Computing 20 Mar 2008 02:27 pm
Computer nastalgia
I’m in the midst of reading a rather lengthy article about computer file systems (fs) and their sometime sordid histories, here.
While reading it, it mentions a number of operating system (OS), and it evoked some nostalgic memories for me. So I got to thinking about them, and figured I’d blurb something up here. So here we go.
- Tandy 1000
MS-DOS 2.51 (file system, FAT-12)
My family’s first computer was a Tandy 1000 (circa 1986-87), which included a 5.25″ floppy diskette drive. No hard disk. Think any of these kids today know how to get around on the command prompt (shell)? Doubt it… what’s C:> ? Anyone remember the game Thexder? I loved that game! - Quantex 386
MS-DOS 5.0 / MS Windows 3.0 (file system FAT-16)
My grandfather gave us his Quantex 386 computer (circa 1992). This computer would be subject to torture by me for the next four years.- MS-DOS 6.0, 6.21, 6.22
- PC-DOS 6.x
- DR-DOS 6.0
- MS Windows 3.0, 3.1
- MS Windows for Workgroups (3.11?)
- Pentium 133MHz
MS Windows 95a / MS-DOS 6.22+
My family got a Pentium 133MHz computer that we purchased at a local computer fair. This would be my computer that I took to college and kept until 2001. I got my first computer virus on this computer (without actually intentionally introducing it).- RedHat Linux v4.2 (Mustang). My freshman year, I had it with Windows. A fellow classmate, Jason Kurtz introduced me to Linux, been using it ever since.
- RedHat Linux v5.0. This completely decimated my harddrive… something went really wrong with the upgrade, I lost everything. I backup everything now.
- OS/2 Warp 4. Got a copy from a friend in Canada… didn’t stay installed too long, but it was kinda cool.
- Gateway Pentium2 350MHz
Windows NT 4.0
I got this computer in 1999 for my senior year in college, and kept it running until 2004.- Windows 2000. Yeah, I eventually got sick of it and went back to NT4 for a while.
After getting the computer listed below, I made this my bitch box (experimental computer) - RedHat Linux v6, v7
- Slackware Linux v3+
- Solaris v9 for x86
- BeOS v5
- QNX RTOS (Neutrino?)
- Windows 2000. Yeah, I eventually got sick of it and went back to NT4 for a while.
- Dual[SMP] Pentium3 800MHz
Slackware Linux / Gentoo Linux
This was the first computer I built from scratch in late 2000. I had a job, I could actually afford it. It was a huge tower of power. Lots of disk space, multimedia out the wahzoo, my first CD-R drive [SCSI]. I dual booted this machine with Windows and Linux. - Apple PowerBook G4 1.25GHz
Mac OS X (10.3, “Panther”)
I had been doing a lot of work in 2002 with the Clarkson Open Source Institute, it had only been around for a semester at the time. By the time I left there people either had IBM notebooks they won at an IBM sponsored contest, or they had Apple PowerBooks which ran Mac OS X. So a year later, after I had finally got a new job, I used my Student ADC membership to get a nice discount on it. I got tired of constantly maintaining my Linux box for day-to-day activities, so I got a Mac… and I’ll prolly never go back
- Gentoo for X
- Mac OS X (10.4, “Tiger”)
- Pentium 4D (dual core) 2.8GHz
Gentoo Linux / Ubuntu Linux
I needed a server for ensuring Linux compatibility for a contract job I was doing in late 2005. Eh.
I’d really love to get my hands on Amiga OS4 (whenever it comes out and supports hardware I have). I’d have to say, if I missed something big in the computing world, it would have to be any Amiga computer.