Oldie But Goodie - A throwback to the stars of yesteryear

[Wesley]

Before you get all teary-eyed and sentimental over your overclocked i386 processor, pay attention to this thread in the future to see what brilliant innovations, people and projects filled the past of the modern PC (and the one sitting under your desk). Oldie But Goodie will take a look at special products and minds that benefitted computing on the whole and also gave us superior performance, features, or an outlook to the future that designers had in mind long before it even happened.

If you're nostalgic, take a turn in this thread every Friday and I'll have another old thing for you to look at!

[Wesley]

Oldie But Goodie: Socket LGA775

A lot of gamers started out with an Intel computer. Sure it may not have been a Pentium II or a 486 but there's no denying that it was the easier brand to buy back in the day with AMD gaining traction in the beginning of the Pentium era. Some of you reading this, in fact, may have even had a joy of running Windows 95 on an Intel processor with a Voodoo graphics card that was capable of at least playing Red Alert. A lot of the impression that blue brand made on you carried over until socket 478, where Netburst's weaknesses started to show when compared to AMD's brand-spanking new Athlon x64 chip which could have run rings around it.

Intel didn't like this one bit. It realised that something had to be done to stop the madness and allow it to regain control of the market once more. It set its engineers to work on figuring out the standard that all CPUs in the future would later be compared to. Some people called its arrival the "golden age of computing" while others shot it down because it was expensive at the time. Enthusiasts who just really didn't like change didn't have much to say about it at all - but they bought one anyway, one way or another. This isn't just any single piece of silicon I'm talking about; no, this is much bigger than that.

This is the legacy of socket LGA775.

Linky

[Wesley]

Oldie But Goodie: Sixty Frames Per Second

Its something that all gamers aspire to, a performance metric by which all rigs are measures and marked by. Since the invention of film, 24 frames per second is the default speed at which movies and other video media are shot at to keep movement in the frame fluid and create the illusion of reality. To this day, the frame rate considered to be the lowest playable minimum it still 35fps. But the one that feels most comfortable and playable changes between game types and it all depends on the player's preferences, their hardware and the game settings they use.

Linky

[Toxxyc]

^ A good read. Man, I remember the days where my dad bought a Pentium 1 setup for just over R1,000 and I was the bees knees because I was able to play whatever I wanted. A lot later on a P2 followed (but it wasn't all that, unfortunately), and then came the P3 with the 866MHz CPU, topped off with a sweet, sweet "GeForce 4". P4 was short on that heels with Windows 98 SE running my famous Inno3D GeForce FX5200 256MB PCI card. Card kept my almost 5 years, until it was replaced with a GT220 512MB. All that time all I aimed for was 30 FPS on my 19" CRT (which was the **** when I got it, everybody kept playing on 15" or 17") at 1280 x 1024. 60 FPS was overkill, as when I got lag I turned down textures, resolutions and shadows, smoke bubbles and the lot on CS 1.6.

Frigging hell man, I can smell the snackwiches made at those LANs. Thanks for the read!

[Cranky]

^ A good read. Man, I remember the days where my dad bought a Pentium 1 setup for just over R1,000 and I was the bees knees because I was able to play whatever I wanted. A lot later on a P2 followed (but it wasn't all that, unfortunately), and then came the P3 with the 866MHz CPU, topped off with a sweet, sweet "GeForce 4". P4 was short on that heels with Windows 98 SE running my famous Inno3D GeForce FX5200 256MB PCI card. Card kept my almost 5 years, until it was replaced with a GT220 512MB. All that time all I aimed for was 30 FPS on my 19" CRT (which was the **** when I got it, everybody kept playing on 15" or 17") at 1280 x 1024. 60 FPS was overkill, as when I got lag I turned down textures, resolutions and shadows, smoke bubbles and the lot on CS 1.6.

Frigging hell man, I can smell the snackwiches made at those LANs. Thanks for the read!

99% of fps competitive gamers run with as low details as possible :D


having more fps is good and the competitive fps of cod 4 is a constant 250 fps :D

[Wesley]

Oldie But Goodie: The ATA/ATAPI Standard

I have to admit, today’s Oldie But Goodie isn’t something I’m remembering fondly. A lot of people say things like, “those were the good old days” when they’re remembering something that they liked. For the record, I hated and still hate the IDE standard, but I can appreciate that it’s gotten us to where things stand today – those sexy, sexy coloured SATA cables that bend and buckle in every way you command. How did people back then cope with the hassle of the ribbon cable?

Firstly, let’s get into why we needed the damn thing in the first place.

Linky

[Squirly]

Good bye stupid IDE cable. I'm grateful and all and you really helped us when we needed you but times have changed. It's not you, it's us. By which I mean it's actually you. You suck and I hate you.

[.exe]

Damn cool thread this.

[Griff3n]

I still run a LGA 775 :P with DDR 2
I had a P4 right up till Oct 2008 then went onto my Quad Core. Still haven't seen a reason to upgrade.

[Zoop]

I still run a LGA 775 :P with DDR 2

Me too. :(

[GeometriX]

Me three. And I still have an optical drive that uses IDE. Oh, and a PS/2 keyboard. I'm basically stuck in the stone age.

Oh god, I have horrible memories of my PC modding days way back when IDE was the norm. I remember doing that thing where you slice up the cable into individual ****ing strands and wrap it up for teh awesome air flowz. I also spray-painted my chassis because Hackers.

[Zoop]

Same here. I've still got a PS/2 keyboard and running two IDE HDDs. My PC case is also a relic from 2005, a recent upgrade from the 2003 model I was using.

I really need to upgrade.

[Wesley]

You are all manly men, I salute you. I wish I still had my Q6600 from work, that was an epic chip.

[KalMaverick]

Me three. And I still have an optical drive that uses IDE. Oh, and a PS/2 keyboard. I'm basically stuck in the stone age.

Oh god, I have horrible memories of my PC modding days way back when IDE was the norm. I remember doing that thing where you slice up the cable into individual ****ing strands and wrap it up for teh awesome air flowz. I also spray-painted my chassis because Hackers.

Well, I've got a X-blade case... A fake X-Blade case. It's ancient but it was also my first case, so I'm still using it.

I also had a Genius PS/2 keyboard until I exchanged it for a Microsoft USB one from my sister.

[Toxxyc]

I'm still rocking LGA775 as well. Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ standard clocks (mobo is MSI, and I haven't had the heart to attempt an OC AGAIN), DDR2 RAM (Corsair XMS2) @ 667MHz (800MHz doesn't work, due to the CPU/RAM ratio not working due to the OC not being attempted, for some reason. Ratio setting fails to work) and 2 x SATA HDD's (at least it's SATA). With regards to external peripherals, I'm also rolling with a PS/2 keyboard. A Microsoft-branded piece, it's fairly large with excellent comfort for some reason. The only reason I've not replaced it yet is because, unlike many other PS/2 keyboards, I can play a racing game and while driving I can accelerate, turn left AND use Nitro at the same time without the chassis speaker going "beep...beep...beep" in error. I have no idea how MS did it, but I can do simultaneous keypresses (like up, left and Shift at the same time) that other keyboard cannot. I've tried this. With my previous keyboard I could turn right with Nitro's, but not left. It'd beep. With this one it matters not.

It does look funny to onlookers when I get to a LAN and I whip out my Logitech G500 programmed to DotA, place it on my Cooler Master Storm Weapon of Choice M4 mousepad with grace, plug it in and then, when the looking is just about to subside I open my bag and pull out my old MS PS/2 keyboard. It's LOLz. Specially when I make a loud note that I don't have programmed keyboard keys for commands or combo's and I have to do it all manually. And then our team wins. Or won. I don't play anymore. For that exact reason.

[.exe]

My brother's also still sporting socket 775. E6850 CPU. Perfectly good still.

[Fredder]

Using my old socket 775 Q8300 quad core as a media PC, just want to pop in a R7770 and I will be able to play some games on it too . . . It did well, lasted me from 2007 up to the middle of this year.

And old IDE ribbon cables, yeah, well, good riddance, too many issues and a bitch to keep tidy. Didn't have much time to mod and such.

[Wesley]

Oldie But Goodie: Losing your mind in a maze

So for those of you who were born from 1995 and onwards and never used Windows 95, you won't remember this. Some of the old folk here do, however, and more hours were spent staring at the screen when it came on than there were playing games, or watching the telly. While Windows 95 didn't change things as much as Windows 2000 did (and still does, because it has the best network stack Microsoft has ever, or will ever, design), it did bring one thing that brought joy to everyone who followed it's exploits (and no, it wasn't the Start button)...

The Windows 95 Maze screensaver!

Linky

[tarisma]

I remember that maze haha nostalgia galore

[Toxxyc]

Downloading now...

It's even better than my Nvidia Sun Village screen saver! :D