Something about this blog is weird and maybe this guy has his dates wrong. No one was buying a 386 in 1996 unless it was from a garage sale or it was for a legacy use in business that had...
Something about this blog is weird and maybe this guy has his dates wrong. No one was buying a 386 in 1996 unless it was from a garage sale or it was for a legacy use in business that had preexisting software that needed. The 386 was released a decade before that and the Pentium was already three years old by that time. The last PC I saw that a HDD wasn't standard in was the original IBM PC and even then a 10MB or 20MB HDD was common. My family bought a PC with a 386 in 1988 with an 80MB drive, which was on the small side, and nothing on the market at the time didn't include a hard drive. This isn't to say there is anything wrong with a family's first PC being second hand or weirdly behind the times, but his point of "From a 1.44MB floppy to 60GB HDDs in ten years." is incredibly skewed.
Since the blog mentions PLN as their currency, it is very likely Polish. If it is then they were part of eastern bloc and you have to consider they were free of Soviets for just a few years at...
Since the blog mentions PLN as their currency, it is very likely Polish. If it is then they were part of eastern bloc and you have to consider they were free of Soviets for just a few years at that time. Since I'm from Czech Republic whoch has very similar history from those times, I velieve 386 was kinda top at mid nineties here (there) and having no drive may have been also kinda standard.
Let me put it this way - western technology was just beginning to pour in by that time and also was very expensive for folks that were under Soviet rule just a few years prior.
People forget that physical technology has a much slower saturation speed than software. New software can be on every compatible device in the world in a week; but plumbing and electrification are...
People forget that physical technology has a much slower saturation speed than software. New software can be on every compatible device in the world in a week; but plumbing and electrification are still not universal, even a century plus after they became common. The larger the system and the more interconnected it needs to be, the slower. Computer components are fairly easy and fast, all things considered.
Thanks for the perspective! I did see that the domain was registered in Poland, but based on what my few Polish friends have spoken about, I didn't think it was that far off. It could be that they...
Thanks for the perspective! I did see that the domain was registered in Poland, but based on what my few Polish friends have spoken about, I didn't think it was that far off. It could be that they were more privileged than I suspected or they simply avoided talking about those subjects.
To be honest, I'm not sure how it was in Poland. But given the time period, I suppose it's probably like I described. At that time I have played NES clones on TV at friends house and one of them...
To be honest, I'm not sure how it was in Poland. But given the time period, I suppose it's probably like I described.
At that time I have played NES clones on TV at friends house and one of them actually had "a PC" - TV with integrated 5.25" floppy drive. We also had a hobby group where we would be trying things on some Commodre or Atari clone. That was top notch technology for 10yo old me to try out. I saw first 286, 386 and actually also 486 at school at around the same time. But having that at home in 95 or 96 was unreal for most people.
It was only by unbelievable chance (luck) that we got 333MHz Celeron at our house by 1998 or 1999. It was probably the last time I had kinda high end PC for its time. Since then I go on lower-middle class (and I'm happy with it, to be fair).
That's really interesting, especially the "PC - TV" unit, I'd love to see one of those. Ironically, we didn't have anything approaching state of the art in our schools I attended most of the time....
That's really interesting, especially the "PC - TV" unit, I'd love to see one of those.
Ironically, we didn't have anything approaching state of the art in our schools I attended most of the time. Our elementary schools were stuck on Apple IIe system that were 10 years old and our high school got a grant from IBM in 1981 for a classroom of IBM 8086 desktops... we were still using them in 1996. :) I ended up helping the teacher put together a few 486 PCs for the advanced programming classes that we were able to source for nearly free because they were being tossed out by businesses for being too outdated.
Yeah, I remember having Pentium 133 as serverin our school and some lowe Pentiums (I would say 80MHz but I don't think such existed) as student's PCs. And we had proper projector in our IT class!...
Yeah, I remember having Pentium 133 as serverin our school and some lowe Pentiums (I would say 80MHz but I don't think such existed) as student's PCs. And we had proper projector in our IT class! Something absolutely unbelievable! :-)
IIRC, there wasn't an 80MHz version of the Pentium, but there was definitely a 75MHz and 90MHz. That's cool that your school got decent PCs for students and faculty to use at least, even if they...
IIRC, there wasn't an 80MHz version of the Pentium, but there was definitely a 75MHz and 90MHz. That's cool that your school got decent PCs for students and faculty to use at least, even if they weren't attainable at home.
Something about this blog is weird and maybe this guy has his dates wrong. No one was buying a 386 in 1996 unless it was from a garage sale or it was for a legacy use in business that had preexisting software that needed. The 386 was released a decade before that and the Pentium was already three years old by that time. The last PC I saw that a HDD wasn't standard in was the original IBM PC and even then a 10MB or 20MB HDD was common. My family bought a PC with a 386 in 1988 with an 80MB drive, which was on the small side, and nothing on the market at the time didn't include a hard drive. This isn't to say there is anything wrong with a family's first PC being second hand or weirdly behind the times, but his point of "From a 1.44MB floppy to 60GB HDDs in ten years." is incredibly skewed.
Since the blog mentions PLN as their currency, it is very likely Polish. If it is then they were part of eastern bloc and you have to consider they were free of Soviets for just a few years at that time. Since I'm from Czech Republic whoch has very similar history from those times, I velieve 386 was kinda top at mid nineties here (there) and having no drive may have been also kinda standard.
Let me put it this way - western technology was just beginning to pour in by that time and also was very expensive for folks that were under Soviet rule just a few years prior.
People forget that physical technology has a much slower saturation speed than software. New software can be on every compatible device in the world in a week; but plumbing and electrification are still not universal, even a century plus after they became common. The larger the system and the more interconnected it needs to be, the slower. Computer components are fairly easy and fast, all things considered.
Thanks for the perspective! I did see that the domain was registered in Poland, but based on what my few Polish friends have spoken about, I didn't think it was that far off. It could be that they were more privileged than I suspected or they simply avoided talking about those subjects.
To be honest, I'm not sure how it was in Poland. But given the time period, I suppose it's probably like I described.
At that time I have played NES clones on TV at friends house and one of them actually had "a PC" - TV with integrated 5.25" floppy drive. We also had a hobby group where we would be trying things on some Commodre or Atari clone. That was top notch technology for 10yo old me to try out. I saw first 286, 386 and actually also 486 at school at around the same time. But having that at home in 95 or 96 was unreal for most people.
It was only by unbelievable chance (luck) that we got 333MHz Celeron at our house by 1998 or 1999. It was probably the last time I had kinda high end PC for its time. Since then I go on lower-middle class (and I'm happy with it, to be fair).
That's really interesting, especially the "PC - TV" unit, I'd love to see one of those.
Ironically, we didn't have anything approaching state of the art in our schools I attended most of the time. Our elementary schools were stuck on Apple IIe system that were 10 years old and our high school got a grant from IBM in 1981 for a classroom of IBM 8086 desktops... we were still using them in 1996. :) I ended up helping the teacher put together a few 486 PCs for the advanced programming classes that we were able to source for nearly free because they were being tossed out by businesses for being too outdated.
Yeah, I remember having Pentium 133 as serverin our school and some lowe Pentiums (I would say 80MHz but I don't think such existed) as student's PCs. And we had proper projector in our IT class! Something absolutely unbelievable! :-)
IIRC, there wasn't an 80MHz version of the Pentium, but there was definitely a 75MHz and 90MHz. That's cool that your school got decent PCs for students and faculty to use at least, even if they weren't attainable at home.