Computer List, Chronological Order

Commodore 64  (1983, 1 MHZ, 64 K RAM)

My first computer was a Commodore 64 that I finally got off layaway at the local K-mart, a month before Christmas 1984.  The thing cost almost $200, but you got 64K of RAM, 16 color graphics, sound, and built-in BASIC.  I had taken an intro CSC class and scored an easy "A" so I was inclined to take more classes.  I was hooked the moment I turned it on.  I loved the idea of being able to control the machine, and the screen (eventually a 1701 Monitor) with instructions I dictated.  It was a lazy mans dream- here was a machine that could be programmed to arrive at results that would take years to accomplish using pencil and paper.  It seemed like a lazy man's dream come true!  I was entralled with the idea of making the machine do a task that would take a someone a lifetime to accomplish.  I would spend years writing countless programs for that machine, in a wide range of languages that were made available.  I purchased and would later master Flight Simulator by SubLogic.   The CPU ran at 1 MHZ, which was a 6510 8 bit CPU based on the 6502 used by Apple.   Almost all of them were highly interative calculations, arriving at a more and more accurate result as the program ran.  I paid $280 for the disk drive, which was single sided and could only store 170K of data on a 5.25 inch floppy disk.  In 1984 this was a large sum, and I worked nights at AGIS accounting to pay for it.  This drive was so slow that it took flight simulator over 4 min to load...in spite of a measly target of only 64K of RAM!  But I must point out that at the time, even IBM's $5000 PC only offered 256K RAM, a 4.77 MHZ 8 bit CPU, a single sided floppy, and BASICA.  But no graphics or sound!  The C64 was the machine of the day for cool applications (i.e. games).  I eventually sold this machine, with the disk drive, to a friend to help pay for the new Commodore 128, described below.  I actually used to render Fractals on this machine, which would take a day or two to do a 160 x 200 pixel screen (you could actually draw to a 320 x 200 screen, if you went down to two colors).  Text adventures from Infocom were big back then.  It never occurred to me at the time that text adventure games were a passing trend, which I think is a real shame.  I played Suspended, Starcross, and of course Zork.  I also liked Impossible Mission, Summer Games, and a million others that I can't remember anymore.   I even used the Commodore Assembler to write 6510 assembly programs, and even had a few good books on the subject.  To this day, the 6510 Assembly was some of the most challenging code I've ever written.  Even simple tasks, like adding two 16 bit numbers, took many instructions to accomplish- the CPU only had an accumulator, x register, y register, and a 8 bit status register.  And when the program failed, the entire machine would lock up.

Commodore 128  (1985, 2 MHZ, 128 K RAM)

Wow!  In 80 column mode, the CPU could run at 2 MHZ, but you gave up color and graphics.  Back in 40 column mode, the machine had a complete C64 inside.  Looking back, the machine was little more than an expanded C64.  The floppy disk drive, the 1571, was double sided as opposed to the single sided 170K disks the C64 used.  The 128 also offered a new OS- CP/M, which never really caught on.  I developed programs in Promal, 6502 Assembler, BASIC, Simons' BASIC, C, Pascal, and a few I can't remember.   I still have my 128, although it has not been turned on in many years.  I suspect that the cables are lost also.  Because this machine was not much more than a expanded C64, I was quite familiar with the internals.  I spent a lot of time on this machine, as by this time I was into my second year of studies for my Computer Science degree.

The Commodore Amiga 2000  (1988, 7 MHZ, 3 MB RAM)

The only machine I have ever known to give true life "jaw-dropping" presentations. It raised expectations for the entire industry.  The things it did in the mid 80s are often taken for granted now- like a GUI-based multitasking operating system, Unix-like file structure, mind-blowing graphics (thousands of colors) and awesome sound.  My machine eventually had a 20 MB Hard Drive, 3 MB RAM (paid $800 for additional 2 MB RAM board), 2400 Hayes Modem, and MIDI cables.  I still use this machine as a MIDI sequencer for my Roland Keyboard and Sound Canvas.  When the Amiga was new, the version of Flight Simulator that existed for it was the best available, on any platform.  It was with the Amiga that I created countless tests for my students while I was teaching classes at Southern Technical College.  I put many miles on a Panasonic KXP-1124 24 pin dot matrix printer.  It was slow, but the quality was nice.  I made several VHS tapes of animations I had created on the Amiga- using Sculpt-Animate 4D, Deluxe Paint 4 and custom C programs I created myself.  After moving to Dallas, I started to visit BBS sites, which were big before the internet exploded.  Although the Motorola 6800 CPU ran at 7.14 MHZ, the graphics subsystem chips ran at twice that rate, 14 MHZ.

State of the Art Pentium 90   (1995, 90 MHZ, 8 MB RAM)

I paid a little more than $2000 in early 1995 for a Pentium 90 with 8 MB of RAM and a 525 MB HD. This was quite a machine at the time, as the fastest machines available ran at 100 MHZ. I eventually added more drives (1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB), memory up to 64 MB, a Sierra On-line Screamin' 3D Accelerator (using the Verite 1000), and Sound Blaster 16.  It was a great game machine.  I also wrote DOS versions of my RISK and Fractal programs.  The machine initially came with Windows 3.11, and I bought Windows95 the day it was released, August 24, 1995. I used everything except the motherboard and CPU to build my next K6 based system, described below.   Played a lot of Descent 1 and Duke NukeM when it came out. 

AMD K6-2 200 w/MMX (1997, 200 MHZ, 32 MB RAM)

Purchased a new Soyo motherboard and put a AMD-K6 200 MHZ CPU on board.  Initially used most components from P90 system, such as the sound, modem, and video cards.  This new CPU gave a big boost to the frame rate in MS Flight Simulator for Windows 95.   I also upgraded the 3D Accelerator to the Rendition 2100 chipset with the Diamond Stealth II 220.  That new video card was the most expensive component in the machine.  At this point, games like Quake I were looking pretty good, and playing in cooperative mode via modem was a blast.  My friends Shriram, Sergey, and myself worked our way through all the Quake I levels in cooperative model, over and over again.  

The Dell Inspiron 3200 Laptop Pentium II 226 (1998, 226 MHZ, 64MB, then 112 MB RAM)

The Hardware. This machine arrived in May of 1998, a brand new Dell Inspiron 3200 with a Pentium II running at 266 MHZ. It came with 64 MB RAM, and was upgraded to 112 MB RAM in June of 1999.  It has a 4 GB HD, 56K v.90 modem, 24x CD ROM, 10 base T network card, and 3.25 inch floppy drive. The display is a 13.1 inch TFT active matrix screen capable of XGA 1024 x 768 w/ 16 bits of color.  It uses a synoptics touchpad and contains USB and infared ports.  This laptop has an extrodinary number of miles on it.  It is used daily on a long comute that involves cars, trains, and taxis, and has flown several times without incident.  It has held up well- this is quite a rugged laptop, and has never let me down.   People are always impressed with how large and bright the display is.  Once you've owned a machine with this much power AND will fold in half and go anywhere, it makes you wonder if desktops are even worth bothering with.  I also have a docking station, black leather case, external speakers, and AC anywhere car adapter.  The entire web site was created on, and is managed by the laptop.  The machine came with Windows 95 pre-installed when it arrived June of 1998, but by August I had installed Windows 98.   The laptop contains the MS Visual Development Suite Enterprise Edition, Front Page 98, MS Office Professional '97, Photoshop 5.0, Falcon 4.0, Norton Antivirus, ACDSee, Visio Technical.    

The Software. The laptop is loaded with Windows 98, Windows 97 Small Office Edition, MS C/C++ Development Studio, Front Page 98, Norton Antivirus, Norton Undelete, RSA 128 Encryption, and Comptons. On the games front, Flight Simulator 98, Cybor Girl Pinball, and Quake I and II have been installed. A few win32 based programs that I wrote are also on the system. I love games, especially 3D titles, and since 1983 have probably spent a small fortune on them. Click here for a list of some of my favorite games and what I think of them.

AMD K6-2 300 w/ 3D-NOW!   (1998, 300 MHZ, 64 MB RAM)

Built One Piece At A Time. In October of 1998, I replaced the AMD-K6 200 with a AMD-K6 300 MHZ.  This new CPU, in conjunction
with the particularly strong 3D accelerator, makes this machine a gamers dream.  I also upgraded to a AWE64 Blaster and eventually put a nVidia based TNT 3D board from Diamond.  In the summer, I swapped out the motherboard again with a Soyo motherboard which sports a 100 MHZ frontside bus, AGP, USB, and infared. This machine has Windows95, Microsoft Office 95, Flight Simulator98, Quake I and II, Monster Truck Madness, Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0, Unreal, Motorcross Madness, Falcon 4.0. 

AMD K6-3 400  (1999, 400 MHZ, 128 MB RAM)

Early spring brings another CPU upgrade, this time a AMD K6-3 w/ 256K of on board L2 cache that runs at the CPU core frequency.  I also added tossed the old, slow memory and purchased 128 MB of 100 MHZ RAM so that the front side bus could be clocked at 100 MHZ.  A 4.0 multiplier provides a CPU frequency of 400 MHZ.  Or at least it should.  In spite of being a 400 MHZ chip, I can only stably clock it up to 374 MHZ (83 x 4.5).  I also upgraded the speakers to JBL, with JBL subwoofer located under the desk.  I can get frames rates in MS Flight Simulator, with all options maxed out and 1024 x 768 16 bit resolution, over 100 frames per second.  My main motivation for upgrading these components was to help boost the performance of Falcon 4.0, especially in campaign mode.

Intel P-III 450-567 MHZ (1999 450/567 MHZ, 128 MB RAM)

As component prices continue to fall through the floor the Summer of 1999, I began purchasing components one at a time, slowly assembling another machine.  I investigated each component thoroughly on the internet and several computer magazines, such as MAXIMUM PC, CGW, and many others that I purchase regularly.  I got a Soyo SY6BA+III that allows overclocking in very small increments, a real boon for finding the "sweet spot" for a particular CPU.  Having read that Intel Retail Boxed PIII overclock extremely well, I purchased one for a little over two hundred dollars.  The system is running stably at a speed of 567 MHZ for the CPU, and a FSB of 127 MHZ.  I purchased the Diamond Viper 770 Ultra, based on the TNT2 chip.  A Panasonic DVD player, Diamond Monster Sound MX300, Maxtor 10 GB Hard Drive, and 128 MB RAM make this machine a great addition to my network.  It means that I now have two strong 3D systems on a network, for dual action gaming fun at the drop of a hat.  The laptop also plugs into the network, and can be used as a 3rd gaming platform on all but the most demanding of 3D applications.  This machine runs all existing games at fantastic framerates.   Since Intel's fastest CPU offering at this time is only 600 MHZ, at 567 I'm striking pretty close to what is the fastest machine commonly available.  Alas, it will be obsolete by Christmas.  The AMD K7 Athlon also hit the streets this month, and is proving to be faster than a PIII clock for clock, not to mention it is being offered in speeds up to 600 MHZ.

The chart below shows the purchases made for this machine, late summer of '99.

The only future purchases will be a CD-ROM RW, 27 GB UDAM66 Fireball, HP Color Printer, 19" monitor, and a new laptop (when ever 3D comes up to snuff on the machines).

Update 2001:  I gave the 450 PIII to Shriram and purchased an PIII 850 MHZ.  Ran for almost a year before I blew the CPU by playing with a few overclocking options.  So I replaced it in the fall of 2001 with a 933 MHZ PIII.  I could have gotten a 1 GHZ model, but an internet site I had visited warned that the 1 GHZ PIII was only guaranteed to run on Intel motherboards. 

It's pretty fast but still has Windows 98 on it even though I have XP Professional loaded on the laptop.  This system now sports a wireless mouse, a Panasonic USB CD-ROM burner, USB Siatek HOTAS Joystick, MS Forcefeedback Wheel, USB External Hub, LAN card, and ISDN internet access.  The 933 CPU cost $200, less than what I paid for the original 450.  Prices continue to fall, and there are 2.0 GHZ chips available now.

Dell Inspiron 8000 1.0 GHZ (June 2001 - 256 MB RAM)

In June of 2001 I purchased a Dell Inspiron 8000.  It runs at 1.0 GHZ and has a 3D accelerator chip by Nvidia (GeForce 2 GO).  It has a 30 GB hard drive and now serves as my main productivity machine.  I'm using it on the train on a daily basis.  It came with Windows ME but I'll probably replace that with Windows 2000 or Windows XP in the spring of 2002.  I use it for web updates, email, browsing, and productivity.  But it sure is nice having another strong gaming machine in the house, for those LAN parties.   It has enough hard drive space to hold all my favorite games, several full length feature movies, and can play DVDs as well.  It's a strong machine in all departments: Productivity, Gaming, and Video playback.   

Dell 2.2 GHZ P4 System w/ Flat Panel

Spring 2002: Susan ordered a new Dell system.  It's a 2.0 GHZ P4 system loaded with XP, 256 MB RAM, and a GeForce 3 Video Card.  It's all black, and has a black flat-panel 17" screen.  It boots very quickly and is whisper quiet.  Susan has not allowed us to run any games on it.  It came with XP.  I downloaded a few NVIDIA technology demos and they looked fantastic.  The kids use it a lot to download music.

Major Enhancements to the PIII 933 MHZ - Late Summer 2002 

I've enhanced my main gaming machine (the 933 MHZ PIII) by adding a Dell 1900FP 19" Flat Panel monitor ($1300), more memory (total of 512 MB of PC133 RAM), a Promise Ultra 133 HD Controller, and a Matrox 80 GB 133 Ultra hard drive.  I reformatted all the drives and put a new copy of Windows XP and Norton Antivirus on it.  I also downloaded and installed the Service Pack 1 for XP, which was just released.  I also moved the machine to a shelf behind my Yamaha S80, because this machine (unlike my laptop) does not generate a lot of unwanted noise through the Roland KC-100 amplifiers.  The sound card for this machine is also new, an external USB Midiman Quattro Pro.  I purchased a black IBM keyboard and moved the wireless mouse and Siatek controllers over to the new location.  This machine is maxed out, and I really can't see it changing anything else out at this point.  It still runs all the 3D games with a fair amount of zip, so it should last another couple of years.  It's primary role now is serving as a sequencer and recorder for my home studio.

For all the enhancements made to this machine over the last three years, it's final system config is summarized as follows:  933 MHZ PIII Coppermine, 133 MHZ FSB, 512 MB 133 MHZ RAM, 80 GB 133 DMA drive, 20 GB 100 DMA drive, 10 GB 100 DMA drive, Promise 133 HD Controller Card, 19" Dell Flat Panel, Microsoft Wireless Mouse, Siatek Joystick/Throttle, USB Quattro Sound, IBM Keyboard. 

Time to Build Another Gaming Rig - Fall 2002 

It's been a little more than 3 years since I've built an all new machine from scratch.  I really didn't expect to get as much life out of the previous one, but it has lasted three years and is still a very adequate machine.  However, next to some of the machines I've seen lately (Susan's, and Harvey Gratz just built a new rig) it seems that the high speed front side bus in the newer machines makes a dramatic improvement in the overall speed of the machine.  Every time I go about building a machine from mail order parts, I do a LOT of research, reading MaximumPC, Computer Power User, and read many, many articles on www.tomshardware.com, www.anandtech.com, www.Hardocp.com, and many others.  For this machine I've been reading reviews and articles almost non-stop since mid-summer.  Overall, it seems to be a good time to custom build a machine because major shops like Dell seem to be charging a premium for yesterday's technology (they still haven't offered PC1066 RDRAM).

This machine, like the others built before it, will represent a state of the art consumer rig.  So far I've ordered another 19" Flat Panel, the 1900FP because this panel is the best flat panel I've seen offered, bar none.  The price has dropped considerably on this flat panel in just a couple of months, this one only cost me $900 (compared to $1300 a few months ago).  

The motherboard is an ASUS 533T, which takes PC1066 RDRAM and a P4.  The fastest P4 available today is 2.8 GHZ, although Intel is supposed to release the 3.06 GHZ Hyper Threaded CPUs sometime this month (November).  I'm going to order the CPU last in hopes that it is available by the time I get all my other parts.  I really want to hold out for a hyper-threaded model, since it's the biggest improvement to happen to the Intel line of CPUs since they upped the cache from 256K to 512K.  The motherboard also supports RAID 0, USB 2.0, and a 533 FSB.  It only has two memory slots, and so far the largest stick I can find for 32 bit RDRAM is 256 MB, which means that for now the maximum amount of RAM I can stuff into it will be 512 MB.  I was hoping to start off with 1 GB but RDRAM technology just isn't there yet.

The case is a bit of a radical departure, being an black Antec 3U rack mount case.  I have several pieces of audio gear in rack mount format that is stacked in a rack, and the new machine would take up the least amount of space if it were to also sit in the rack.  The case comes with a 300 watt power supply, which is not optimal- Intel recommends high capacity power supplied for it's high frequency P4 processors.  So I may order a 550 watt Antec true power supply and see if it fits in the case.   When the case and motherboard arrive I'll see how well the components are going to fit together.

I plan on putting a total of 3 hard drives in this machine, 1 80 GB for the OS boot partition and backups, and 2 200 GB 7200 RPM drives w/ 8 MB cache in a RAID 0 configuration for storing data and applications.  I will be using this machine for storing my live-recorded WAV files, which chews up disk storage at an alarming rate (20 MB for every 3 minutes of recorded music).

I would also like to put a TV-tuner card in this machine so that I can record TV shows to disk.  The sound card issue is a tough one, either a Midiman Delta or the Soundblaster Audigy Pro, or possibly both since one is best for gaming and the other best for professional recording.  I would like to get a DVD/CD-ROM combo drive, one that supports burning both CD-ROMS and DVDs.  I'll add a network card as well.

I'll put a new copy of windows XP and Norton AntiVirus on the machine, and begin loading it up with my favorite applications: SONAR 2.0, MS-FS2002 w/767 PIC, Citizens Quboto, Quake III Arena, Falcon 4.0.

Here is the breakdown of items and cost:

Jan 9, 2003 The machine feels very strong and handels Star Wars Jedi Knight II with aplomb.  Flight simulator frame rate increases were a little dissappointing- biggest gains were seen in the spot plane view when looking at the AA 767 PIC, a move from 7 to 10 frames per second.  In cockpit with 767 PIC panel the frames average around 25 sitting on the runway at O'Hare.

This configuration represents the fastest parts in each category, it's a state of the art computer by all measures- and confirmed using the SiSoft Sandra benchmarking suite.  And yet, I still wish it booted faster and ran flight simulator 2002 quicker.  Looking forward to Unreal II and Doom III to come out this spring.

The machine is 17% complete with its primality test of a 10 million digit potential Mersene Prime, as part of the GIMPS project.

I have a LOT of USB devices connected to this rig: a Saitek Joystick w/ HOTAS Throttle, MS ForceFeedback Steering Wheel with pedals, MS ForceFeedback Joystick, Saitek Gold USB, CH Flightstick Pro USB Rudder Pedals, IBM Optical Mouse, IBM Precision Key keyboard, USB HUB, and MIDIMAN USB Quattro.  Including the Quattro, it's about $1100 worth of attachments because it's all top of the line stuff.

But I do wish the machine were quieter, and smaller.  I may eventually pull out all the components and assemble them in a new case.  I also don't care for the beige DVD bezel, or the silver grid in front of the power supply.  I also haven't figured out how to hook up the drives in the RAID 0 array to a separate LED.   Another regret: within 4 days of purchasing the Pioneer A04 drive, they announced the new A05, twice as fast in many categories.  At the same time the ATI Radeon All In Wonder Pro was released, which is everything my ATI Radeon Video Card is, and more.  The machine is less than a month old and already there are two components that I would replace with newer ones from the same manufactures.  MaximumPC had a picture of a new radical Alienware Case that I really liked.  This system may be to elegant and cutting edge keep in a industrial tack-mount case.

It may be a good time to upgrade because the forecast for 2003 looks like we will only see a 1 GHZ spread for the year, unlike 2002 which spanned nearly 2 GHZ.  So a fast machine purchased today would feel stronger for a longer period of time.

I would like to start work on the mandelbrot set again, with the goal of creating an animation with music I would write on the Yamaha S80.  I would like to start working on ray-tracing images.

June 2003: The 3.06 system pulling hard, running Sonar 2.2 and Gigastudio.  We currently have Command and Conquer Generals loaded on it also.

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I've started buying the pieces to a system that will be dedicated to gaming.  It's going to use the new 800 MHZ Front Side Bus.  I went with an ASUS PC800 board, the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, the Maxtor 10,000 RPM Raptor SATA Drive, SB Audigy2, Pioneer A05 DVD Burner, and 3.2 GHZ P4 CPU.  It has 1 GB of Corsair XMS DDR430 memory.

Other Machines.  I have experience on many larger machines also.  I've worked as a night operator on a IBM 370 4361 Model II.  I taught courses at a technical college on a old IBM System 36 that had a 64 MB hard drive.  I have developed for IBM PS2 Model 80 running AIX, IBM SP2 frames with racks of IBM RS6000, and a host of other smaller, now dead, computers such as Apple Lisa, Apple II,  Early Mac, TI99/4A, Timex Sinclair, AT&T 3B2 Unix Systems, AT&T 6300, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, and XBOX.  I'm a computer nut who has followed the industry as close as possible since becoming digitally addicted in 1983.  I've used IBM RS6000, SP2, p690 machine used in production environments.