4 ms·

I think they all had different adaptors and cables back then. Until the NEC multisync, different monitors too! The article isn't wide enough to need to mention

I think they all had different adaptors and cables back then. Until the NEC multisync, different monitors too! The article isn't wide enough to need to mention the whole world of semi-compatible and non-compatible clones, such as the Tandy mentioned (that I think was a semi), others were from HP, Apricot (who were quite successful for a while, and at least one of their machines had a switchable semi mode, and a "better" Apricot non-compatible mode. Different stuff ran in each), Tulip and probably dozens of others I forget. Some ran DOS, had a x86 and all the other toys, but wouldn't run certain software, others deviated in hardware rather more to try and do something "better". The whole PC market was a bloody confusing, incoherent mess for a while. A quagmire for a not fully clued up buyer.

jacobush 7y ago
There were even machines with MS-DOS which were not PC compatible. Only DOS programs using pure BIOS calls (no direct manipulation of video memory) would work.
- echeese 7y ago
  And those BIOS calls were so much slower
pjmlp 7y ago
It also meant that if you waited long enough, replacing a computer part triggered a cascade of hardware updates, that in the end you would be better off just buying a new computer.
- soylentcola 7y ago
  True, but it's how I learned a lot about PC assembly and setup as a teenager. Prior to then, I had a Commodore 128 which, while pretty cool, was mostly a box that did what it did. I had an old PC (I bought it used from some guy advertising in the local paper) and when that fancy new Windows 95 came out, I wanted to upgrade the old 486 processor. There wasn't any Microcenter at the time and I didn't know about any of the catalog sales companies like TigerDirect yet. What I did know was that summer there was a "Computer Show and Sale!!" at a local event space so I took what meager cash I had on hand to see what I could buy. Knowing nothing about CPU sockets or brands, I was happy to find a shiny Cyrix 6x86 CPU that was clearly like a Pentium, but better (because Pentium was 586 so 686 is more 86's obviously). 133Mhz was double what my 486 ran at! Plus this thing was so much cheaper than the other stuff they had for sale. Got that and a compatible motherboard and headed home to work on my new amazing PC (holy crap Doom and Dark Forces were gonna look so good!) So, you can imagine my disappointment when I got home and found that I could no longer slot my video card or internal modem into the new motherboard. I was so disappointed. It would be another month or so before I managed to save up more money to buy a compatible video card from some other guy selling parts. I forget what I did about the modem. I'm also surprised I didn't need new RAM as well but the old stuff worked for the time being. Before it was all said and done, I'd at least learned what to research (and that it even needed to be researched) before upgrading anything again. It's gotten so much easier to research online, part out a desktop PC, and drive 20 minutes to Microcenter where I can be back at home assembling everything that afternoon. I don't have to do it very often anymore as they remain useful for a lot longer (although it helps that I have more than a couple hundred bucks to spend now). But it's still useful to know how it all fits together when some friend or family member wants a basic workstation or something to edit family photos/videos on. I can't justify upgrading my current i7 3770k system yet because the damn thing still just works as well as I could ask after 7 years, but sometimes I secretly wish it would crap out in some minor way so I could have an excuse to build a new one.
henrikschroder 7y ago
A friend of mine had an Amstrad PC, which had some special graphics modes "better" than CGA that maybe four games supported. That was a blast! At least with VGA everything converged, and you got the VESA standards, and by then it was just a matter of adding more and more VRAM to increase resolution and colour space. But it's insane to think about how far we've come. Those old video cards had kilobytes of VRAM, VGA started going into megabytes, and my current graphics card has gigabytes.

jacobush 7y ago

There were even machines with MS-DOS which were not PC compatible. Only DOS programs using pure BIOS calls (no direct manipulation of video memory) would work.

echeese 7y ago
And those BIOS calls were so much slower

pjmlp 7y ago

It also meant that if you waited long enough, replacing a computer part triggered a cascade of hardware updates, that in the end you would be better off just buying a new computer.

soylentcola 7y ago
True, but it's how I learned a lot about PC assembly and setup as a teenager. Prior to then, I had a Commodore 128 which, while pretty cool, was mostly a box that did what it did. I had an old PC (I bought it used from some guy advertising in the local paper) and when that fancy new Windows 95 came out, I wanted to upgrade the old 486 processor. There wasn't any Microcenter at the time and I didn't know about any of the catalog sales companies like TigerDirect yet. What I did know was that summer there was a "Computer Show and Sale!!" at a local event space so I took what meager cash I had on hand to see what I could buy. Knowing nothing about CPU sockets or brands, I was happy to find a shiny Cyrix 6x86 CPU that was clearly like a Pentium, but better (because Pentium was 586 so 686 is more 86's obviously). 133Mhz was double what my 486 ran at! Plus this thing was so much cheaper than the other stuff they had for sale. Got that and a compatible motherboard and headed home to work on my new amazing PC (holy crap Doom and Dark Forces were gonna look so good!) So, you can imagine my disappointment when I got home and found that I could no longer slot my video card or internal modem into the new motherboard. I was so disappointed. It would be another month or so before I managed to save up more money to buy a compatible video card from some other guy selling parts. I forget what I did about the modem. I'm also surprised I didn't need new RAM as well but the old stuff worked for the time being. Before it was all said and done, I'd at least learned what to research (and that it even needed to be researched) before upgrading anything again. It's gotten so much easier to research online, part out a desktop PC, and drive 20 minutes to Microcenter where I can be back at home assembling everything that afternoon. I don't have to do it very often anymore as they remain useful for a lot longer (although it helps that I have more than a couple hundred bucks to spend now). But it's still useful to know how it all fits together when some friend or family member wants a basic workstation or something to edit family photos/videos on. I can't justify upgrading my current i7 3770k system yet because the damn thing still just works as well as I could ask after 7 years, but sometimes I secretly wish it would crap out in some minor way so I could have an excuse to build a new one.

henrikschroder 7y ago

A friend of mine had an Amstrad PC, which had some special graphics modes "better" than CGA that maybe four games supported. That was a blast! At least with VGA everything converged, and you got the VESA standards, and by then it was just a matter of adding more and more VRAM to increase resolution and colour space. But it's insane to think about how far we've come. Those old video cards had kilobytes of VRAM, VGA started going into megabytes, and my current graphics card has gigabytes.