“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own late 80s OS”

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by icelancer on Saturday December 13, 2014 @10:12PM (#8747328)

Ha, I had a similar situation. I grew up with a trash-80 well after it was cool in the early 1990s! Though I did get to use an Apple IIe around that time too which was awesome (did not realize how old these computers were, just was so excited to write command line BASIC).

My first computer was a Laser 286 and I marveled at the power it had. Even the turbo button from 8->12 Mhz of course :)

Oh, and the video card that took 4 AA batteries to run...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by tacoman on Sunday December 14, 2014 @12:00AM (#8747494)

I had a Laser computer with the same specs. Even slowed down to 8Mhz, some games that were meant for an XT weren't playable. I popped the cpu out of the socket and I've had it on my key chain since 1995.

https://i.imgur.com/qgjDzbm.png

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by icelancer on Sunday December 14, 2014 @03:00AM (#8747719)

Ha! Never met anyone who had the same model. It was a beautiful machine.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by ddoolin on Sunday December 14, 2014 @01:25AM (#8747599)

What is the grey material it's encased in? Really cool idea.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by 0x83F1 on Sunday December 14, 2014 @02:52AM (#8747706)

It's the resin of the CPU's top surface, just incredibly worn down from being on somebodies keychain for years.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by jfroma on Sunday December 14, 2014 @07:27AM (#8748141)

I grew up with a 386SX , newer than yours but again very outdated when I got it.

I remember going to downtown in bus with my brother to a game store, watching amazing games in catalogs and then going back to home with 40 floppy disks just to figure out that number 38 was broken and after lot of trips to the game store, that the game didn't work on my hardware.

I learned programming much later in a newer hardware, but I learned about files, directories, etc in this machine.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by scintill76 on Sunday December 14, 2014 @03:19AM (#8747748)

What were the AA batteries for? Do you know why the card wasn't powered with the rest of the system?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by edmccard on Sunday December 14, 2014 @12:33PM (#8748870)

>What were the AA batteries for?

Some motherboards from the 286 era used 4 AAs as the CMOS backup battery.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by yuhong on Monday December 15, 2014 @01:02AM (#8750861)

To be more precise, it was common with motherboards that used the MC146818 RTC chip used in the original PC/AT. The four AAs provided a total of 6V of power.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by icelancer on Sunday December 14, 2014 @09:57AM (#8748404)

I actually don't, and I can't find a damn thing about it on Google. Weird.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Was isolated from 1999 to 2006 with a 486. Built my own ... by tempestn on Sunday December 14, 2014 @02:06AM (#8747652)

Ahh I'd completely forgotten about turbo buttons! Thanks for the blast from the past there.

[ Parent | on HN ]