Hardware manufacturers you miss?

[micropage7]

Soltek
Back when i was in college, their purple motherboard looks really good

 

[blobster21]

Gravis gamepads !

 

[Sasqui]

If you want to be awesomed out with a fantastic BASIC on a classic computer, you can't get better than the Acorn Archimedes (32-bit RISC) range from 1987 onwards. It's so gloriously structured and powerful that it can cause nerdgasm. Then Acorn went one better with the Risc PC in 1994 that was basically a greatly enhanced Archimedes.

It all started with the BBC Micro in 1981, with the original structured BASIC, of course.

On a modern PC, something like Visual BASIC or similar is the way to go.

Multiple nerdgasms to be had using a machine language BASIC compiler on an Apple IIE. God so fast... Hotter than Elizabeth Hurley.

 

[eidairaman1]

DFI and Soyo.

Them and, Hercules, ECS

Never Owned Soltek, Shuttle, Epox, Abit

 

[qubit]

Multiple nerdgasms to be had using a machine language BASIC compiler on an Apple IIE. God so fast... Hotter than Elizabeth Hurley.

Oh yeah and you can compile and instantly run 6502 assembler on the 8-bit Acorns and ARM assembler on the 32-bit Acorns too, similar to the Apple. If you were in danger of a nerdgasm before...

I'm gonna save my next program as ElizabethHurley.exe...

 

[John Naylor]

I'm gonna bend the premise a bit ....

Hardware wise, in th not gone but not in same markets as before, I'd say Mushkin Memory ... yes I know they still around but up thru DDR3, if you wanted the best performing memory, you religiously bought Mushkin. To a large extent, it's not bout what brand you bought as everybody had access to the same modules, but the redlines were always a step up above the pack and you could load the voltage up on those Redlines like crazy. With DDR3, when everyone had DDR3-2400 10-12-12-31, they had 10-12-12-28 .... Corsair and a few others had it for a while but soon after dropped to the cheaper -31 modules. I once asked a question from fellow users as was concerned about running at 1.70, and had responses from folks who were running years at 1.80 - 1.94v I never pushed that far but liked knowing the headroom was there. The aesthetics also avoided the flashy "look at me, look at me aesthetic". Now, since DDR4, they are still in the memory game but when ya do find top of the line CAS, almost can never find any.

Software wise ....

I miss Lotus Software Suite ... for someone who doesn't sit and use software suites all day, I found... and still find , it had the most intuitive setup of any suite we ever used. Back in 1990s, we'd write manuals for companies and setting up a complex document with pics, charts and tables was so much easier in LWP. We's draft everything in LWP and then convert it to whatever folks wanted (MS, Wordperfect, whatever). One of the folks who staffed the Lotus Forum, wrote the books you'd see on shelves at CompUSA entitled "How to Use MS Word", How to Use MS Excel in LWP.

Mijenix is one of many company names that marketed PowerDesk File management utility and it had the "PowerBar" which was a cousin of HP's original Dashboard. Lost popularity when MS added the taskbar but this was far more usable and customizable providing 1 click access to many functions.

Cottonwood Software's File_ex .... lost functionality w/ Vista
http://cottonwoodsw.com/welcome.html#whatsnew

 

[Sasqui]

I miss Lotus Software Suite

Yea a little OT, down memory lane... don't forget Wordperfect on DOS. When they ported it to Windows it was all over, I recall playing with a beta version back in the early 1990's, crash crash crash. Not to mention changing all the macro keys pissed everyone off.

Anyone recall Cyrix? They made 486 chips (and others) directly competing with intel. I owned two of them and no idea what happened to the company.

 

[biffzinker]

I owned two of them and no idea what happened to the company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrix#Legal_troubles

Looks like the litigation with Intel was a drain on Cyrix.
Cyrix merged with National Semiconductor on 11 November 1997.
Successor sold to National Semiconductor (later sold to VIA Technologies), assets sold to Advanced Micro Devices

 

[Sasqui]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrix#Legal_troubles

Looks like the litigation with Intel was a drain on Cyrix.
Cyrix merged with National Semiconductor on 11 November 1997.
Successor sold to National Semiconductor (later sold to VIA Technologies), assets sold to Advanced Micro Devices

Go figure, after Intel loses their lawsuit(s), this:

The follow-on 1997 Cyrix-Intel litigation was the reverse: instead of Intel claiming that Cyrix 486 chips violated their patents, now Cyrix claimed that Intel's Pentium Pro and Pentium II violated Cyrix patents—in particular, power management and register renaming techniques. The case was expected to drag on for years but was settled quite promptly, by another mutual cross-license agreement. Intel and Cyrix now had full and free access to each other's patents. The settlement didn't say whether the Pentium Pro violated Cyrix patents or not; it simply allows Intel to carry on making products under a license from Cyrix.

 

[biffzinker]

For you @Sasqui

The 6x86MX was well-received in the marketplace, with a 6x86MX/PR233 (running at a clock speed of 187MHz) proving faster than both a 233MHz Pentium II and K6. The MX was also the first leading processor capable of running on a 75MHz external bus, which provides obvious bandwidth advantages and boosts overall performance. On the downside, and in common with previous Cyrix processors, the 6x86MX floating-point performance was significantly less good than that of its competitors, adversely affecting 3D graphics performance (Thanks a lot gamers of the past - biffzinker.)

The Cyrix MII is an evolution of the 6x86MX, operating at higher frequencies. By the summer of 1998 0.25-micron MII-300 and MII-333 processors were being produced out of National Semiconductor’s new manufacturing facility; in Maine and the company claimed to have already seen shrinks of its 0.25-micron process to produce 0.22-micron geometries on its way to its stated goal of 0.18 micron the following year.

However by 1999, while AMD and Intel were leapfrogging one another in clock speeds, reaching 450 MHz and beyond, National Semiconductor were in financial trouble and Cyrix were lagging well behind their rivals, taking almost a year to push the MII from PR-300 to PR-333. It was no great suprise therefore when in August of that year, Cyrix finally bowed out of the PC desktop business, with National Semiconductor selling the rights to its x86 CPUs to Taiwan-based chipset manufacturer VIA Technologies.

https://www.pctechguide.com/cyrix-cpus/cyrix-6x86mx

 

[rtwjunkie]

BFG Technologies, Inc.

+2 for BFG! Up until they suddenly went under, almost all my GPU’s came from them. The GTX 285 was the final one I owned.

Also: Aureal Semiconductor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A3D

I had an awesome Aureal sound card that I kept running until there were no operational drivers to use in newer OS. I still think it was the best sound card!

 

[Amite]

Don't forget to include a couple of OCZ DDR2.

Still have mine.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Maxtor was made by Seagate.

I thought Seagate bought out Maxtor?

+2 for BFG! Up until they suddenly went under, almost all my GPU’s came from them. The GTX 285 was the final one I owned.

Final BFG Card I bought I believe was a GTX 280 for $300 BNIB from a user here on this forum and I still have it around here somewhere .

 

[biffzinker]

I thought Seagate bought out Maxtor?

You are correct

 

[Ruru]

You are correct

Exactly. I bought a Seagate hard drive about 12 years ago and it was "Seagate DiamondMax" or something on the receipt.

Not a surprise, it broke after about half years. Luckily I got a Samsung after RMA'ing it.

Gravis gamepads !

Daaamn, I remember my friend having this over 20 years ago, though I can't remember what we played with this gamepad. You could screw a little joystick to the thread in the d-pad.

 

[Voluman]

Abit for motherboard and vgas and Samsung for hdd and Nokia for phones

 

[GreiverBlade]

Hercules. Their 3D Prophet cards were just sick.

Omg...

I forgot about Hercules, loved their cards

did someone said ... "Hercules" ?


oh well as you can see i also miss DFI ... i need to get my hands on more "dead brands" hardware for my collection ...

 

[Ruru]

did someone said ... "Hercules" ?
View attachment 114963View attachment 114964

oh well as you can see i also miss DFI ... i need to get my hands on more "dead brands" hardware for my collection ...

Oh damn, MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum.. The best S939 AGP board I've ever had.

IIRC my only Hercules cards were GF 2 MX and 9500 Pro. Though the latter rocked!

 

[Sasqui]

For you @Sasquiin August of that year, Cyrix finally bowed out of the PC desktop business, with National Semiconductor selling the rights to its x86 CPUs to Taiwan-based chipset manufacturer VIA Technologies.

VIA? Ha! Go figure.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Oh damn, MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum.. The best S939 AGP board I've ever had.

This was actually the board i used in my first every self built machine! I think i ended up frying it somehow and just bought an OEM one off ebay which worked pretty well. I think its in the shed somewhere but I dont think i was able to get it working last time i had it out of the box.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

You are correct

Then Maxtor was it's own entity before being bought out. Therefore, Seagate didnt originally make the drives.

 

[Cybrnook2002]

Soltek
Abit

and can I say CaseLabs?

 

[Bones]

Then Maxtor was it's own entity before being bought out. Therefore, Seagate didnt originally make the drives.

Yes, Maxtor was it's own manufacturing entity back in the day with it's own drive manufacture and designs.

The one thing that got them was they didn't have deep enough pockets. Since Seagate had been selling alot of drives cheap they had amassed enough capital to buy them out, so they did to eliminate them as a competitior and to absorb their manufacture and design into the Seagate fold.

And of course once that happened the Maxtor name got ruined over time too.
If I'm not mistaken the buyout occured sometime in 2004/2005 - It's been awhile since it happened and I'm just too lazy to Google it ATM.

 

[dj-electric]

Donno why BFG is mentioned so much here.
They sucked, and basically capitalized on people's stupidity with base model, OC and OC2 models all have the same cooler and PCB with very slight Mhz core clock increases. They didn't innovate in cooling, software or any other place an AIB should.

Good riddance.
Don't @ me.

 

[Jose Jeswin]

old Turtle Beach Sound cards...
Had a turtle beach montego...broke it while moving to a different house..