Intro. - Part 2
So the nice thing about a PC is that you can upgrade them. Someone donated an old hard drive that could hold an enormous 20MB and replaced one of my two 5'1/4 drives!! I never filled up that drive and I was now at a stage where word processing was on a blue screen and homework did not have to be hand written and gaming was limited to cheap hockey games and 10 disk dungeons and dragons!! The reality was that the time of the XT soon came to an end.
Before companies sent fully built systems, there was a period where building your own PC was the best solution. I enjoyed so much building my own PC. The motherboard and casing were second-hand parts, but the rest we got from a computer fair in the US. Bought a hard drive, RAM, monitor, modem, video card, cd drive, etc. This was a 486 with a VGA screen. It was already a bit behind the technology curve, but it could run Windows 95 and could do all I needed it to do. The game console got replaced by the computer and games like Diablo ruled the world. Dial-up connections to the Internet were now available for an affordable price and ultimately, a second phone line had to be brought into the house because phone communication was made impossible by the number of ours the computer was connected to the internet!! I remember having 160 hours in my monthly plan to access the internet and they had been all used up by day 13 of the month... Needless to say, I was hooked even at 56k speeds!!
Later I built a Pentium 2 (300Mhz... the top at the time was 333Mhz, but I could not justify the price difference for 33Mhz. It was insane and I'm still patting myself on the back for not giving in!!). It was the beginning of inkjet printers, broadband connections, USB was taking off, cellphones for everybody, things were moving fast! As a college student, I remember I was looking for ways to save a few bucks and thought I could go back to 56k for a while. Turns out "a while" is about three days!
As far as computers go, I went the laptop way the rest of the time. I have 2 and both still run. My interest in building PCs has dropped significantly. I just need them to work now and have little time to tinker with PCs. What I need now is efficient technology. More on that later...
I remember my dad having a Motorola StarTac cellphone and I thought that it was amazing. When I got my first real job, I decided I should get a cellphone too. I ended up with a Motorola with a green screen. It did what any boring old phone was designed to do: it made phone calls. I then switched to a Nokia, this one had a color screen! Then a friend gave me an old Samsung flip phone which was nearly indestructible. I even went for a swim with it for about 30 minutes. Of course it was fried when I came out, but I opened it up, put it in front of a fan for 48 hours and sure enough, it started right back up!
My next phone was an HTC Touch. First smartphone and an incredible price with my provider. 7$ for unlimited internet on a smartphone is non-existent now. What I like about a smartphone is that you can tweak it whenever you have time and the things you can do now are unbelievable. I was running stock Windows Mobile and then upgraded to a custom ROM. That phone was pretty amazing. I could email and internet at will. I could VPN to work and even VNC on my computer to control it remotely. Not to mention GPS with Google Maps and take pictures (junk camera, but still..) It was my first mobile computer and I loved it.
I actually just moved away from it and got a Samsung Galaxy S Android powered phone. I have to say, I cannot imagine what cellphones will be capable of in 10 years. The screen on these things is awesome and even in daylight it is still quite usable. I'm a heavy Google service user and to have everything integrate into my phone is very appealing. What I like about Android is how you can customize it. I think Android is a platform capable of pleasing to casual user but gives flexibility for the advanced users to get in there and do their own thing.
In the end, many other gadgets have made it inside my house. All receive a thorough research process before I dish out the cash for them and I can't say there are many regrets with my purchases. Slingbox, wireless router, SLR camera, HDD camcorder, USB drive, etc. Technology is is here to stay so might as well keep up with it as much as we can.
Before companies sent fully built systems, there was a period where building your own PC was the best solution. I enjoyed so much building my own PC. The motherboard and casing were second-hand parts, but the rest we got from a computer fair in the US. Bought a hard drive, RAM, monitor, modem, video card, cd drive, etc. This was a 486 with a VGA screen. It was already a bit behind the technology curve, but it could run Windows 95 and could do all I needed it to do. The game console got replaced by the computer and games like Diablo ruled the world. Dial-up connections to the Internet were now available for an affordable price and ultimately, a second phone line had to be brought into the house because phone communication was made impossible by the number of ours the computer was connected to the internet!! I remember having 160 hours in my monthly plan to access the internet and they had been all used up by day 13 of the month... Needless to say, I was hooked even at 56k speeds!!
Later I built a Pentium 2 (300Mhz... the top at the time was 333Mhz, but I could not justify the price difference for 33Mhz. It was insane and I'm still patting myself on the back for not giving in!!). It was the beginning of inkjet printers, broadband connections, USB was taking off, cellphones for everybody, things were moving fast! As a college student, I remember I was looking for ways to save a few bucks and thought I could go back to 56k for a while. Turns out "a while" is about three days!
As far as computers go, I went the laptop way the rest of the time. I have 2 and both still run. My interest in building PCs has dropped significantly. I just need them to work now and have little time to tinker with PCs. What I need now is efficient technology. More on that later...
I remember my dad having a Motorola StarTac cellphone and I thought that it was amazing. When I got my first real job, I decided I should get a cellphone too. I ended up with a Motorola with a green screen. It did what any boring old phone was designed to do: it made phone calls. I then switched to a Nokia, this one had a color screen! Then a friend gave me an old Samsung flip phone which was nearly indestructible. I even went for a swim with it for about 30 minutes. Of course it was fried when I came out, but I opened it up, put it in front of a fan for 48 hours and sure enough, it started right back up!
My next phone was an HTC Touch. First smartphone and an incredible price with my provider. 7$ for unlimited internet on a smartphone is non-existent now. What I like about a smartphone is that you can tweak it whenever you have time and the things you can do now are unbelievable. I was running stock Windows Mobile and then upgraded to a custom ROM. That phone was pretty amazing. I could email and internet at will. I could VPN to work and even VNC on my computer to control it remotely. Not to mention GPS with Google Maps and take pictures (junk camera, but still..) It was my first mobile computer and I loved it.
I actually just moved away from it and got a Samsung Galaxy S Android powered phone. I have to say, I cannot imagine what cellphones will be capable of in 10 years. The screen on these things is awesome and even in daylight it is still quite usable. I'm a heavy Google service user and to have everything integrate into my phone is very appealing. What I like about Android is how you can customize it. I think Android is a platform capable of pleasing to casual user but gives flexibility for the advanced users to get in there and do their own thing.
In the end, many other gadgets have made it inside my house. All receive a thorough research process before I dish out the cash for them and I can't say there are many regrets with my purchases. Slingbox, wireless router, SLR camera, HDD camcorder, USB drive, etc. Technology is is here to stay so might as well keep up with it as much as we can.
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