"The Ultimate Gaming Machine" Quote 1996

[Seedler]

Just picked up myself an issue of PC building bible, and on the back they featured the 1996 PC Gamer magazine which titled The Ultimate Gaming Machine, that priced a whopping $3000 at that time.

It was fully capable of running Descent 2, Diablo I, Quake, and Terminator Future Shock without much lag. It was truly a beast.

The specs for the $3000 monster? OMGasmic, of course:

pentium 166mhz cpu
16mb edo ram
1gb hard drive
8x cdrom drive
4mb local bus super vga video
17" crt monitor
soundbalster 16 soundcard
28.8k modem
4 button programmable joystick
20w stereo speakers
28.8k Modem

Holy freaking shit. My PDA outperforms that shit. 28.8k, not 56k modem... and WTF is EDO ram?

Technology has come a long way

[Chewie]

Hehe yeah hardware from that era seems so puny now
It's an interesting idea to install 2x 28.8k modems. I wonder if they achieved 56k with them running together?

The RAM woulda been 72-pin SIMMS and installed in pairs but the definition of EDO escapes me and I can't be arsed to google it. Someone will doubtless do so anyway.

[lynx]

My own system of about that time was superior to that spec, apart from the 17" monitor. I suspect a monitor of that size probably cost in the region of $500 (at least).

My system certainly didn't cost anything like that amount, probably around £700 (about $1100 at the time) with a 15" monitor, 32MB ram, AMD K5 PR150 cpu, 2GB hdd, SB16 sound if I remember correctly. Couldn't really say what the modem, cdrom and graphics card were, but I think the specs for 56k modems weren't finalized at that time.

FYI, EDO stands for Extended Data Output, it simply meant that the data on the bus was still valid while the ram was being prepared for the next read. It meant that the relatively fast processor could start preparing the next memory burst before the previous data transfer had finished.

As you say, technology has come a long way in the last 10 years or so.

[Virtualbody1234]

Yeah I had one around the same era.

Asus mobo with 430HX, "Triton II" chipset
Pentium 133 (non-MMX)
Mini tower case with 250w PSU (AT form factor)
32 meg EDO simms
2.2 GB western digital (later added a 4.3 GB slave)
12x Panasonic CDROM
15" crt
ATI 3D Expression 4 MB PCI
Soundblaster 16 PCI
33.6 US Robotics PCI modem
Microsoft Windows 95b
+ a few extras...

Was around $2,200 CND.



Wow! I'm amazed how much detail I can remember about that.

[Skiz]

I think I had a "386" in 1996. Heck, I had that 386 in 1998.

Can't remember any hardware specs though.

[4play]

yeah i was given a 386 in 1996

16mhz intel cpu
2 mb edo ram
215 mb hdd
no sound card or modem
dos 6.22

I remember having to spend £80 to get 2 more mb of ram so i could install win 3.11

[Elvenmunky]

imagine the computers ten years from now...scary. we will be looking back and laughing at the computers we have now! hehe

[Seedler]

imagine the computers ten years from now...scary. we will be looking back and laughing at the computers we have now! hehe

Core 9 with twenty cores @ 60Ghz, with 128Gigs of UbeRAM, a 125 TB 200000000 RPM Hard Drive, and a 32Gigs of Vram Vid card by Nvidia, the 99999000000 GTX. Along with a 999999999999999999999999999 Watts PSU by antec with 900 rails. And a 10GB connection to da internet.

It should run Half Life 8 with minimal lag.

[Skiz]

It should run Half Life 8 with minimal lag.

[tesco]

imagine the computers ten years from now...scary. we will be looking back and laughing at the computers we have now! hehe

Core 9 with twenty cores @ 60Ghz, with 128Gigs of UbeRAM, a 125 TB 200000000 RPM Hard Drive, and a 32Gigs of Vram Vid card by Nvidia, the 99999000000 GTX. Along with a 999999999999999999999999999 Watts PSU by antec with 900 rails. And a 10GB connection to da internet.

It should run Half Life 8 with minimal lag.

999999999999999999999999999 Watts PSU

The end of personal computers.