PC Gaming (1995-1998)

[Dutch]

First of all, always keep your receipts right? Well, I found one from Jan '99 for the first PC I ever put together. I found all these details by cleaning out an old box I had stuffed in my office closet.

IWill MA-BD100 (100mhz fsb) - $159.00
Pentium II 350mhz Boxed - 269.95
Western Digital 8.4GB Hard Drive (Ultra DMA 33) - $219.00
64MB of SDRAM (1 chip) - $109.95
Diamond Viper V330 PCI Graphics Card - $79.00
MS Windows '98 Upgrade Edition (Fully bootable) - $99.95
ATX Mid Tower Case - $99.95
CA Sales Tax %8.25 - $85.46
Grand Total - $1,121.31 for a smoking hot machine!

The reason I put that killer rig together was so I could play these games without them being so choppy. All that's left is the CD's of games I had with it.

Tony LaRussa Baseball 3 (1995)
Aces Collector Series (Aces of Europe, Aces of the Pacific, ...) (1995)
Civilization II (1996)
Front Page Sports Baseball Pro '96 (1996)
Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles (1996)
Sid Meier's Gettysburg (1997)
John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles (1997)
Age of Empires I (1997)
CART Precision Racing (1997)
Front Office Football (1998)
European Air War (1998)
NASCAR Racing 1999 Edition (1998)
Close Combat II: A Bridge Too Far (1998)
Grand Prix Legends (1998)
Gangsters (1998)
Police Quest - Swat 2 (1998)
Soldier's at War (1998)
Starcraft (1998)
Sierra Sports Football Pro (1998)
Sierra Sports Football Pro '99 (1998)

[hukarez]

Kind of takes you back, doesn't it?

I still have flashbacks to my early Packard Bell days. http://dynamic.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[maximus]

(This has nothing to do with PC's ranging from 95-98 but I still remember my first PC.)

My first ever PC was in the late 90's (1999). It was a DELL (not sure which brand). Then I had a house fire 5 yrs ago and lost that. I have home INS so I was cut a check for $30,000. I spent $3600 on a AREA 51 by Alienware (2000). Since then have built 3 PC's. I wish I knew how to build PCs before I bought that AREA 51. I would have saved about $800 if I would have built it myself. You live and learn I suppose.

[Schmidty]

Never had a non-TI computer until 1999.

[Marc Vaughan]

Heck while we're getting nostalgic - I remember getting my first PC on a rental/credit deal while at university - paid around £1,200 for a 486SX-25 with a whopping 16Mb of RAM .... which at the time was a fantastic spec for a student to have (top spec at the time was around a DX-66 I seem to recall).

Spent many a happy hour hacking together game code with it and even now and then doing university assignements ;)

[CraigSca]

When I got my first summer job after freshman year at school, I spent my first two paychecks (~$2300 - nerd much?) on a sweet 286 PC with a turbo button that could up the clock speed from a robust 8 MHz to a FLYING 10 MHz. Yes, I had sweet EGA graphics, too - 16 colors, baby!

Believe it or not, I had a girlfriend at the time, too. Girlfriends come and go...but the PC and her blinking cursor are there for you until eternity.

[HomerJSimpson]

When I got my first summer job after freshman year at school, I spent my first two paychecks (~$2300 - nerd much?) on a sweet 286 PC with a turbo button that could up the clock speed from a robust 8 MHz to a FLYING 10 MHz. Yes, I had sweet EGA graphics, too - 16 colors, baby!

Believe it or not, I had a girlfriend at the time, too. Girlfriends come and go...but the PC and her blinking cursor are there for you until eternity.


Much like my first system. A 286 built from spare parts from a friend's work. It was a 286, but it did have SVGA graphics. I was given the system, but I had to buy the monitor. 15 inch SVGA .28 dot pitch monitor cost me $350.

[CraigSca]

SVGA graphics? You're one of those damn trust-fund kids, aren't you?! :)

[Philliesfan980]

When I got my first summer job after freshman year at school, I spent my first two paychecks (~$2300 - nerd much?) on a sweet 286 PC with a turbo button that could up the clock speed from a robust 8 MHz to a FLYING 10 MHz. Yes, I had sweet EGA graphics, too - 16 colors, baby!

Believe it or not, I had a girlfriend at the time, too. Girlfriends come and go...but the PC and her blinking cursor are there for you until eternity.


Yes! I remember the turbo button, that really takes me back a little.

First machine was a 386-25dx, I want to say it had a 40 meg hdd, along with 2 or 4 megs of ram. Ran my first BBS off of that machine.

[henry296]

My first PC was an IBM PC Jr... playing games like Jumpman.

[johneh]

My first computer was the one Timex put out (I think it was called the Sinclair). I paid $39.99 for it at Kmart (on clearance from $99.99)

The games REALLY sucked that we available for it. The I upgraded to a Commdore Vic-20, because it was so much more powerful. :eek:

[saldana]

my first pc was a powerpacked Acer Pentium 2 166...i had no choice but to buy it so i could play simcity 2000 and warcraft 2, but i think much more nostalgically about my old commodore 64...i spent month after month playing Gunship, Sporttime Basketball, MISL soccer, and Red Storm Rising, which came on a whopping THREE 5 1/4 inch floppy disks!!! every once and a while i fire up an emulator i downloaded to my pc and play some of them for a little bit, then i realize how bad they are and i go back to playing Rise of Nations.

[lighthousekeeper]

Gunship, Sporttime Basketball, MISL soccer

three of my absolute all-time favorites.

[CraigSca]

Well - if we're going back THAT far - my first PC was a Commodore 64 with an awesome cassette tape so I could save programs.

I programmed a really lame college football program (at that time, I had very little concept of statistics/random numbers/et.) and actually brought in the completed listing of the program into school. Oh, the humanity!

[saldana]

Well - if we're going back THAT far - my first PC was a Commodore 64 with an awesome cassette tape so I could save programs.

I programmed a really lame college football program (at that time, I had very little concept of statistics/random numbers/et.) and actually brought in the completed listing of the program into school. Oh, the humanity!


but did you type it in basic and then save it to your tape drive?

[NoMyths]

My first computer was an Apple II+. I remember the monitor having a textured screen for those lovely green graphics. Eventually upgraded to a 386SX. :)

[Draft Dodger]

the computer my family owned was an Apple IIc.

the first PC I ever bought was in 1999. A PII 333 gateway with a hard drive around 7 gigs. Paid about $4000 (from a 401k loan) for it - that was as high end as you could get at that time.

[Marc Vaughan]

Heh if we're saying 'computer' rather than PC I can really show my age ;)

My first was a ZX Spectrum 16k .... missed out on the ZX 81 as I couldn't convince my dad to let me have one ...

[Dutch]

My first PC was the VIC-20. My dad's first computer was some sodering job that had a 8 or 10 digit read out.

The Commodore 64 with Super Bowl Sunday rocked! This was circa 1986? And there was a really cool soccer game back then. The graphics were stunning for the time-frame, but I can't remember the name of that game. My German neighbor played it like it was going out of style (it did some time later, obviously).

[ice4277]

I still have my C64 and all the games. A couple years ago I got it out and played a little Red Storm Rising. I should do that again sometime.

[Tom E]

First of all, always keep your receipts right? Well, I found one from Jan '99 for the first PC I ever put together. I found all these details by cleaning out an old box I had stuffed in my office closet.

IWill MA-BD100 (100mhz fsb) - $159.00
Pentium II 350mhz Boxed - 269.95
Western Digital 8.4GB Hard Drive (Ultra DMA 33) - $219.00
64MB of SDRAM (1 chip) - $109.95
Diamond Viper V330 PCI Graphics Card - $79.00
MS Windows '98 Upgrade Edition (Fully bootable) - $99.95
ATX Mid Tower Case - $99.95
CA Sales Tax %8.25 - $85.46
Grand Total - $1,121.31 for a smoking hot machine!

The reason I put that killer rig together was so I could play these games without them being so choppy. All that's left is the CD's of games I had with it.

Tony LaRussa Baseball 3 (1995)
Aces Collector Series (Aces of Europe, Aces of the Pacific, ...) (1995)
Civilization II (1996)
Front Page Sports Baseball Pro '96 (1996)
Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles (1996)
Sid Meier's Gettysburg (1997)
John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles (1997)
Age of Empires I (1997)
CART Precision Racing (1997)
Front Office Football (1998)
European Air War (1998)
NASCAR Racing 1999 Edition (1998)
Close Combat II: A Bridge Too Far (1998)
Grand Prix Legends (1998)
Gangsters (1998)
Police Quest - Swat 2 (1998)
Soldier's at War (1998)
Starcraft (1998)
Sierra Sports Football Pro (1998)
Sierra Sports Football Pro '99 (1998)

How have you changed as a gamer...

[saldana]

My first PC was the VIC-20. My dad's first computer was some sodering job that had a 8 or 10 digit read out.

The Commodore 64 with Super Bowl Sunday rocked! This was circa 1986? And there was a really cool soccer game back then. The graphics were stunning for the time-frame, but I can't remember the name of that game. My German neighbor played it like it was going out of style (it did some time later, obviously).

i would guess that it was MicroProse's World Cup Soccer..one side of the floppy had indoor and one had outdoor, comlplete with a world cup tourney and variable weather conditions.

[saldana]

I still have my C64 and all the games. A couple years ago I got it out and played a little Red Storm Rising. I should do that again sometime.

my C-64 blew up...i got it fixed and then it blew up again..i would kill to play red storm rising again...for some reason, that is one game i can never find an emulator version of.

[stevew]

I had an Apple 2GS for a long time. Very nice for gaming. I remember when we went from like .5 megs of Ram to 2, it was like night and day.

[ice4277]

my C-64 blew up...i got it fixed and then it blew up again..i would kill to play red storm rising again...for some reason, that is one game i can never find an emulator version of.
I actually had an emulator version of it once. No idea where I got it from though, sorry.

[sterlingice]

"My" oldest computer was my dad's. It was a smoking 286 with a 2400 baud modem and a laser printer that claimed to do 6 pages a minute and was bigger than a computer paper box. Heavy, too.

SI