PC Peripherals Nostalgia, what was your first build??

My first was an AMD build that I received as a gift after completing my class 12 finals.

AMD Athlon XP 2000+
Asus A7N266-VM motherboard with GeForce 2 IGP (32 MB shared memory)
256 MB DDR RAM (hynix)
40 GB Samsung IDE hard drive
Sony 52x CD ROM drive (This one had a locked 40x read speed unless you'd press and hold the eject button for 3-5 seconds which would unlock the 52x speed for that session).
15" Samsung Samtron CRT monitor
Frontech JIL-1866 multimedia speakers with sub
A cheap Frontech cabinet with 400 watts SMPS
A Microtek 650 VA UPS.

Spent hundreds of hours playing Max Payne, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, C&C Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge, Knights of the Old Republic, NFS Underground, Underground 2, and many other titles of that time...

It was the best time of my life and probably still the best gift I ever received considering the amount of joy it brought in my life! Learnt most of what I know about hardware today by tinkering with this machine.
 
Here's mine with an extra dose of nostalgia
Screenshot_2024-04-07-17-07-39-098_com.android.chrome.jpg
 


March 2003. Some Pentium 4 cpu. The exact model sometimes come to my mind sometimes skips. Although i do remember that very next year i upgraded to Pentium 4 HT.
Lol "Intel Original" brings back memories. Only Indian shopkeepers/technicians would use this term (especially in West Bengal) :playful:
 
  • Haha
Reactions: sauravghosh


March 2003. Some Pentium 4 cpu. The exact model sometimes come to my mind sometimes skips. Although i do remember that very next year i upgraded to Pentium 4 HT.
How could I forget the legendary 1.44MB Floppy drive in my build!? Thanks @sauravghosh !
Lol "Intel Original" brings back memories. Only Indian shopkeepers/technicians would use this term (especially in West Bengal) :playful:
True! That vs the "Intel chipset" and these were always considered inferior to the "original" motherboards.
 
My first build came off a guy from Lamington Road recommended by a relative who had most probably ripped us off.

I remember it was a Pentium III 450 MHz because I had spent so much time debating as to whether it was worth getting it over a PII 450 MHz, especially since friends around had either a Celeron or a 3xx MHz PII. Regretted it quickly as speeds jumped past 1 GHZ before the end of the year.

Also distinctly remember that the first motherboard came with a SiS 6326 which was so crap that I got it returned and then got a motherboard without integrated graphics and a Nvidia Riva TNT2 M64.

The other aspect I remember distinctly is getting the Sound Blaster Live Value sound card which also got me to quickly purchase Cambridge Soundworks speakers with subwoofer.

Don't remember too much of the remainder of the setup except that I had a LG 15" CRT with inbuilt speakers, a Seagate 4.3 GB HDD, a US Robotics 56K modem and had to hold my breath for Y2K.
 
Last edited:
i3 530
1gb integrated graphics
500 gb hdd
4gb ddr3 ram
Not sure about the PSU,

had such a good time with that pc. Countless hours of online gaming (miniclip days, there used to be a game called Tanki Online and also League of legends)
 
This was 2001...

P4 1.5Ghz single core no HT
256MB DDR RAM (128MB x2)
Socket 478 Intel mobo
No GPU (whatever was onboard)
40GB IDE HDD
CD-ROM
Generic PSU and cabinet
14" LG CRT 1024x768 res.

I used to play Dangerous Dave, Road Rash, House of the Dead, Midtown Madness, Monster Truck Madness and NFS 2, 3, Porsche 2000/Unleashed a lot.
Also a lot of flash player based games.
 
The first PC I remember in my home ran DOS, and I have no earthly clue wtf it had as internals. I do remember it had a floppy drive with a rotating lock though, for the actually floppy 5in floppy disks.

The first build I remember getting was a Pentium D 2.8GHz, an absolutely shit processor that had the raw clock speed but a trash architecture. That was built from a computer shop somewhere.

The first I built myself was a budget build, an AMD A8 3870K, 8 GB of RAM, no SSD, no dGPU, Corsair PSU, HGST HDD, some cheap CM case. It's still lying on my desk and still works, although it's kinda trash because of the CPU.
HGST made the best HDDs though, that 1TB HDD is still going strong in what I have now, at ~85000 power on hours and ~1900 count. Hands down the most reliable component I have bought.

Edit: corrected HDD stats.
 
The first PC I remember in my home ran DOS, and I have no earthly clue wtf it had as internals. I do remember it had a floppy drive with a rotating lock though, for the actually floppy 5in floppy disks.
Err ....My first Builds were way back in 1987-88 o_O {when I worked for an NGO in a remote area of Maharashtra).
It was probably an 8086 system on DOS with 2MB RAM and a 20MB thick rugged HDD, plus 5" 1.2MB FDD's (which you could carry the world with you at that time!) and also a dot-matrix printer.
Software was Lotus and some Word based thingy.
Purpose was - for maintaining Accounts and Posting Notices/ Letters

Crazy thing was we had to get an AC too for the room to be sufficiently cooled for the 2 systems to run well.

ALL in ALL we spend almost 1 Lakh rupees - way back in 1987-88! with another NGO in Pune.

Just later on in 1989-90 I was fortunate to work on the Macintosh Classic too [see image]
 

Attachments

  • Macintosh_classic.jpg
    Macintosh_classic.jpg
    80 KB · Views: 52
You can check this thread.