The computer brands graveyard

[synaesthesia]

My first computer was an 8088 by Wang. It was huge. Closely followed by a Commodore 286, and nearly everything afterwards was a mix n match of parts/self builds.

I did have a Gateway 2000 case with DIY kit inside. That thing weighed a ton and was sturdier than a Nokia 3310.

[psydii]

They made really great PCs. Mine came with the Asus P/I-P55T2P4 rev3.10, allowing me to crank a P166MMX right up to 209Mhz with the stock heatsink.

 

I bought a basic mid-range PC and got an overclockers dream machine. It still boots today!

 

They went bust because nobody cared that their parts were high quality - everyone mostly wanted *cheap*.

[Sheridan]

 

Seikosha. Made the dot matrix printer I had attached to my Vic 20!

[psheil99]

Mesh Computers.... But looks like they are still in business. I don't think that they was a big company but I remember my dad owning one. Does anyone else remember them?

[steveking]

Do Citizen still make printers? We had one of them, first attached to a BBC, and then an Olivetti 286, and then to the Escoms. Still nothing as good as the laser printer attached to the mac... the padded apple bag for the laser printer was HUGE (at least to me as a little kid)

(I can attach that as Apple don't make printers any more!)

[achedgy]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]36104[/ATTACH]

We had a 486 and P75 made by Escom... I tried a win95 preview on the 486, it couldn't cope. They did all come with OS2/Warp as well as Windows (with PC Dos to save a few quid!)

 

aw, my first computer was a p75 from Escom, was torn between the 486 which had a sound card and the p75.. Took that box apart and rebuilt soo many times...

[steveking]

aw, my first computer was a p75 from Escom, was torn between the 486 which had a sound card and the p75.. Took that box apart and rebuilt soo many times...

 

Our P75 had a soundcard, pretty sure it was made by Aztech... it was almost, but not quite, a sound blaster pro clone... playing games in those days was a challenge just to get everything loaded up and working! Tell a kid about IRQs now and they'll wonder wtf you're on about! They don't know they're born.

[mikeprice]

In a previous life as a programmer I used to work on these

 

It is a Honeywell Level6 - it could run MOD200 (SAF (8 bit memory) or LAF 16 bit memory) Mod400 or Mod600 (which I never used)

It developed into the DPS6 and then the HVS6

 

I loved them - they were always crashing and we had about 60 of them and they were totally critical to the whole business - which made every day 'interesting'

 

generally they were totally carp - but keeping the damn things running balanced on madly short memory constraints and overcoming a bucketfull of bugs and weird requirements was technically wonderful

 

I think it drove me mad

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

In addition to the Honeywell Level6 - the same hardware ran several Nuclear Power Stations - which was worrying!!

[SpuffMonkey]

Granville Technology Group, or most commonly known as ....

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]36076[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]36077[/ATTACH]

 

I bought some Time PCs and one user complained that it smelt when it was running - on opening it up - it had a half eaten sandwich inside!

[SpuffMonkey]

My first bought PC was from Stak Trading in Rugby

 

 

A 486SX and well over £2k - heck of a lot of cash for me at the time

[Little-Miss]

Anyone mention.....

 

Looks like they're still around....

Edited April 11, 2016 by Little-Miss

[elsiegee40]

Olivetti was acquired by Wang and Wang was then swallowed by Getronics

http://www.getronics.com/who-we-are/about-getronics/history/

[synaesthesia]

My first bought PC was from Stak Trading in Rugby

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]36116[/ATTACH]

 

A 486SX and well over £2k - heck of a lot of cash for me at the time

 

Blimey, there's a name from the past. My old man used to take me to Stak for various bits and bobs!

My favourite little anecdote from Tiny PCs was a friend who bought a brand new Pentium 2 machine upon their release. Tiny hadn't quite got the cooling right. He complained it kept crashing, so I said I'd take a look before he took it back.

We found something wrong with the fan. The fan blade was no longer attached to the frame, it had flown off and literally melted itself to the inside front of the case.

[fiza]

My first PC was an Oric Atmos

 

[Oaktech]

Oh, I've just remembered one.

 

Ruby

 

We had 3 whole rooms of them at school. They were the first PCs we had that weren't RM and the very first to be on 10baseT rather than 10base2. I think they were 486DX4-100 and were like lightning at the time! We got into trouble for overclocking a couple of them to 120MHz so they would play Network Q Rally smoothly!

[BKGarry]

Olivetti was acquired by Wang and Wang was then swallowed by Getronics

Getronics | History

 

OK, it can't just be me that giggled at the Wang was then swallowed right?

[jtotheb]

Mesh Computers.... But looks like they are still in business. I don't think that they was a big company but I remember my dad owning one. Does anyone else remember them?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]36113[/ATTACH]

 

I remember their ads being all over Computer Shopper and the like back in the day. They also had their name on Charlton Athletic's shirts so they were at least moderately big.

[fiza]

OK, it can't just be me that giggled at the Wang was then swallowed right?

 

Thats just made my day.

[TronXP]

 

Simply PC was the pc division of Systemax. My first home PC was made by them and was a very reliable. When I started my first IT job there was a few of them dotted around. Although Systemax seem to exist still the simply PC division does not.

[localzuk]

Mesh Computers.... But looks like they are still in business. I don't think that they was a big company but I remember my dad owning one. Does anyone else remember them?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]36113[/ATTACH]

 

My first 2 Windows PCs were MESH. An Athlon 1Ghz desktop, and a P4 2.4Ghz laptop - the thing was an inch and a half deep, and weighed at least 5kg. Was a full P4 too, so the power supply was a brick and a half! Didn't half get hot.

 

When the laptop died, I took the CPU out and put it in a desktop. Still got the CDRW/DVD drive too, put it in an external enclosure.

[Norphy]

Simply were a computer company in the same vein as Dabs, Watford, Choice etc. They got bought out by Systemax.

[SovietRussia]

My first PC was

 

 

Which makes me feel young compared to everyone else!

[unixman_again]

Here's a rare beast from my big iron days

 

The company that owned it paid $20,000 for an upgrade, a huge amount of money then. Higher clock rate and more memory probably. An engineer came out, opened the machine, wire wrapped a couple of posts and job done. Took him five minutes.

[3s-gtech]

My first 2 Windows PCs were MESH. An Athlon 1Ghz desktop, and a P4 2.4Ghz laptop - the thing was an inch and a half deep, and weighed at least 5kg. Was a full P4 too, so the power supply was a brick and a half! Didn't half get hot.

 

When the laptop died, I took the CPU out and put it in a desktop. Still got the CDRW/DVD drive too, put it in an external enclosure.

 

Intel binned some P4s which were full-fat desktop parts but with reduced voltages - Pentium 4-M - for laptop use. They were quite impressive in their time really - I still have one here in a great big 17" 4:3 Sony laptop that works well to this day.

[yugo]

Think I was 14 when we got our first Packard Bell, I remember a technician being sent out because it wouldn't power on, turned out the switch behind the power button was inserted upside down. I think that's what got me interested in fixing them.