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By the time I got into installing Linux (1996+), I always seemed to be able to find salvageable pentium machines 166Mhz and above. But, my sister ended up retur

By the time I got into installing Linux (1996+), I always seemed to be able to find salvageable pentium machines 166Mhz and above. But, my sister ended up returning my old AMD 486 DX4 120Mhz after they bought a new computer. I threw FreeBSD on it for a bit. It ran really well! I'll forever miss this era of computing. The internet was brand new, machines were often Frankensteins built out of spare parts. Computer Shopper was 2 inches thick with a thousand ads for parts from places like Dirt Cheap Drives.

13of40 5y ago
In 1995, I was stationed at an Army base about 10 miles from the DMZ in Korea, and for the first time in my life I saved up enough money to build a computer from modern parts instead of scavenging them from thrift stores and dumpsters. So I went AWOL for a day and went down to a place in Seoul called the Yongsan Electronics Market. To my young American mind, this was a place straight out of a William Gibson novel. Imagine a multi-storey sprawling mall covering about three blocks, with modern stores selling the latest LG stuff at the center, but in the alleys and passageways you might run into a pile of cases being scrapped, or an old man pulling a cart full of dead hard drives, or turn a corner and find someone hand building 20 video cards on a plastic table. But I knew what I was there for, and I bought the parts for a 486DX4/100mhz, plus a used monitor and keyboard, and brought them back on the train. Somewhere I acquired a Slackware Linux CD, and when I got it all put together it was like a dream. I count that era as when CPUs got powerful enough that we just had extra processing power for the little details. But I digress. On the first night I had it, I decided to leave it running overnight and set up a cron job to wake me up for morning formation. Of course, it froze up in the middle of the night and I woke up late and got yelled at.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  I really wish cities in the US had those kind of sprawling electronics markets. So cool and useful. Like if you just need a single SPDT switch instead of a 20 pack on Amazon… you can’t do that right now.
  - axiolite 5y ago
    eBay is a far better source for electronic components than Amazon. You can source single switches. The cheapest are direct from China with 1mo shipping times, but there are US sellers as well.
  - DrAwdeOccarim 5y ago
    We used to have a monthly computer show and sale in the DC area. It was like this but in tents at the fair grounds. It was heaven. What an incredible time to come of age alongside modern technology coming of age. I still have bins of computer bits just in case. Like 3.5”IDE to 2.5”IDE ribbon cable adaptors and shit like that.
    - vvanders 5y ago
      Same for SoCal, I have fuzzy memories of flipping through boxes of shareware 3.5"/5" floppies and all sorts of with various hardware pieces.
  - flyinghamster 5y ago
    Fry's was the closest thing we had, and it was thinly spread at the best of times (particularly outside of California). It didn't really even make it into the pandemic; I remember walking into the Downers Grove, IL store in the Christmas 2019 season and feeling strange at how few cars there were in the parking lot. I walked in, and was shocked at the state of what was an obviously failing store that gave me the willies. I half-expected to run into zombies. Looking back, I'd have to call it a portent of 2020. Between the implosion of Fry's, and Radio Shack not quite lasting long enough to capitalize on the maker movement, it's pretty well online ordering or nothing.
    - smackeyacky 5y ago
      I visited silicon valley in the mid-nineties from Australia, Fry's was like a magical wonderland compared to the pathetic offerings we had. I went a little nuts and bought enough parts to build a machine just out of their bargain bins. I've often wondered why those places disappeared but then you remember nobody really builds PCs or other electronic stuff except as a hobby and most people are running laptops that can't be upgraded anyway.
- bennysomething 5y ago
  That Cron job story made me laugh :) Thing with Linux as much as I used it over the years, it's still no where near as compatible with weird hardware as windows. Windows just seems to be able to handle whatever hardware I've ever thrown at it.
  - cesarb 5y ago
    > Windows just seems to be able to handle whatever hardware I've ever thrown at it. Other than the very first few versions of Windows, the true reality is most probably the opposite: whatever hardware you've thrown at it is able to handle Windows. That is, both the hardware and its software (driver, firmware) have been designed for and tested with Windows.
    - DarylZero 5y ago
      Linux runs on way more hardware than Windows. How many machines did Apple make before they could run Windows?
hoistbypetard 5y ago
You had better "salvage" options in 96 than I did. The Pentium 166 was newly released in 1996. 486SX33 was easy to come by in 96 for me, though, and it was easy to get slackware running on, too. Though I did let the smoke out of one monitor with a bad X modeline. I miss Dirt Cheap Drives.
- nobleach 5y ago
  You're right. The first machine I installed Linux on wasn't my own. It was a friend's Pentium, and he had partitioned a drive. It was 98/99 before I was regularly trying out distros from Cheapbytes, Linux Mall, etc. My dad's company closed their doors in 99/2000ish so that would have been when I was finding those Pentiums.
mmastrac 5y ago
My homelab is still cobbled together like this. I bought a 10-year-old kvm, used switches, a used 1u server, etc.

13of40 5y ago

In 1995, I was stationed at an Army base about 10 miles from the DMZ in Korea, and for the first time in my life I saved up enough money to build a computer from modern parts instead of scavenging them from thrift stores and dumpsters. So I went AWOL for a day and went down to a place in Seoul called the Yongsan Electronics Market. To my young American mind, this was a place straight out of a William Gibson novel. Imagine a multi-storey sprawling mall covering about three blocks, with modern stores selling the latest LG stuff at the center, but in the alleys and passageways you might run into a pile of cases being scrapped, or an old man pulling a cart full of dead hard drives, or turn a corner and find someone hand building 20 video cards on a plastic table. But I knew what I was there for, and I bought the parts for a 486DX4/100mhz, plus a used monitor and keyboard, and brought them back on the train. Somewhere I acquired a Slackware Linux CD, and when I got it all put together it was like a dream. I count that era as when CPUs got powerful enough that we just had extra processing power for the little details. But I digress. On the first night I had it, I decided to leave it running overnight and set up a cron job to wake me up for morning formation. Of course, it froze up in the middle of the night and I woke up late and got yelled at.

spookthesunset 5y ago
I really wish cities in the US had those kind of sprawling electronics markets. So cool and useful. Like if you just need a single SPDT switch instead of a 20 pack on Amazon… you can’t do that right now.
- axiolite 5y ago
  eBay is a far better source for electronic components than Amazon. You can source single switches. The cheapest are direct from China with 1mo shipping times, but there are US sellers as well.
- DrAwdeOccarim 5y ago
  We used to have a monthly computer show and sale in the DC area. It was like this but in tents at the fair grounds. It was heaven. What an incredible time to come of age alongside modern technology coming of age. I still have bins of computer bits just in case. Like 3.5”IDE to 2.5”IDE ribbon cable adaptors and shit like that.
  - vvanders 5y ago
    Same for SoCal, I have fuzzy memories of flipping through boxes of shareware 3.5"/5" floppies and all sorts of with various hardware pieces.
- flyinghamster 5y ago
  Fry's was the closest thing we had, and it was thinly spread at the best of times (particularly outside of California). It didn't really even make it into the pandemic; I remember walking into the Downers Grove, IL store in the Christmas 2019 season and feeling strange at how few cars there were in the parking lot. I walked in, and was shocked at the state of what was an obviously failing store that gave me the willies. I half-expected to run into zombies. Looking back, I'd have to call it a portent of 2020. Between the implosion of Fry's, and Radio Shack not quite lasting long enough to capitalize on the maker movement, it's pretty well online ordering or nothing.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    I visited silicon valley in the mid-nineties from Australia, Fry's was like a magical wonderland compared to the pathetic offerings we had. I went a little nuts and bought enough parts to build a machine just out of their bargain bins. I've often wondered why those places disappeared but then you remember nobody really builds PCs or other electronic stuff except as a hobby and most people are running laptops that can't be upgraded anyway.
bennysomething 5y ago
That Cron job story made me laugh :) Thing with Linux as much as I used it over the years, it's still no where near as compatible with weird hardware as windows. Windows just seems to be able to handle whatever hardware I've ever thrown at it.
- cesarb 5y ago
  > Windows just seems to be able to handle whatever hardware I've ever thrown at it. Other than the very first few versions of Windows, the true reality is most probably the opposite: whatever hardware you've thrown at it is able to handle Windows. That is, both the hardware and its software (driver, firmware) have been designed for and tested with Windows.
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    Linux runs on way more hardware than Windows. How many machines did Apple make before they could run Windows?

hoistbypetard 5y ago

You had better "salvage" options in 96 than I did. The Pentium 166 was newly released in 1996. 486SX33 was easy to come by in 96 for me, though, and it was easy to get slackware running on, too. Though I did let the smoke out of one monitor with a bad X modeline. I miss Dirt Cheap Drives.

nobleach 5y ago
You're right. The first machine I installed Linux on wasn't my own. It was a friend's Pentium, and he had partitioned a drive. It was 98/99 before I was regularly trying out distros from Cheapbytes, Linux Mall, etc. My dad's company closed their doors in 99/2000ish so that would have been when I was finding those Pentiums.

mmastrac 5y ago

My homelab is still cobbled together like this. I bought a 10-year-old kvm, used switches, a used 1u server, etc.