4 ms·

This has me thinking but I don't like to assume. I recall most of my first computers really not having any dedicated fans until around 1999 - they mostly used t

This has me thinking but I don't like to assume. I recall most of my first computers really not having any dedicated fans until around 1999 - they mostly used the power supply to pull an airflow through cases. I do miss some of the sounds that let you know machines were doing something - but we also had indication lights, too - mostly gone now, for disk drives. Heck my first laptop had a second LCD to show battery level without the machine even being on.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Heck my first laptop had a second LCD to show battery level without the machine even being on Many modern laptops still do this though. Dell XPS had some LEDs on the side and a button on the case that when pressed would light up the LEDs as a percentage indicator of battery charge, and my 2 year old Lenovo has this feature built into the motherboard EC controller and Bios that when I press any key on the keyboard when the laptop is OFF, it wakes the laptop's own display to show battery percentage. Modern laptops have many neat features.
lpfnrobin 3y ago
Although not all floppies there's something nice about the sound of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMe2vza46cQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMe2vza46cQ
bombcar 3y ago
I think 95-96 was the first machines I had that had a processor fan (at the high end). Otherwise they just had a power supply fan, but it was more “massive” in a way. You’d click that switch and you could hear the fan spool up.
spiritplumber 3y ago
For a few years cpu fans were something overclockers did.
jonhohle 3y ago
There are others, but if you’re a Mac user, I wrote DriveLight[0] to have a disk activity light. 0 - https://ttkb.co/soft/drivelight/ https://ttkb.co/soft/drivelight/
ido 3y ago
I'm pretty sure the original Pentium ('93) was when CPU fans became mandatory.
- hakfoo 3y ago
  It's a pretty nuanced thing. Some large OEMs with the resources to do the design effort could use a large passive heatsink on even surprisingly late processor (i. e. Pentium 4) because they could make a holistic design with shrouds and baffles and know you were getting just enough airflow from a case fan elsewhere to keep the CPU within spec. Early ATX designs, in fact, were often based on "the PSU has its fan placed so that it will draw air over the CPU heatsink and out the back" Enthusiasts, obviously, went for brute force designs.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>Heck my first laptop had a second LCD to show battery level without the machine even being on Many modern laptops still do this though. Dell XPS had some LEDs on the side and a button on the case that when pressed would light up the LEDs as a percentage indicator of battery charge, and my 2 year old Lenovo has this feature built into the motherboard EC controller and Bios that when I press any key on the keyboard when the laptop is OFF, it wakes the laptop's own display to show battery percentage. Modern laptops have many neat features.

lpfnrobin 3y ago

Although not all floppies there's something nice about the sound of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMe2vza46cQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMe2vza46cQ

bombcar 3y ago

I think 95-96 was the first machines I had that had a processor fan (at the high end). Otherwise they just had a power supply fan, but it was more “massive” in a way. You’d click that switch and you could hear the fan spool up.

spiritplumber 3y ago

For a few years cpu fans were something overclockers did.

jonhohle 3y ago

There are others, but if you’re a Mac user, I wrote DriveLight[0] to have a disk activity light. 0 - https://ttkb.co/soft/drivelight/ https://ttkb.co/soft/drivelight/

ido 3y ago

I'm pretty sure the original Pentium ('93) was when CPU fans became mandatory.

hakfoo 3y ago
It's a pretty nuanced thing. Some large OEMs with the resources to do the design effort could use a large passive heatsink on even surprisingly late processor (i. e. Pentium 4) because they could make a holistic design with shrouds and baffles and know you were getting just enough airflow from a case fan elsewhere to keep the CPU within spec. Early ATX designs, in fact, were often based on "the PSU has its fan placed so that it will draw air over the CPU heatsink and out the back" Enthusiasts, obviously, went for brute force designs.