geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: microsoft windows on Sun, 19 December 2010, 19:36:19
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Sun, 19 December 2010, 19:36:19
I've gone even lower. Today, I decided to get my Compaq Elite 4/40CX laptop, with a 40Mhz 80486 and 12MB of RAM on the wireless. It's working now, although the Internet's pretty slow even by my standards. Took a few minutes just to load this web site!
So how low have you guys gone posting on the Internet?
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: msiegel on Sun, 19 December 2010, 19:39:41
that thing has lower specs than a wireless router XD
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: EverythingIBM on Sun, 19 December 2010, 19:54:21
Quote from: ripster;265921
It takes a few minutes to load this site too with 64 Cable and a 3.6 Quad.
TODAY Microsoft Windows and I are SIMPATICO.
It must be Christmas Cheer!
(OK, I exaggerate a leeetle bit).
Damn 3.6 Ghz.
I really need to get a 3.8 Ghz P4. I SHALL HAVE LOTS OF POWER; well, 400 more Mhz.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Pylon on Sun, 19 December 2010, 20:32:38
Or you can overclock a Core i3 to 4.6GHz...
Or get an IBM server and upgrade the CPU: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/hardware/tower/
IBM System x3200 M3, user upgraded with this? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115227&cm_re=core_i5-_-19-115-227-_-Product
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Sun, 19 December 2010, 20:41:19
Loading up web sites with only 12MB of RAM is pretty sluggish. It's even slower than the dial-up service I used to use. It's more like dialing down to computer hell.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Brodie337 on Mon, 20 December 2010, 01:12:33
Ha!
Posting this from a 4GHz hexacore machine with 8GB of RAM :D
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: db_Iodine on Mon, 20 December 2010, 01:37:08
Quote from: Brodie337;266022
Ha!
Posting this from a 4GHz hexacore machine with 8GB of RAM :D
So am I. We needs to be buddiez now!
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Azuremen on Mon, 20 December 2010, 02:16:05
Pretty sure my Sansa clip has better specs than that.
Lowest I've gone to posting on the internet would be my old iPod touch.
Well, in the modern era. Back in the good ole days I did do a lot of surfing with an old Cyrix powered computer.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Ekaros on Mon, 20 December 2010, 03:54:37
So, when wil you post on 8086? Or if you true collector with one running on 8186 ;D
Just got this poor dual-core T8300 2.4Ghz 2GB ram, laptop slow as anything...
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Konrad on Mon, 20 December 2010, 03:59:58
And I thought ARM boards running at Celeron-like speeds sucked.
mw, I've got some dusty old SIMMs kicking around (4 x 8MB each), and some ancient 486-era CPUs (DX2/66, DX4/100/120/150 I think), ancient Trident/S3 and SB16 type ISA cards ... wanna buy the lot for cheap? You're really hurtin' for an upgrade. :crazy:
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: lowpoly on Mon, 20 December 2010, 04:13:18
80386 with 2400baud modem. No HTML though.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Ekaros on Mon, 20 December 2010, 04:25:28
Quote from: Konrad;266055
And I thought ARM boards running at Celeron-like speeds sucked.
mw, I've got some dusty old SIMMs kicking around (4 x 8MB each), and some ancient 486-era CPUs (DX2/66, DX4/100/120/150 I think), ancient Trident/S3 and SB16 type ISA cards ... wanna buy the lot for cheap? You're really hurtin' for an upgrade. :crazy:
Which reminds me of the fact I just carried a bunch of old AGP cards and other un-assorted junk(including 3 or 4 palmV cardles...) to recyling center... Sadly they didn't have any IBM Ms there, but did have bunch of old laptops including thinkpads...
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: nmd on Mon, 20 December 2010, 04:49:20
Quote from: microsoft windows;265917
I've gone even lower. Today, I decided to get my Compaq Elite 4/40CX laptop, with a 40Mhz 80486 and 12MB of RAM on the wireless. It's working now, although the Internet's pretty slow even by my standards. Took a few minutes just to load this web site!
So how low have you guys gone posting on the Internet?
What OS are you running? Textmode or graphics browser? :D
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Lanx on Mon, 20 December 2010, 05:01:30
12mb's seem like ALOT of ram for a 486, remember when 1meg=50bucks when the dx66 was out in 94 and i think 4 megs was standard, 8megs if you were really loaded (with cash). don't even think you could mix different memory sizes, were those 30pin simms back then? did it have 6 ram slots? *edit* didn't see the laptop part, but man 12megs for a laptop is even weirder, that musta been a 4k laptop!
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: iMav on Mon, 20 December 2010, 05:16:14
I had a Dell 486SX25 that came with 4MB of ram that I upgraded to a 486DX4-100 and 16MB of ram. It was SMOKING fast (or, at least I thought so at the time).
I've actually run a DOS-based graphical browser on a 286 to browse the web. But that was quite a while ago.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Konrad on Mon, 20 December 2010, 07:21:22
lol, 286 ... you can't even run DOS4GW on it. Just HIMEM.SYS and hope for the best.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: lowpoly on Mon, 20 December 2010, 09:26:28
One of my T5200s has a Cyrix 386-486 upgrade CPU. That one is fast (compared to the others).
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Konrad on Mon, 20 December 2010, 09:47:49
I never had a Cyrix. Always bought into the Intel game ... years later I discovered that my CPUs were in fact made by AMD, lol.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: itlnstln on Mon, 20 December 2010, 12:37:14
I posted this on my HP 48GX. Eat it.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Mon, 20 December 2010, 13:54:57
Quote from: nmd;266063
What OS are you running? Textmode or graphics browser? :D
Windows 3.1, Internet Explorer 5.0. I use an Wireless-B card from Netgear.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Mon, 20 December 2010, 13:56:38
Quote from: Konrad;266171
I never had a Cyrix. Always bought into the Intel game ... years later I discovered that my CPUs were in fact made by AMD, lol.
Back then, AMD and Intel made basically made the same stuff. They both made 386's and 486's, etc. if I remember correctly. But I'm not too much into the new computer thing anymore.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Ekaros on Mon, 20 December 2010, 14:00:40
Quote from: kishy;266247
I've already posted from an 8088 which is worse than both of the above.
(assuming you mean 80186 - if an 8186 exists, I don't know what it is)
80816 existed, but almost no computer used it, so owning one would be real collector...
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Mon, 20 December 2010, 14:24:18
Quote from: kishy;266247
I've already posted from an 8088 which is worse than both of the above.
(assuming you mean 80186 - if an 8186 exists, I don't know what it is)
What OS were you using? What kind of network card did you use?
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: EverythingIBM on Mon, 20 December 2010, 14:38:53
Quote from: Pylon;265935
Or you can overclock a Core i3 to 4.6GHz...
Or get an IBM server and upgrade the CPU: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/hardware/tower/
IBM System x3200 M3, user upgraded with this? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115227&cm_re=core_i5-_-19-115-227-_-Product
The problem with those servers is that they probably don't have PCI-E x16. So I'd have to go regular PCI graphics 0_0 (ooooh voodoo II)
Maybe if I ever get rich, I'll buy one of those servers solely for something that needs lots of processing: they'd be good for an audio rig... lots of RAM and processing... but don't need powerful graphics. The next hurdle would be trying to figure out how to make it quiet. A quiet server, that's like an oxymoron.
In the future when a 2.4 quad core CPU won't suffice, I'll have to buy an IBM server for a main computer.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: ch_123 on Mon, 20 December 2010, 16:47:15
Quote from: Ekaros;266300
80816 existed, but almost no computer used it, so owning one would be real collector...
80186
The 8088/8086 were quite primitive chips which needed a lot of additional chips on the mobo to support them. The 186 integrated a lot of functionality of the supporting chips, but they worked differently to the supporting hardware used in the IBM PCs, which meant that they didn't properly work with DOS and DOS applications.
Some non-IBM compatible machines used them, and they were common in embedded hardware too. The 286 implemented things in a backwards compatible friendly way, allowing them to be used in PC compatible machines.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Mon, 20 December 2010, 17:14:46
If you ever feel like doing it again, be sure to take a screen shot! It'll be neat to see.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: porkbone on Mon, 20 December 2010, 18:33:29
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Mon, 20 December 2010, 19:55:42
Did you sneak into my basement?
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Computer-Lab in Basement on Mon, 20 December 2010, 20:03:33
Quote from: porkbone;266450
Location: Land of Beer and Cheese
Where is this??? How come I have never been there????? You must live in Heaven!!!
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: porkbone on Mon, 20 December 2010, 20:16:33
Quote from: Computer-Lab in Basement;266471
Where is this??? How come I have never been there????? You must live in Heaven!!!
If Wisconsin is truly Heaven, then I'm open to evaluating the alternatives... ;)
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: InSanCen on Fri, 24 December 2010, 13:27:02
Quote from: ch_123;266411
80186 ...
Some non-IBM compatible machines used them, and they were common in embedded hardware too.
Indeed they were, I had an ISA IDE card that had an 80186 on board. Much awesome it was too.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: bladamson on Fri, 24 December 2010, 14:34:49
Hmm, I ran Mosiac on a 10MHz 4 meg '030 Mac way back when, but I don't think I ever posted to any forums with it.
So I guess the real answer is a Sparc 5 with a 70Mhz SS2 and 16 megs.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: bladamson on Fri, 24 December 2010, 14:38:17
Quote from: Ekaros;266300
80816 existed, but almost no computer used it, so owning one would be real collector...
I used to have an external 12-port serial multiplexer that had a '186 in it. Only one I've ever seen...
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: ch_123 on Fri, 24 December 2010, 14:42:36
I think the slowest computer I've ever used to post something on Geekhack was my SGI Indy, with its 100MHz MIPS R4000 processor, and 64MB of RAM.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: bladamson on Fri, 24 December 2010, 14:52:47
What'd you use, Arachne?
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Fri, 24 December 2010, 14:53:49
It would be real neat to see a screen shot.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Fri, 24 December 2010, 14:59:23
You're bashing my threads as an excuse to cover up your laziness. Maybe that's why you couldn't find them...
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: bladamson on Fri, 24 December 2010, 15:03:15
Too bad my //e's motherboard is dead. ;_;
[SPECIAL]
[/SPECIAL]
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Fri, 24 December 2010, 15:19:47
Quote from: kishy;268378
I see what you're trying to do there, but I won't post the link. I know exactly where the appropriate post is.
And I proved it by editing the post.
Now prove to me that you edited the post.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: ch_123 on Fri, 24 December 2010, 15:27:48
Quote from: microsoft windows;268390
Now prove to me that you edited the post.
Sounds like someone is having an awesome Christmas.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: woody on Fri, 24 December 2010, 17:53:21
Quote
...80186...
That beauty was heavy into the embedded. AMD sourced good numbers. I still have one on a keychain.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: ch_123 on Fri, 24 December 2010, 18:57:06
I've seen Intel i960s on some networking boards. Apparently quite popular in avionics stuff too.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Konrad on Sat, 25 December 2010, 06:52:21
Quote from: kishy;268378
... but I won't post the link. I know exactly where the appropriate post is. And I proved it ...
Low tolerance for spoonfeeders today, Kish?
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: ricercar on Sat, 25 December 2010, 14:17:15
Kishy woulda had my i960 on an ISA card in a Dolch 486 with 8MB RAM if it hadn't been stolen from my vehicle on the way to the Post Office.
My first build was an AMD 486 DX-100 using my company's Alliance AT3D graphics card and 16MB Alliance RAM. Most machines were happy to have 2MB in those days, at $100 USD/MB street pricing. I was SOOO lucky to work in semiconductors in the mid 90s.
And I call on the 10MHz moto 68030. You mean 16MHz 030 or 10MHz 020. There were no 10MHz consumer 68030 to the best of my knowledge.
Quote from: Ekaros;266300
80816 existed, but almost no computer used it, so owning one would be real collector...
The consumer released Zenith MinisPort 1" thin laptop (notebook before they were called notebooks) had the 80186, accepted up to 2M RAM in SIPP form, and a weird 2" floppy such as typewriters of the era used.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Konrad on Sat, 25 December 2010, 14:46:37
Ah, SIPPs ... I remember populating mobos with the damned things, dunno how many hours I spent soldering stupid little RAM chips. The advent of SIMMs made me very happy.
I know you can purchase 80186/87 emulators, that is, dsPIC parts which have been hardcoded to behave like those ancient CPUs. I don't see the point, to be honest, a blank dsPIC would cost less; I suppose these parts exist either because of compatibility issues or because of Byzantine beauracratic bull****.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Hak Foo on Sat, 25 December 2010, 15:50:23
Quote from: woody;268448
That beauty was heavy into the embedded. AMD sourced good numbers. I still have one on a keychain.
At my college, assembly was done on 68000 r 8086 and 80186 boards, your choice. I did 8086-186.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Hak Foo on Sat, 25 December 2010, 15:54:00
Quote from: Lanx;266069
12mb's seem like ALOT of ram for a 486, remember when 1meg=50bucks when the dx66 was out in 94 and i think 4 megs was standard, 8megs if you were really loaded (with cash). don't even think you could mix different memory sizes, were those 30pin simms back then? did it have 6 ram slots? *edit* didn't see the laptop part, but man 12megs for a laptop is even weirder, that musta been a 4k laptop!
I had a 486-66 at 80 with 32M of memory. Once I bought a scrap laptop with a DX4-100 and 36Mb, so I assume it was an issue due to the 486's longetivity. Remember that DX4-100s and 5x86-133s lasted long into the Pentium era new, and longer still used.
I have a Dual DC-4000 lappie which took a desktop 486 CPU (socketed) and 72-pin SIMM, but it only accepted 4Mb ones, so it has like 12Mb, a 133MHz CPU, and sucks for want of L2 cache. OS/2 3.0 is nice tho
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: iMav on Sat, 25 December 2010, 15:57:11
My 486DX4-100 (upgraded from a SX25) lasted through three power supplies and two cases. I used that thing for EVER.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Sat, 25 December 2010, 16:15:25
Here's that old laptop I was telling you all about earlier.
(http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/8358/031co.jpg) (http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/3964/038qd.jpg) I've updated it to MSIE5, and got it on the Wi-Fi.
Oh, and I put on you all's favorite software too: (http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/7982/036pa.jpg)
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Sat, 25 December 2010, 16:43:16
Quote from: iMav;268799
My 486DX4-100 (upgraded from a SX25) lasted through three power supplies and two cases. I used that thing for EVER.
I hate to think about what you did to that computer to destroy a case and two PSU's.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: ch_123 on Sat, 25 December 2010, 16:44:30
Quote from: Hak Foo;268795
At my college, assembly was done on 68000 r 8086 and 80186 boards, your choice. I did 8086-186.
That's like getting the choice between getting a blowjob, or getting your balls whacked with a paddle, and picking the latter option.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Findecanor on Sat, 25 December 2010, 16:49:35
Quote from: ch_123;268818
That's like getting the choice between getting a blowjob, or getting your balls whacked with a paddle, and picking the latter option.
That is so true.
Back when I was in high school, I had programmed the 6502 on the C=64 for a few years, 68000 assembly on my Amiga, written a few AmigaOS utilities and operating system hacks. I had used the PC only in school, and got some ideas for a DOS extender. I went to my high school computer class teacher and asked if he had a book that would teach me how to program the PC in assembly language ... It did not take too many pages in that book before my excitement was quenched.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: msiegel on Sat, 25 December 2010, 16:53:32
instruction set reference, halfway down the page ;)
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: ch_123 on Sat, 25 December 2010, 16:57:21
On the flipside, if you learned x86 assembly first, everything else (except perhaps IA64 assembly) will be a piss take in comparison...
Just don't do what I did, and learn 68k first, and then have to try and figure out what AMD64 assembler generated by gcc means...
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: bladamson on Sat, 25 December 2010, 18:32:58
Quote from: ch_123;268818
That's like getting the choice between getting a blowjob, or getting your balls whacked with a paddle, and picking the latter option.
You mean you wouldn't choose the latter option? Hmm, I must have odd tastes...
Hmm, I guess I'd better find something else to reply to, so it doesn't look like I made this post just for the sake of saying something pervy... Ah, here's one:
Quote from: ch_123;268828
On the flipside, if you learned x86 assembly first, everything else (except perhaps IA64 assembly) will be a piss take in comparison...
Just don't do what I did, and learn 68k first, and then have to try and figure out what AMD64 assembler generated by gcc means...
Ya, I did a fair amount of 6502 assembler in the late 80s / early 90s and then tried to learn i386 asm when slackware started to become popular. CISC instruction sets suck. :P
Intel and compatible chips especially. They have so much vestigial crap, it makes me cringe. :3
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Konrad on Sun, 26 December 2010, 01:57:18
Meh, assembly is assembly. Every microcontroller and microprocessor model requires a peculiar variation in the instruction set and architecture. Learn one or three and you basically know them all - besides, the reality is that the majority of your projects will be written in higher code and the compilers will automate the assembly quirks away from you ... unless you absolutely need to squeeze every byte and every clock out for some kind of tricky hardware interface or whatever (in which case you might as well make things easier on yourself and just upgrade your project onto a faster chip).
The new C64 (http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_C64.aspx) is here, booya! I just don't know if you can use your C64 software cartridges with it, let alone 5¼" floppies ...
Too bad there's no upgrade for Commodore's most excellent 1702 monitor. (http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3227/3027892522_1b2c8d95be.jpg)
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: woody on Sun, 26 December 2010, 04:03:04
Quote from: iMav;268799
My 486DX4-100 (upgraded from a SX25) lasted through three power supplies and two cases. I used that thing for EVER.
Quite similar - upgraded from 386SX-33 to 486DX4-120. Latter still in possession, although haven't seen power-on in 6 years.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: woody on Sun, 26 December 2010, 04:05:24
Quote from: Konrad;268946
The new C64 (http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_C64.aspx) is here, booya! I just don't know if you can use your C64 software cartridges with it, let alone 5¼" floppies ...
Slap emulators into just about anything! Terrible website.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: ch_123 on Sun, 26 December 2010, 08:11:09
Quote from: Konrad;268946
Meh, assembly is assembly. Every microcontroller and microprocessor model requires a peculiar variation in the instruction set and architecture. Learn one or three and you basically know them all
Not really. Some are far more complicated than others.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: woody on Sun, 26 December 2010, 09:35:28
Like women - once you get past single-digit numbers, you start to get the pattern.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: microsoft windows on Sun, 26 December 2010, 10:06:47
Quote from: ch_123;268818
That's like getting the choice between getting a blowjob, or getting your balls whacked with a paddle, and picking the latter option.
What if you're a female?
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: NewbieOneKenobi on Wed, 29 December 2010, 20:41:27
I vaguely recall my buddy having a 486 (it was a high DX, 100 MHz or more, some of those beasts reached up to 133) with a 14.4 Kb modem back when it was current but my step-father might have had a 9.6 Kb modem on a low 486 SX (25 MHz IIRC), the same the M came with. Actually, I'm pretty sure he had the modem, just not sure which computer it was used with.
Title: Posting this off a 486
Post by: Konrad on Wed, 29 December 2010, 21:25:04
IIRC, Intel's top 486 was DX4/100, while AMD (under the Intel brand) offered up to DX4/150; I still have an AMD i486DX4/120. At the time 25/33/40MHz FSB speeds were stable whereas 50MHz was not (at least not without being very selective and a little lucky with the rest of your mobo hardware/cards/RAM); external frequency multipliers only went to 3 or maybe 3.5. I might be wrong.