The PC hardware fads and fashion thread

[Norphy]

I don't think either particularly won out there, tbh. This was about the time CDRs were becoming mainstream

[Dos_Box]

In 2003 I was issued with one of these beauties...

 

 

A Palm Tungsten T, a vertiable Rolls Royce of a PDA. When it would sync properly that is. I do recall at the time trying to take meeting notes on it and then not being able to do anything with them unless I was back in the office and could sync it via the cradle. No WiFi on them back then either!

It did make a very satisfying 'schclick' noise when you extended it though.

[36Degrees]

I still have my Dell Axim X51v at home. I was tempted to take it to the recycling centre but then saw people selling them online for £100 +

[LeMarchand]

I still have my Dell Axim X51v at home. I was tempted to take it to the recycling centre but then saw people selling them online for £100 +

 

Selling them or advertising them? There is a BT speaker type I track which is generally advertised at £60+ but when the auction has a low starting point the winning bid is around £15-£20.

[jthompson]

How about the psion series 3/5?.

 

I had a Psion Series 5. A thing of beauty. My dad had a Series 3a and I actually think that that was a nicer design in terms of the opening/closing action.

 

When I last visited the National Museum of Computing, I spotted some Psions on display and it brought back a flood of memories.

[LeMarchand]

I had a leather shoulder holster for my Psion. You'd probably end up with armed police telling you to get on the ground if you wore one now.

[mikes]

Yeah I remember in the late 90's, you had to have a full tower PC to be a real geek, even if you didn't use all the 6+ bays they gave you. The bigger the tower the better your specs obviously.

I then had a case almost exactly like the one Jaaan posted, with the transparent plastic and a cold cathode strip light that burnt out my molex connector after a few months.

Or my friends who would spend all of their cash on the highest spec PC they could get but would use a rubbish 14" CRT from the mid 90's - I always thought what's the point in having all that PC power if you can barely see what's going on? These days with a 55" display and 6+ cores I can consider myself spoiled. But kids these days have supercomputers in their hands compared to the "Gaming Machines" we had in the early 2000's. Wifi, cameras, movie playing, 3D graphics, on a device a 4 year old owns.

 

Now I am all about having a quiet machine, that is out of the way, I don't bother with RGB - I'd rather spend an extra £50 on a better monitor which is where I'm going to be looking at all of the time I'm using my PC, than have a glowing case that sits undera desk.

Today the fads are - office PC's are very small things - which is great IMO, I remember the old days where a classroom had 30 desktops and the noise they all put out made it hard to hear the teacher. Now these small units are almost silent. Great.

Mice have to resemble something from Star Wars with 10+ buttons - I like a mouse with a lot of buttons but my hands must be too small or something as half of them are so awkward to reach I don't bother with them. And the obligatory DPI button (who wants that?) that I accidentally press then have my cursor turn 100mph.

Edited July 10, 2024 by mikes

[PotNoodleTech]

Oh talking of CRTs Mike - you knew you had arrived with your beige full tower lan party PC when you had the...............

 

 

 

............. Mitubishi Diamondtron monitor

[Norphy]

I always tried to have a Trinitron monitor, but I usually cheaped out and went CTX or a brand similar to that. They were still epic monitors though,

 

I do kind of wonder what 20 year old me, going to LAN parties with 17/19/20" CRTs, would have made of my work desk with two 27" and a 24" LCD monitor attached to a £450 laptop

Edited July 10, 2024 by Norphy

[Patrick]

PCI TV Card back in the early 2000's. I had a vision of doing everything on my PC. I never did get it to work properly, or that the software was just naff. In the end, I just plugged in my Goodmans TV back in haha.

[Norphy]

Was it a Hauppauge by any chance?

[googlemad]

 

'Shuttle' PCs in the early 2000s, these days of course even smaller (Intel NUC and the like) but back then in a world of massive PC cases they were THE FUTURE!!!111

 

The main reason I remember them is I was in work experience in an IT Department back then and was building some up and decided to nearly kill myself by working on one whilst still connected to the mains and letting my fingers touch one of the power supply contacts...

[mikes]

 

'Shuttle' PCs in the early 2000s, these days of course even smaller (Intel NUC and the like) but back then in a world of massive PC cases they were THE FUTURE!!!111

 

The main reason I remember them is I was in work experience in an IT Department back then and was building some up and decided to nearly kill myself by working on one whilst still connected to the mains and letting my fingers touch one of the power supply contacts...

 

Yeah I remember those, they were meant to be great for controlling TV's or for silent work... I once got a nasty shock off a mac, I had taken the plastic screen / LCD off of it and was working on it, but forgot I had left it plugged in, and they don't have an enclosed PSU like PC's - so I must have touched part of the PSU internals as I had a nasty shock!!

[mikes]

I always tried to have a Trinitron monitor, but I usually cheaped out and went CTX or a brand similar to that. They were still epic monitors though,

 

I do kind of wonder what 20 year old me, going to LAN parties with 17/19/20" CRTs, would have made of my work desk with two 27" and a 24" LCD monitor attached to a £450 laptop

 

During 1993 during Doom's development, John Carmack apparently had some ridiculous 29" CRT monitor - imagine how big a 29" 4:3 LCD would be as a square, then picture that square going back the same depth if not more backwards - the thing was absolutely huge it probably needed 4 people to lift it. Surprised his desk could hold it! Amazingly with 55" LCD panels commonplace, in photos now it actually looks quite small!

[Patrick]

Was it a Hauppauge by any chance?

 

Honestly I can't remember, I was only a very young teen. Maybe even 12. I remember trying to watch F1 on it and it barely worked, knowing me back then, I will have absolutely bodged it in some way!

[PotNoodleTech]

 

'Shuttle' PCs in the early 2000s, these days of course even smaller (Intel NUC and the like) but back then in a world of massive PC cases they were THE FUTURE!!!111

 

The main reason I remember them is I was in work experience in an IT Department back then and was building some up and decided to nearly kill myself by working on one whilst still connected to the mains and letting my fingers touch one of the power supply contacts...

 

Brilliant - I've still got 2 in the shed can't bar to throw them out their so cool!!

[FN-GM]

I does beg the question, did anyone use them for anything other than ethernet or wifi?

Or, heaven forbid, a dial up modem?

 

I have an ancient Kodak digital camera on my desk. The storage card on this uses it. It’s there in case I find a laptop to read the data.

[Dos_Box]

PCI TV Card back in the early 2000's. I had a vision of doing everything on my PC. I never did get it to work properly, or that the software was just naff. In the end, I just plugged in my Goodmans TV back in haha.

 

And that brings us neatly onto HTPC's! I was well into them back in the day, but they never quite delivered IMO.

Windows 7 Home Premium came with Windows Media Center and was very good. I did dabble with XBMC too, but found all of them quite clunky and getting tv listings to download and apply correctly was a PITA. I still have this case upstairs with a LG dual blu-ray\HDDVD drive (no internals) fitted and really must get it on eBay at some point.

 

 

A Zalman HD160XT. It weighs a ton!

[LeMarchand]

I still have my HTPC under the TV. I never did the TV/recording stuff, but used Rainmeter to present a nice interface for the various streaming apps and Plex. Since getting a Smart TV it's only used for Plex as there's no point in turning it on when the TV can handle the streaming stuff. Still sees regular use, though.

 

[Dos_Box]

 

'Shuttle' PCs in the early 2000s, these days of course even smaller (Intel NUC and the like) but back then in a world of massive PC cases they were THE FUTURE!!!111

 

The main reason I remember them is I was in work experience in an IT Department back then and was building some up and decided to nearly kill myself by working on one whilst still connected to the mains and letting my fingers touch one of the power supply contacts...

 

I had some made up for our office staff at a place I worked. They loved them. I think we had Athlons in them.

Sadly it was back when you had to upgrade 'puters every 24 months to stay current. I think we goot three years out of them before moving over to SFF Dells with shiny new Core 2's in them.

[ovenchips]

Shuttles are wicked - still using a 2004~ Socket 754 Athlon 64 machine for some Win 98 / ME retro gaming w/ a 6600GT & Sound Blaster Live!, although disassembling the older shuttles to clean them out is a nightmare.

 

That reminds me - anyone still using a discrete sound card these days? I feel like the days of the Sound Blaster are long forgotten at this point

[synaesthesia]

Shuttles are wicked - still using a 2004~ Socket 754 Athlon 64 machine for some Win 98 / ME retro gaming w/ a 6600GT & Sound Blaster Live!, although disassembling the older shuttles to clean them out is a nightmare.

 

That reminds me - anyone still using a discrete sound card these days? I feel like the days of the Sound Blaster are long forgotten at this point

 

Indeed, onboard audio was generally awful until comparatively modern times. I had an Awe64 and SBLive, both with the drive bay addons. Friend had an Awe64 Gold. Awesome cards! Although they used to serve more purpose than that, with connections for CDRom drives too (sometimes up to 3, Sony, Panasonic and Matsushita IIRC) plus analogue audio!

[Dos_Box]

I still have my HTPC under the TV. I never did the TV/recording stuff, but used Rainmeter to present a nice interface for the various streaming apps and Plex. Since getting a Smart TV it's only used for Plex as there's no point in turning it on when the TV can handle the streaming stuff. Still sees regular use, though.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]71873[/ATTACH]

 

I went all out on mine. I had the Blackgold DVB tuner card - https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/tv-tuner-cards/black-gold-bgt3620-943596/review

And an Asus Xonar HDAV 1.3 Slim HD audio card. I still have both in the attic.

I stopped using my HTPC once I got my first DVR via Virgin and blu-ray player. They just worked!

[3s-gtech]

Still using my Auzentech HDA XPlosion discrete card. Back in the day, it was the business - and could do Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect. Basically, it could process and encode surround sound signals over digital interfaces, independent of the game being played. That was before virtual surround sound and everyone using headphones so it sounds great with surround speakers.

 

It's another elic in my ancient main gaming PC but I feel like I'm going to freeze that machine and keep it for retro gaming - it's carefully set up with things like nGlide.

[LeMarchand]

I stopped using my HTPC once I got my first DVR via Virgin and blu-ray player. They just worked!

 

Blu-ray playback on PCs seems to be a minefield! I got a UHD capable drive that I've never got to play a 4k movie (a common problem apparently). Glad I didn't pay too much for it! Will have to wait until I can warrant getting a PS5. It's no wonder people turn to "alternative methods".