• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

What is the slowest computer you ever owned?

  • Thread starter Thread starter TechPowerDown
  • Start date Start date
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.
 
You could have probably asked what the first pc we ever had was and gotten the same answers.
 
I`v had commodore64 then amiga520(I think that was the model - With 1MB ram :D) and then 386 40 MHz and 4 mb ram monster :D.
 
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.
 
Had an Atari ST520E when I was a lad, Literally grew up with the thing, been gaming since about 3 :p

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


It was a blistering 8MHZ of POWA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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!
 
Last edited:
My first PC was the BBC Micro (Basic), it came with 16kb (yes thats Kilobyte :laugh:) 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.
 

Attachments

  • 800px-BBC_Micro.jpg
    800px-BBC_Micro.jpg
    61.4 KB · Views: 346
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 :roll:

Edit, I Ment P3 @ 1200MHz
Click to expand...

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

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.:D
Click to expand...

The noises were epic sounded almost like a chainsaw.

My fav games from it was Wings, It came from the desert and Antheads.
 
Tatty_One said:
My first PC was the BBC Micro (Basic), it came with 16kb (yes thats Kilobyte :laugh:) of ram and a 4hz (yes thats hertz) processor if my memory serves me correctly.
Click to expand...

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. :laugh:

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 :eek:) and was loaded with 640KB of RAM.
 
Last edited:
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.
 
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
 
The first comp i ever owned (1998)

Pentium II 233Mhz, 32MB ram, 1GB HDD lol.
 
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.
 
the first computer i ever bought: p3 800mhz, 64mb ram
 
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
 
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 :)
 
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.
 
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.
 
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

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

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!).
 
TechPowerDown said:
no i had a celly that hit 1.8GHz with a pin mod and 512MB of SD RAM! YAYAYAY :rockout:
Click to expand...

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

Capture062.jpg


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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top