Vote Now! TechEnclave's "Blast from the Past" Contest

[?dOuBtFiRe?]

Let me begin the festivities!
Was free this new year, taking care of my elderly people in my family while the rest enjoys the break. Here we go.

PC Transformation:
About This:
News Article
Made and assembled by Wipro. This machine had 15in CRT Monitor, Pentium Processor II MMX, 2GB HDD and Unknown RAM. We later upgraded to 10GB HDD. Remember it came with a game CD POD and DK Interative Human Anatomy
I remember my father bringing home this setup in 1997-98. This one had all the markings for proper gaming setup. we used to play that game POD all the time and our annual test scores tanked by 3 ranks which made my mother break that CD to pieces. Anyway remember using it to learn Word, Excel and Lotus software. This one was the one which started it all for me.
I bought my father this i3 8th Gen NUC before Covid. SOrt of coming a full circle.

Mobile Transformation:
Many of you remember the CDMA phone from Reliance for INR 500.
Well my father was one of the early adopters of this Mobile. He had got stuck for INR 20k. I still remember his anger over the company. Years later on I got my first mobile Nokia Brick and Airtel and later moved on. I got him S23 2 years back.

TV Internet Transformation:
I am pretty sure no one would have heard of this device from Samsung. It was used to connect our old CRT, Flatron TV and transform it as a computer. Nevertheless it was a flop. My father had bought it in '99. The biggest drawback was it was meant to connect TV, operate it from far off No Wifi, Just old 56kb Landline Modem, No Mouse, Lovely KB but that is all. It came bundled with IE and we were supposed to browse using the above. No way. We promptly bundled it back and tucked it in the loft.
Years pass I got my family Zidoo X10 and we watch it connected to TV.

Updated the post as per rules.

 

[Renegade]

Yes only one entry per member. Put everything you have in one post/picture if you want.

Here is my entry from 2007!

Bought these in 2007 or 2008, Half Life Orange Box and Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars. Back when we didn't use to buy games. Still have these lying around with me. I like discarding things fiercely but just can't let go of these.

The entire Half life series was by far the most engaging game that I grew up with. The sound of empty wall mounted Health and HEV suit chargers still rings through my ears.

Command & Conquer was another series which had me hooked. This Tiberium Wars demo I played for the first time at @BIKeINSTEIN home. Just had to buy it after that.

They had even come out with an FPS CnC: Renegade in 2002. Thoroughly enjoyed that as well. I got my username either from that or from the song Renegades of Funk by Rage against the Machine. Or Both.

My origin story.

 

[Heisen]

This is the ATI X1950 XT DDR3 512MB, a treasure I picked up back in 2007. It was my second graphics card, marking the true beginning of my PC gaming journey after the nostalgic days of NES and SNES.

The last time I checked, it was still running. I have such fond memories with this card, back then, my entire world revolved around graphics cards. I loved diving into every new game, mesmerized by the real time graphics rendering. It was all so fresh and exciting, with stunning games and dazzling shaders that completely hooked me.

 

[dpandey]

Damn! I wish this thread was created a month ago. I was forced to clean up my apt in Dec to accommodate more people. Had to throw away parts of a 25 years old PC (Bought from IIRC Madan Street, Clarion Comp). Three button mouse (no wheel, actual ball) that connected to serial port, motherboard with an ISA bridge, Ethernet card with a BNC connector and a Cirrus Logic sound card ... all dumped into the e-waste bin.

For the kids on TE. In the last century, hard disks used to get the respect they deserve. You could buy them in the nice big boxes with a lot of conductive foam. (prob bought in Aug 1999).

A 64 MB pen drive (~2003).

A high speed (56 kbps) modem from year 2000 (signed 26/7/00). Unused. Was not allowed to install it. Access to the Internet was considered bad for the kids

A 16 MB CF card from ~2002. This came with my first digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix 2500. I was unsure till I searched for the camera model on google.

Nikon Coolpix 2500 Compact Digital Camera 2.0MP Japan *BUNDLE* | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Nikon Coolpix 2500 Compact Digital Camera 2.0MP Japan *BUNDLE* at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

https://www.amazon.in/Nikon-Coolpix-Digital-Camera-Optical/dp/B0000635UX

 

[soulweaver]

Who else remembers installing Office using floppies?

Here’s is my yet unopened pack of Office for Windows 95. Installed a bootleg version back then keeping the original for later use. 30 odd years later, I am still to use it!

 

[bssunilreddy]

Its Called Voigtlander Vito C from Germany

Bought around 1980's by my Uncle who studied in Germany in the 1970's & Worked in Sulzer there.
It has retractable viewfinder and was compact to hold. It runs on 2 pentorch cells & normal film.

 

[arup]

Some tech items but non-electronic ones.
Hope this qualifies the contest criteria.

PS- Don't try to activate windows using the product keys.

 

[rsaeon]

^ I remember fondly of the hours and hours that I peered through TTL books finding cool and interesting chips by the window during the monsoon because we had no power.

PS- Don't try to activate windows using the product keys.

I hid mine

My origin story.

Ha!



Okay so to keep things fair, I've limited this to stuff that I purchased 20 years ago AND intentionally kept safe over the years. So no recent nostalgia purchases or stuff that I forgot about under my mother's bed.

That's a Virgin Webplayer, an internet appliance from 1999. After the bios password was found out, I bought at least four of them between 2000 and 2002, and I still have two of them today. I used them as internet radio stations, listening to podcasts up until around 2008, when the screen finally died. Got a mini-PCI wifi card for them too, it's around here somewhere. One of these days, I'll make a homage to these useful devices with an ipad screen and a mini pc. This is also where the my love of single-purpose computers truly became a thing of its own. Before this, I was hoarding 386s and other junk.

All of those discs laid flat are from the greatest gaming series ever, Command & Conquer. I was a patient gamer, I played through the demo version of the first Command & Conquer for an entire year until the game dropped to a price where I could afford it. Same with Tiberian Sun, I bought it after Firestorm came out and ebgames.com had it for under $20. When I finally got it, I spent two weeks playing it non-stop and was forced to repeat an entire semester of med school.

Then there's Quake III Arena. It took two weeks of downloading an hour a day on dialup just to get the demo version from cnet's download.com. Then about a year later, I found the full version on sale at a book store of all places. It was an absolutely thrilling game.

 

[vishalrao]

My OG Moto Razr from way back in 2005

 

[ememm]

1) My Sony Ericsson k750i with new housing case, M2 card and adapter. My first phone with own earnings, so saved it for posterity. Had splurged one whole month's salary in 2005. Today I charged for 5 minutes and switched it on after maybe 13 years. To my utter surprise it turned on and showing 64% charge and working just fine.
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2) My first Android phone - Spice CSL Mi 410. Bought on launch around mid 2011, now not working. Not sure, but highly likely that I had gone through this TE thread before purchase

Thread 'Spice Mi 410 smartphone. 1Ghz snapdragon | 4.1" | Froyo | 5MP | 15K'

May 10, 2011

Wait till you read this.

Spice is coming up with their latest offering of Spice Mi 410 smartphone

* Powered by a 1Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon Processor
* 4.1" Capacitive touchscreen
* 2.2 Android Version
* 5 MP Cam
*** Oh the price tag is a cute little 15K.

Source >> Spice to launch Mi 410 smartphone in June

• abracadabra
• Replies: 1,501
• Forum: Mobile Phones & Tablets

Came across XDA and dabbed in a lot of custom ROMs. A lot of fond memories associated with this one.
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3) My first media box - WDTV Live Plus. Bought from US around 2011end. Should be working - had installed WdLxTv homebrew firmware. Had spent an eternity downloading and organizing movies and music videos to play on my plasma TV. Nostalgic!

 

[Din]

1. The machine.

It is AMD386 DX-40 CPU, that is a pretty fast 40 MHz processor. Usually runs at 16 MHz and when you press that 'Turbo' button, it shoots up to 40 MHz!
The hard disk has decent space, quite enough to store a lot of stuff. Seagate 272.7 MB
Motherboard has plenty of RAM slots. Actually 8 slots in total. Four of those slots has high capacity RAM modules installed, 1MB each.
The machine has floppy drive too. Not meant for the 3.5 inch smaller ones, but for the 5.25 inch large floppy diskettes.
It has a physical lock and key on the front. Pretty safe and secure (Hacking not possible).

2. The story

No, not my first machine. During my first days of learning computers in late 90s, we had the AIX server at the IBM training centre. The Unix one. Then I bought a PC in 2000 or so. Windows OS, Pentium based. But never got a chance to try out DOS commands! My cousin mentioned his office is getting rid of old PCs, I got one from there. When @ibose mentioned there is such a thread, checked the cupboard and found it. I have a feeling that it still works! Need to connect the monitor etc. to confirm. It is written - MS Windows compatible on the processor! Might be the Windows 3.1 version.

The processor model AMD386, is from 1991. But looking at the serial it could be from 95 too.

 

[t3chg33k]

Didn't know that I still had some of this stuff till I opened a storage box today.

The tape recorder was my grandfather's, perhaps one of the earliest bits of tech I used, which was to bootleg songs from the TV speaker.

The customary Walkman (men?) from the 90s. The tape one was gifted by my uncle to my elder brother, and I had received the FM radio one as the younger sibling.

The Grundig one came from the time my father visited Germany in the 90s, and somehow it still worked when I tried it out a couple of years back, though the Sony one is dead.

The game cartridges are from my first "console" which was made by Mega and played Nintendo titles while having Genesis-like controllers.

The Sony Ericsson MW600 is the latest retro tech over here from just over a decade ago when I finally decided to go wireless.



Posted this one over here previously, but always close to my heart as my first smartphone and of course it still works.

 

[PoBoy]

My first build, circa 2001. Bills in pic.
AMD Duron 800, Rs 4500. The equivalent Intel Pentium 3 was selling for like Rs 14000.
Soltek SL-75MAV mobo, Rs 6154.
IBM IDE HDD 30GB, Rs 8400 (yikes!).

A Microsoft serial ball mouse I won in a competition (Bombay Times I think, LOL), circa 2000.

Sony Floppy disks.

---

EDIT : Forgot to add my Windows ME install CD, yes I actually paid like Rs 3500 for that.

 

[sauravghosh]

Two weeks back I took these photos as I was disposing of dozens of amazon box. Only getting time to post this now. Used irfanview to merge the photos as all these items were in different places in the house.

Mice: Samsung one I used back in 2004 if I recall correctly. This was my first optical after using a ball mouse the previous year in 2003. The G9 was bought around 2007. And it has been used/abused and whatnot. Those were the peak gaming days for me.



Motherboard of my second system the core 2 duo e6600 if I recall correctly. Bought around 2005-06.



Explanation not required.



CD RW from my first system. 6500 for that in 2003. Lmao. I pretty much guarantee it still works.



Soundcard, don't exactly remember when I bought this. Perhaps around 2008 or something.



So I sell all the Sonys and Nokias but I see that these bloody CDs are still here to haunt me. The 1600 and whatever Samsung phone that is are the only ones I have from past. This is the SADDEST part for me not the computer stuffs.



This is not PC or mobile but our landline telephones starting with the BPL in 1995 to 2014 when we finally disconnected the line ending with the panasonic one. The white beetel one was my most favourite due its excellent switches. Our first phone, a rotary one from 1991-92 is not here. It's in a mezzanine floor probably surrounded by dead lizards.




Respectfully, I do not bother at all with the likes and award stuff. Just posted this as I am extrememly nostalgic and sentimental.

 

[Renegade]

Vote Now! TechEnclave's "Blast from the Past" Contest

Hey! The entries are in for our Blast from the Past contest, and now it’s time to pick the winner!

Browse the amazing throwback submissions.
Hit ‘Like’ on your favorite entry—the post with the most likes wins!
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Voting is open now, so drop those likes and make your choice count!