April Fools joke: Swedish store starts selling retro PC

I think this was pretty funny: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.komplett.se%2Fk%2Fkcf.aspx%3Fid%3D2560&act=url

Nice one, and only $4550. I wonder if that included the dancing baby screensaver?

6 gig hard drive? That seems a little big. 500mb would have been more in line with the other specs.

Another pretty nice one: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webhallen.com%2Fhardvara%2Fkampanjer%2Fd-link_personal_pirate_bay_drone_ppbd-1000%2F&act=url

AndrewB said:

6 gig hard drive? That seems a little big. 500mb would have been more in line with the other specs.

What? That would barely be enough room for ten games. We had more space than that on our 486 DX4-100.

That's crazy! If a computer store near my place was selling that, I would be pretty suprised because of how old it is.

GreyGhost said:

Nice one, and only $4550. I wonder if that included the dancing baby screensaver?

I miss the internet pre-2000

AndrewB said:

6 gig hard drive? That seems a little big. 500mb would have been more in line with the other specs.

Looks like my first comp, even that had 1.7 GB.

6 gigs of storage was pretty expensive for a computer like that in 1995. Their specs aren't even close to the best possible for a post-Quake system.

Aliotroph? said:

6 gigs of storage was pretty expensive for a computer like that in 1995. Their specs aren't even close to the best possible for a post-Quake system.

Yet another example of "did not do the research". They are mixing top-of-the-line 1997 components with what for the rest are 1995 specs and references.

The Seagate Medalist ST 36451A HD was released in 1997, such capacities were not available in 1995 or 1996, at least not for IDE controllers, which were already struggling with the stupid 504 MB size limit, and DOS couldn't have partitions larger than 2 GB. The oldest working disk > 2 GB that I have is a 5.25" (!) half-height Seagate Bigfoot from 1996 (2.5 GB), while most 3.5" models seem to be made after 1997 (after that, capacities seemed to skyrocket each year)

The Matrox Mystique is also a late 1996/early 1997 product, an age when a Pentium 133 would've seemed inadequate for cutting-edge gaming, and 3D acceleration was still in its larval stage, with many incompatible APIs and products still popping around.

Let alone that no ad would mention the weight of a CRT monitor: they were heavy, and that was about it. However, similarly-sized regular TVs were always lighter. A 14" TV weighted less than a 14" monitor, while it was not unusual for a 21" TV to weigh less than a 19" or even a 17" monitor.

Speaking of which, even the monitor dimension is wrong: 17" would be a luxury size for 1995-1996, when anything above 15" had ridiculously steep prices.

Even the references to "CD ROM" and "multimedia" were getting quite old by 1997: everybody knew that you could play relatively good quality video on a PC, and that CD-ROMs could hold a crapload of data, let alone that the whole "multimedia" bubble had blown by then: none was impressed by "interactive movie games" anymore. Yeah, a CD-ROM could hold much more data than a floppy, but in 1997 CD-Rs weren't really cheap, there were n

Also, I like that awkward period between 1996-2004 where the need to have larger removable media was apparent, but there was not really a good a alternative to the floppy: LS-120, Zip drives, etc. never really took off, CD-Rs were single-use, CD recorders and media were not really as cheap as they are today, and Flash drives wouldn't become affordable and of sufficient capacity until well beyond 2003.

Dad's first computer had a 420 MB hard drive. We used it until he got his next comp, an IBM with 300 MHz back in 1998. Those were the days.

Well, what did you guys think of the second link I posted? ;)

That's more or less the same specs as my first PC. Minus the HDD which was a whoppin' 1.7gb

The specs are close to our fourth PC, aside from the HDD and monitor. Maes' post describes why in better detail than I can.

Cire said:

Well, what did you guys think of the second link I posted? ;)

Nice idea but needs larger solar panels.

What Doom2 map is the PC playing in the OPs link? is it Gothic or Requiem?

Beats me. The image is tiny.

Maes speaks in TV Tropes jargon even more than I do.

Aliotroph? said:

Beats me. The image is tiny.

Clickety-click.

Wrong sky for Requiem, there's a similar sky in Gothic DM 2 but (AFAIK) no imps.

Aliotroph? said:

Beats me. The image is tiny.

Try this one for size

GreyGhost said:

Try this one for size

Apparently that Pentium 133 can run ZDoom or prBoom+ at what appears to be a resolution of 1024*768.

Having actually tried this, I know that it's possible to use those ports on a Pentium I 133-200 MHz with resolutions maybe up to 640x480 in software mode if you want smooth gameplay in vanilla-detail maps, but you've got to have much more RAM than 16 (to install Windows XP, you need at least 64, and also to be able to use it for single-tasking, like maybe one instance of MS Word or IE).

Maes said:

Apparently that Pentium 133 can run ZDoom or prBoom+ at what appears to be a resolution of 1024*768.

So it is. I seem to be a bit slow on the uptake today, just noticed that system ships with a KeyTronic keyboard. I'm currently hammering away on a 12+ year old LT Classic from their Lifetime series.