 500 then finally my first PC. You could say it was also a kit without the soldering. I haven't owned a PC that I didn't select all the components as most of us probably do today.

I believe my first PC was a 286. Every since then I've been swapping out motherboards, processors, memory, drives, OS, etc.


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## boulard83 (Aug 23, 2010)

MohawkAngel said:


> Hey Boulard le Québécois de quelle ville viens tu ???



South from Trois-Rivières. But i work in Trois-Rivières. 

U ?


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## sttubs (Aug 23, 2010)

I bought my first computer in 1995, I can't remember too much about it other than it was a Packard Bell with a whopping 512mb _harddrive_ and I think it ran Windows 3.0?


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## TheMailMan78 (Aug 23, 2010)

SUCK IT @ 8bit, 1.19MHz


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## motasim (Aug 23, 2010)

My first computer was a Sakhr MSX AX-170 with the following specs:

    * Processor: Zilog Z80A running at 3.58 MHz
    * ROM: 32 KB
          o BIOS (16 KB)
          o MSX BASIC V1.0 (16 KB)
    * RAM: 64K
    * Video Display Processor: Texas Instruments TMS9918 family
          o Video RAM: 16 KB
          o Resolution: 256×192 (16 colours)[13]
    * Sound chip: General Instrument AY-3-8910 (PSG)

We've gone a long way, haven't we?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX


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## Perseid (Aug 23, 2010)

Interesting. I didn't know the MSX was popular in the middle east. I always thought it was more of an Asian phenomenon. Here in the US I've never even seen one outside of pictures.


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## mjkmike (Aug 23, 2010)

My first was a tandy model one.  My older brother built a rokwell Aim 6502.  Great times


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## Widjaja (Aug 23, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> http://www.atariage.com/2600/systems/sys_Atari2600.jpg
> 
> SUCK IT @ 8bit, 1.19MHz



Wow nostalgia.....
That was my babysitter in the early 80s!


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## ASRockIQ (Aug 23, 2010)

Far back when i was just maybe 7 was my Grandpa P1 133mhz, 10GB HDD, and only 16MB of RAM "Later to 32MB Lol" and some GPU with 4MB of VRAM . running Windows 98. aww... 98 was the Shitz back then. later i built my own AMD System socket A Based 1.6GHZ, 384MB of RAM, Powercolor ATI 9600PRO 256MB, 40GB HDD, Win. 98SE, then Full Format to Xp *Baby


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## TechPowerDown (Aug 23, 2010)

ASRockIQ said:


> Far back when i was just maybe 7 was my Grandpa P1 133mhz, 10GB HDD, and only 16MB of RAM "Later to 32MB Lol" and some GPU with 4MB of VRAM . running Windows 98. aww... 98 was the Shitz back then. later i built my own *AMD System socket A Based* 1.6GHZ, 384MB of RAM,* Powercolor ATI 9600PRO *256MB, 40GB HDD, Win. 98SE, then Full Format to Xp *Baby



old school AMD FTW


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## majestic12 (Aug 23, 2010)

My 386 chip was made by AMD... like 18 years ago.  40MHz of power!


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## BazookaJoe (Aug 23, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> http://www.atariage.com/2600/systems/sys_Atari2600.jpg
> 
> SUCK IT @ 8bit, 1.19MHz



Sadly - Disqualified.

I had one too, but this is just a personal/home games console - not a "Computer"


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## Delta6326 (Aug 23, 2010)

well ummmm. slowest computer i ever had would be a Q6600@3ghz 4gb of 4-4-4-12 800hmhz..... oh wait the only computer i have ever had is my current one  IM just a young-ling


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## p_o_s_pc (Aug 23, 2010)

my slowest that i owned was some kind of AMD k5 or K6 made by packered bell. 
this is other then the 386 that i played around with just for the hell of it.


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## MilkyWay (Aug 23, 2010)

In the UK everyone and their granny had a Spectrum or something similar.
EDIT: At that time of course.


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## Vrgn86 (Aug 23, 2010)

Kaypro 8086


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## motasim (Aug 23, 2010)

Perseid said:


> Interesting. I didn't know the MSX was popular in the middle east. I always thought it was more of an Asian phenomenon. Here in the US I've never even seen one outside of pictures.



Sure, it was very popular in the middle east between 1985-1989 until the PC came and took its place. My first computer was the Sakhr MSX AX-170 (MSX1 spec) and a couple of years later I got the Sakhr MSX AX-500 (MSX2 spec),  those were the days.


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## xu^ (Aug 23, 2010)

my 1st PC was a 486dx2  66mhz with a 1/2 mb grafix card and 4mb ram , i remember buying Doom 2 for it ,and having to rush back to computer shop to buy more ram as 4mb wasnt enuff to get sound effects lol ,previous to that i had plenty of Amigas A500/A600/A1200 and an Atari 520 ST.


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## Frederik S (Aug 23, 2010)

I got a IBM PS/1 for my fifth birthday hell yeah back in 1993  





Later on I got a PS/2 and then moved on to something built in Denmark.


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Aug 23, 2010)

I had a clone IBM 286 (didnt got the clockrate and other specs... didnt know what pc specs were when I was young..) with a monochrome monitor XD. good thing about it is that it came with a 3" floppy drive.. Played test drive 1, 2, GoldenAxe, pacman, alleycat, sokoban, and other oldies lol. It was booting on an ms dos 6.22 from a disk and had no hardrive.


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## erixx (Aug 23, 2010)

386 !!! Still working! (not!, lol)


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## Towly (Aug 23, 2010)

*Way back*

I had a celeron 233Mhz back in the day the slot 1 type. with 64Mb ram and 2GB hdd space.
Was running Win98.


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## Bo$$ (Aug 23, 2010)

pentium 2 machine....


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## rodneyhchef (Aug 23, 2010)

r9 said:


> I`v had commodore64 then amiga520(I think that was the model - With 1MB ram ) and then 386 40 MHz and 4 mb ram monster .



There was no amiga 520 computer. 520 was the number assigned to the optional RF modulator (so you could plug your amiga 500/500Plus into a TV without a scart socket), but there was an Atari 520ST (similar to an amiga, but not an amiga) The Amiga 500 Plus had 1Mb of ram.



streetfighter 2 said:


> Believe it or not but a lot of classic arcade games like Street Fighter II ran on ~12MHz boards.  Most arcade games that use the JAMMA standard ran on very slow processors.  Of course everything was loaded onto ROM chips and there really wasn't a CPU as we think of it today.
> 
> I have an Aquarius in the garage.  I never owned a Commodore but those things were awesome back in the day even running at 1MHz.  They still are really cool to learn about.
> 
> ...




My first computer was an original Nintendo. Been an interesting read about the 6502 processor! Basically everything had one! (or a derivative)  So I guess that's the slowest computer I've ever owned, but my amiga 1200 felt slower. Damn floppy disks!  

My first PC was a P75 o/c'd to 100MHz, Intel 430VX mobo, 32mb SD ram, 2mb cirrus logic video card and a sound blaster 16 clone. Still got this computer today, although everything bar the motherboard has been upgraded. It's now got a 200MHz pentium MMX, 64mb ram, sound blaster awe 32 and a 32mb geforce 2 mx graphics card, just for when I feel the need for a touch of nostalgia (or when I need to look at my old volkswagen car parts catalogue that's incompatible with windows 7)


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## mordant80 (Aug 23, 2010)

I miss my XT..  4.77Mhz of greatness!  That bad boy had 640k of ram.. not the half ass 560k like some of them had.  I had a CGA video card in that monster with a CGA monitor connected of course.  To hell with that monochrome shit.  Also had a sweet 1200baud external modem hooked up to call up all the kick ass local BBS'. (Yall remember Xmodem file transfer protocals.. YEEEAAA!) To top it off I added a 40MB Hard drive to that thing.  That baby was king of the XT's I'm tellin ya.  I played Chuck Yeagers Flight Simulator constantly on that thing..  He's kind of a local hero here ya know.


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## Jakeman97 (Aug 29, 2010)

Had a 386SX with a math co-processor, 640K RAM, 10MB Hard Drive, and Windows 3.0 it had two balls of brass to keep it clean, and the whole fr****n jigger was run by steam....so help me god it was!


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## nailzer (Aug 29, 2010)

Atari 400, bought new by me in 1981. Rockwell 6502 processor @ 1.79 MHz, 8k memory. Storage was a miserable, slow, frustrating tape drive.


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## johnspack (Aug 29, 2010)

For me that would be an original IBM PC with an 8088 at 4.77Mhz.  Which I quickly upgraded to an NEC V20..  been upgrading ever since!


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## mstenholm (Aug 29, 2010)

NEC V20 FTW. Did the same with mine.


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## AlienIsGOD (Aug 29, 2010)

Slowest my FAMILY had.. Tandy 1000 circa late 80s, in my adult life the slowest I've ever owned was a Celeron D @2.4ghz 256mb cache, 1 Gig generic ram, ATI Radeon 9250 LE 256MB (Later upgraded to X1600 Pro 512MB), and a 80GB IDE Seagate drive.


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## T3kl0rd (Aug 29, 2010)

Surprised at the amount of Amigas listed.  My dad gave me his 500 when he got a 2000.  We had a Magnavox Odessey 2 for a console.  My dad was involved with micro processors before there were screens to view data on.


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## CDdude55 (Aug 29, 2010)

> What is the slowest computer you ever owned?



I'd assume that the slowest computer someone has ever owned would be the first computer they have owned/used.


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## ucanmandaa (Aug 29, 2010)

Amstrad PC1512. 8mhz 8086 cpu, 512kb ram, 10mb harddisk and a 4 color screen. I played prince of persia to death on that machine.


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## DaveK (Aug 30, 2010)

Slowest I've owned was my last computer. A Dell Dimension 3100 with a 3GHz Pentium 4 with 512MB DDR2 533MHz.


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## stefanels (Aug 30, 2010)

In 96 a Pentium 90Mhz, 32Mb EDO-Ram (4stick 8Mb), integrated graphic (1Mb i think), 540Mb Samsung HDD, and a 15" Tulip monitor... that was my first PC


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## zno3 (Aug 30, 2010)

Hmm, interesting 
Around 1999, I guess mine was the first generation of Intel Celeron clocked at 400Mhz with 32 MB of RAM and S3 8MB graphic adapter ) I still remember playing Mechwarrior when i was a kid lol


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## majestic12 (Aug 30, 2010)

Abacus FTW!


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## msgclb (Aug 30, 2010)

majestic12 said:


> http://www.kidestore.co.uk/images/images_big/melissa_and_doug_abacus.jpg
> 
> Abacus FTW!



I knew someone would finally post the slowest computer. I considered posting an image of an abacus but since I've never used one I decided to wait for someone who had.

When I did a Google search I was surprised to find that there were so many different versions of the abacus from around the world. In Japanese, the abacus is called soroban. So majestic12, are you an abacist?


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## T3kl0rd (Aug 30, 2010)

Only a matter of time before someone played the abacus card.

An abacist?  I hope that is benign.


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## _JP_ (Aug 30, 2010)

Intel Pentium !!! "Coppermine" 800EB 800MHz 256Kb 133MHz Socket 370
128MB 133MHz PC-133 SDRAM
nVidia Vanta TNT2 M64 AGP 4x
Maxtor DiamondMax VL40 20GB 5400rpm 2MB IDE ATA-100
Cheap-ass CDROM reader
Sony 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Matsonic MS7117C Motherbaord (Same as ECS P6BAP-A+)
A-Open 250W PSU
Samtron 75E 17'' CRT Screen
...and it came with Windows Me...

This was my 1st computer...this also was when I got the cash to buy the damn thing...still works...
Before this my dad gave me his PONG TV game system. I have no idea how slow that must have been, but without a doubt the slowest computing machine I have. Other than that, it's this computer.


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## dj-electric (Aug 30, 2010)

086... 11mhz


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## majestic12 (Aug 30, 2010)

I had an abacus when I was a lot younger.  It looked a lot like the one in my picture (with slightly different colors), but was nothing too special for a kid.  I wonder what ever happened to it... it's probably in a landfill somewhere now.  

It was only a matter of time before someone had to post it -may as well be me!  0 megahertz of power!


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