3 ms·

AGP/PCI-X wasn't really any more difficult to work with than today's PCI Express etc. You really have to rewind to mid 90's pre-Windows 95 in the days before P

by giobox 9y ago

AGP/PCI-X wasn't really any more difficult to work with than today's PCI Express etc. You really have to rewind to mid 90's pre-Windows 95 in the days before Plug 'n' Play when manually assigning IRQs etc was a thing before the process of building your own PC meaningfully changes in my opinion. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_and_play https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_and_play

sp332 9y ago
Right, but you had to match all the parts you were buying. It's easier now that everything is ATX and PCI-e. And before Amazon and Newegg, return policies were patchy.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > And before Amazon and Newegg, return policies were patchy. OTOH, before the main consumer storefronts were the kind of flea markets of no-name sellers that used to roll into county fairgrounds every couple months, you could actually find good retailers with not only strong return policies, but also focussed on quality parts with a high S/N ratio in their catalog, that even offered added value (including, e.g., mounting CPU and memory when bought with a motherboard.) Some of those same places survived, but they don't do consumer retail anymore.
  - sp332 9y ago
    That's true, and they would proactively look out for compatibility issues if they knew what your project was. Amazon can check car parts for compatibility, but as far as I know, they don't have anything like that for PC parts.
jerf 9y ago
Sounds like you skipped over the phase where Plug 'n' Play was mandatory, but didn't work reliably past maybe 1.5 expansion cards, and required even more arcane ways of configuring hardware than the IRQ days. Or possibly you had money to buy higher quality components than I did at the time.
Zenst 9y ago
Still, all a skill set of experience that has it's uses today and when it comes to IRQ sharing and all those years the golden leason is read the motherboard documentation and don't assume shipping defaults jumpers/setting can be wrong. Still, before AGP we had VESA, also around the time of MCA and IBM's attempt to capture some copyright patent control back from the expanding PC market and BIOS clones ("Halt and Catch Fire" Season one well worth a watch if you missed that era in life). Yes pre Windows 95 was a fine art, from tweaking DOS memory, to optimising windows .ini files and then the fun of having to dial up Microsoft's patch BBS for a TCP/IP stack. But top-end gaming PC's back then, sure made less noise.
jotm 9y ago
Hah, that brings back some memories. Configuring IRQs just right for that ISA Sound Blaster to work (after fiddling with drivers, as well)

by giobox 9y ago

sp332 9y ago

Right, but you had to match all the parts you were buying. It's easier now that everything is ATX and PCI-e. And before Amazon and Newegg, return policies were patchy.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> And before Amazon and Newegg, return policies were patchy. OTOH, before the main consumer storefronts were the kind of flea markets of no-name sellers that used to roll into county fairgrounds every couple months, you could actually find good retailers with not only strong return policies, but also focussed on quality parts with a high S/N ratio in their catalog, that even offered added value (including, e.g., mounting CPU and memory when bought with a motherboard.) Some of those same places survived, but they don't do consumer retail anymore.
- sp332 9y ago
  That's true, and they would proactively look out for compatibility issues if they knew what your project was. Amazon can check car parts for compatibility, but as far as I know, they don't have anything like that for PC parts.

jerf 9y ago

Sounds like you skipped over the phase where Plug 'n' Play was mandatory, but didn't work reliably past maybe 1.5 expansion cards, and required even more arcane ways of configuring hardware than the IRQ days. Or possibly you had money to buy higher quality components than I did at the time.

Zenst 9y ago

Still, all a skill set of experience that has it's uses today and when it comes to IRQ sharing and all those years the golden leason is read the motherboard documentation and don't assume shipping defaults jumpers/setting can be wrong. Still, before AGP we had VESA, also around the time of MCA and IBM's attempt to capture some copyright patent control back from the expanding PC market and BIOS clones ("Halt and Catch Fire" Season one well worth a watch if you missed that era in life). Yes pre Windows 95 was a fine art, from tweaking DOS memory, to optimising windows .ini files and then the fun of having to dial up Microsoft's patch BBS for a TCP/IP stack. But top-end gaming PC's back then, sure made less noise.

jotm 9y ago

Hah, that brings back some memories. Configuring IRQs just right for that ISA Sound Blaster to work (after fiddling with drivers, as well)