4 ms·

1990's? Once it was 1995 you wouldn't be caught dead with a 486. Also, Windows 95 came with a boot disk to run the installer so you didn't need DOS and MSCDEX

1990's? Once it was 1995 you wouldn't be caught dead with a 486. Also, Windows 95 came with a boot disk to run the installer so you didn't need DOS and MSCDEX. I was surprised to see no mention of a Borland product like Turbo C++ or Turbo Pascal, but by the mid 90's those were out of sight. You'd be using Watcom or DJGPP to make DOS games in the early to mid 90's. Also...where was MSVC 1.5? Forgot what version I had before acquiring Visual Studio 4 or whatever everyone else had.

hollywood_court 3y ago
I had my Packard Bell 486x up until I graduated high school in 2000. I still remember the one summer I mowed every lawn in my mobile home park so I could finally afford to upgrade the modem from the original 2400. That PC introduced me to BBSs and then the internet. I learned QBASIC and html with that thing. Good times.
- D13Fd 3y ago
  2400 in the year 2000? You were WAY behind the times. Should have been 56k by then.
  - hollywood_court 3y ago
    Na I replaced the 2400 well before 2000. I simply stated that I had the 486x until 2000.
    - D13Fd 3y ago
      Oooh that makes sense. 486DX ran pretty well all told.
    - IntelMiner 3y ago
      Did you move it to Linux at any point? Back then it seemed to be an easy way to turn aging machines into veritable hotrods
      - hollywood_court 3y ago
        No I didn't fool around with Linux until almost 2004.
- donatj 3y ago
  Yeah. I had a Cyrix CX486DX4 up until 2000 when my family got an AMD 1000 MicronPC (aka Crucial) running Windows ME. That thing was SUCH a headache until I upgraded it to Windows 2000. My parents were ALWAYS mad at me for “breaking the computer” but that was just the natural state of ME, it would just stop working after a couple weeks.
qingcharles 3y ago
I was running some decently trafficked Internet sites on 386s into at least 1996.
p_l 3y ago
I got a newly home built 486dx2 in 1998, upgraded it few times up to original K6 @ 200MHz then replaced with K6-2 400MHz around 2000-2001? Turbo Pascal 7.0 with hacked Delay to support faster CPUs was big (as was Turbo C++) up to 2000, at least in Poland. Those of us who targeted Windows often used Delphi, but all kinds of simple game development often continued in DOS mode till Windows ME/XP killed that path.
projektfu 3y ago
I think it was Visual C++ 2 then MS Visual Studio 4.0. MSVC 2 could target the Mac, IIRC. Borland C++ was the "industrial strength" Turbo C and Delphi the successor to Pascal. Watcom was a cool option and I played with it after it was open sourced. Cool that you could target dos, windows 16/32, os/2.
helf 3y ago
[dead]
stcroixx 3y ago
My girlfriend had a fancy expensive 386 laptop until ‘98 I used to get my degree using stuff like Borland C++ and java. I couldn’t even afford a computer until after I graduated. Installed Slackware on that laptop from a stack of floppies to learn Unix for my first job programming C.
elzbardico 3y ago
Processors got obsolete pretty fast at that time, and while in 1996 (or maybe 1997) it would be hard to sell 486s, by 1995 I was still selling lots of AMD DX/4 machines for cost-conscious customers from my home business assembling PCs. Small companies mostly run DOS-based programs in applications like POS and accounting packages, and for those a 486 was more than enough. In fact, running Windows on those machines would bring no benefit and made loading Novell Netware drivers on conventional memory a bit tricky sometimes. I sold Pentiums at that time mostly to domestic consumers, with the occasional DX4/100 thrown in the mix. Once I got lucky and sold some 10 machines in a short period. SoundBlaster "multimedia kits" came in humongous boxes and for a few days, I barely had space to live in my bedroom. It was a fun time. Around that time I built a POS application for Windows using Delphi, in a time were most companies were using DOS-based solutions. I could have built a good business around this, but I was young, naive, had no experience or inclination with sales, and looked chronically even younger than I was. So, after some time I quit trying to run a business on software by myself. Sometimes I feel I should have been more persistent.
- nunez 3y ago
  I had a friend in middle school that also built computers. He wanted to start a computer building business with me. I still regret saying no all these years later. Would have been fun
pjmlp 3y ago
Sure, if one could afford replacing the computer all the times, my 386SX survived long enough until I finally could afford a P75.
- stavros 3y ago
  I had to stick with a Pentium 100 MHz from 1996 all the way to 2002 :( It would spend minutes swapping whenever I had to change browser tabs, but I had no choice. I guess I didn't know enough about computers back then to occur to me to buy some more memory.
bigger_cheese 3y ago
I had a 486 DX4/100mhz from around 1996 until 2001, I could not afford anything better - My Dad had a Pentium 166 but it was reserved for his work and was way more expensive then the 486 which was my personal computer, which I personally purchased for my own use - which in those days was mostly gaming. The 486 was an absolute workhorse however one thing I do remember is it struggled to play MP3's in Winamp it would peg the CPU at 100% and made multitasking basically impossible. It wasn't until I upgraded from the 486 that I could play Quake and Mp3's at the same time.
mr_toad 3y ago
> Once it was 1995 you wouldn't be caught dead with a 486. I remember 486’s being used in offices in the late 90’s. Pentiums were super expensive when they first came out.
- bluedino 3y ago
  Sure, they were $6000 in 1993 but by 1995 you could buy one at Sears for $1299
anthk 3y ago
No, you are wrong, even by 1999 some people was running some 486's instead of Pentiums. And some people in 2004 used FreeBSD with Lynx and Mutt on them. Not so many, true, as AMD K6/K7's where good enough to be close to Pentium II and III machines.
DeathArrow 3y ago
Being poor in a poor country I had an Cyrix 486SLC from around 2017 until 2000. Even if it had 486 in the name, it was just a faster 386SX. Beside having fun programming mostly under DOS and exploring any kind of software I could get my hand on (getting my hands on meant going to computer lab at school or Uni and copying stuff to floppy disks), I've tried installing Windows 95 on it, but was kind of slow so I reverted to DOS. The slowness could be in part due to me trying to compress everything with Drivespace, because the HDD was tiny.
mhd 3y ago
> 1990's? Once it was 1995 you wouldn't be caught dead with a 486. I remember going from my 486 to something higher being rather expensive. Expensive processor, new mainboard needed and depending on what your non-ISA bus situation was, a new graphics card. Benefit, compared to the late-stage triple-digit-mhz 486s? Well, better floating point, but Quake came out a bit later. I remember mp3 decoding failing a bit with my 486/133... And I saw plenty of Borland C++ used for Windows development.

hollywood_court 3y ago

I had my Packard Bell 486x up until I graduated high school in 2000. I still remember the one summer I mowed every lawn in my mobile home park so I could finally afford to upgrade the modem from the original 2400. That PC introduced me to BBSs and then the internet. I learned QBASIC and html with that thing. Good times.

D13Fd 3y ago
2400 in the year 2000? You were WAY behind the times. Should have been 56k by then.
- hollywood_court 3y ago
  Na I replaced the 2400 well before 2000. I simply stated that I had the 486x until 2000.
  - D13Fd 3y ago
    Oooh that makes sense. 486DX ran pretty well all told.
  - IntelMiner 3y ago
    Did you move it to Linux at any point? Back then it seemed to be an easy way to turn aging machines into veritable hotrods
    - hollywood_court 3y ago
      No I didn't fool around with Linux until almost 2004.
donatj 3y ago
Yeah. I had a Cyrix CX486DX4 up until 2000 when my family got an AMD 1000 MicronPC (aka Crucial) running Windows ME. That thing was SUCH a headache until I upgraded it to Windows 2000. My parents were ALWAYS mad at me for “breaking the computer” but that was just the natural state of ME, it would just stop working after a couple weeks.

qingcharles 3y ago

I was running some decently trafficked Internet sites on 386s into at least 1996.

p_l 3y ago

I got a newly home built 486dx2 in 1998, upgraded it few times up to original K6 @ 200MHz then replaced with K6-2 400MHz around 2000-2001? Turbo Pascal 7.0 with hacked Delay to support faster CPUs was big (as was Turbo C++) up to 2000, at least in Poland. Those of us who targeted Windows often used Delphi, but all kinds of simple game development often continued in DOS mode till Windows ME/XP killed that path.

projektfu 3y ago

I think it was Visual C++ 2 then MS Visual Studio 4.0. MSVC 2 could target the Mac, IIRC. Borland C++ was the "industrial strength" Turbo C and Delphi the successor to Pascal. Watcom was a cool option and I played with it after it was open sourced. Cool that you could target dos, windows 16/32, os/2.

helf 3y ago

[dead]

stcroixx 3y ago

My girlfriend had a fancy expensive 386 laptop until ‘98 I used to get my degree using stuff like Borland C++ and java. I couldn’t even afford a computer until after I graduated. Installed Slackware on that laptop from a stack of floppies to learn Unix for my first job programming C.

elzbardico 3y ago

Processors got obsolete pretty fast at that time, and while in 1996 (or maybe 1997) it would be hard to sell 486s, by 1995 I was still selling lots of AMD DX/4 machines for cost-conscious customers from my home business assembling PCs. Small companies mostly run DOS-based programs in applications like POS and accounting packages, and for those a 486 was more than enough. In fact, running Windows on those machines would bring no benefit and made loading Novell Netware drivers on conventional memory a bit tricky sometimes. I sold Pentiums at that time mostly to domestic consumers, with the occasional DX4/100 thrown in the mix. Once I got lucky and sold some 10 machines in a short period. SoundBlaster "multimedia kits" came in humongous boxes and for a few days, I barely had space to live in my bedroom. It was a fun time. Around that time I built a POS application for Windows using Delphi, in a time were most companies were using DOS-based solutions. I could have built a good business around this, but I was young, naive, had no experience or inclination with sales, and looked chronically even younger than I was. So, after some time I quit trying to run a business on software by myself. Sometimes I feel I should have been more persistent.

nunez 3y ago
I had a friend in middle school that also built computers. He wanted to start a computer building business with me. I still regret saying no all these years later. Would have been fun

pjmlp 3y ago

Sure, if one could afford replacing the computer all the times, my 386SX survived long enough until I finally could afford a P75.

stavros 3y ago
I had to stick with a Pentium 100 MHz from 1996 all the way to 2002 :( It would spend minutes swapping whenever I had to change browser tabs, but I had no choice. I guess I didn't know enough about computers back then to occur to me to buy some more memory.

bigger_cheese 3y ago

I had a 486 DX4/100mhz from around 1996 until 2001, I could not afford anything better - My Dad had a Pentium 166 but it was reserved for his work and was way more expensive then the 486 which was my personal computer, which I personally purchased for my own use - which in those days was mostly gaming. The 486 was an absolute workhorse however one thing I do remember is it struggled to play MP3's in Winamp it would peg the CPU at 100% and made multitasking basically impossible. It wasn't until I upgraded from the 486 that I could play Quake and Mp3's at the same time.

mr_toad 3y ago

> Once it was 1995 you wouldn't be caught dead with a 486. I remember 486’s being used in offices in the late 90’s. Pentiums were super expensive when they first came out.

bluedino 3y ago
Sure, they were $6000 in 1993 but by 1995 you could buy one at Sears for $1299

anthk 3y ago

No, you are wrong, even by 1999 some people was running some 486's instead of Pentiums. And some people in 2004 used FreeBSD with Lynx and Mutt on them. Not so many, true, as AMD K6/K7's where good enough to be close to Pentium II and III machines.

DeathArrow 3y ago

Being poor in a poor country I had an Cyrix 486SLC from around 2017 until 2000. Even if it had 486 in the name, it was just a faster 386SX. Beside having fun programming mostly under DOS and exploring any kind of software I could get my hand on (getting my hands on meant going to computer lab at school or Uni and copying stuff to floppy disks), I've tried installing Windows 95 on it, but was kind of slow so I reverted to DOS. The slowness could be in part due to me trying to compress everything with Drivespace, because the HDD was tiny.

mhd 3y ago

> 1990's? Once it was 1995 you wouldn't be caught dead with a 486. I remember going from my 486 to something higher being rather expensive. Expensive processor, new mainboard needed and depending on what your non-ISA bus situation was, a new graphics card. Benefit, compared to the late-stage triple-digit-mhz 486s? Well, better floating point, but Quake came out a bit later. I remember mp3 decoding failing a bit with my 486/133... And I saw plenty of Borland C++ used for Windows development.