Wow..
I remember 1995. Back then I went out to buy a 14.4 KBPS and it cost me like $75 for a desktop.. with only 4 MB of Ram.
"No you don't, you like Taco Bell!"
100MB storage capacity on your hard drive!!! Who would ever NEED that much?!!
I remember buying 16MB of RAM for $120 and thinking that would give me lightning speeds
"There's a certain freedom that comes from being completely screwed" -The Freshman-
Early 90s (I think) I remember buying a 10 MB hard drive. It was larger than the size of 2 SATA DVD drives combined. I'll never need more than this!!!
Just bought a 1 TB External USB hard drive off of Amazon for $100.
OMG yes! I remember when 1200 bps was what I had, and 2400 bps is what I wanted!
Remember when CD-ROMs came out? On a lot of computers you had to load them into special cartridge things to stick them in the computer.
It was larger than the size of 2 SATA DVD drives combined.
It simply is absolutely true. See this link:
http://imgur.com/gallery/7wNEy
Do a little more image searching and you will find many many more examples.
It took me all of 10 seconds to find this one.
Impressive. Super hero-like, even.
shareGod gave you two hands, and you use both for internet searching. I can respect that.
shareThe very first computer my wife and I purchased as an upgrade to the word processor she had been using (and it even had a floppy disk drive - oh my!) was a Macintosh with BOTH a floppy drive and a CD Rom drive, 16 MB of ram and a whopping 1.2 Gigabytes of storage. Whoa! Can you imagine!? I remember that a friend of mine bought a PC a couple of months later with 6 Gigs on the HD and I said something to the effect of, "why did you spend so much, you'll NEVER need that much hard drive space." AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!!!!!
Good times.
My first "hack" was with the programm speech "basic" where I created a couple of joke programms that could be use as virus. I never step up with assembler or C++ and so I´m still a nerd in hacking ;-)
shareCome back to this discussion in 2020 and I bet it will be even funnier than it is today. I bet we'll 500 TB hard drives, if not more by then. Abyone know what a 1000 TB is called?
shareThis seemed pretty interesting:
· 1024 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte
· 1024 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte
· 1024 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte
· 1024 Zettabytes = 1 Yottabyte
· 1024 Yottabytes = 1 Brontobyte
· 1024 Brontobytes = 1 Geopbyte
It has been said that 5 Exabytes would be equal to all of the words ever spoken by mankind.
It would take approximately 11 trillion years to download a Yottabyte file from the Internet using high-power broadband. You can compare it to the World Wide Web as the entire Internet almost takes up about a Yottabyte.
My first computer as a kid was an HP I think. I was only 12, and not interested. I don't know how much ram it had (but not much, read next paragraph for why), but I remember my dad years later remarking when we got a new computer with 700MB of space that the first one only had a hard drive of 7MB.
I also remember it was rather obsolete even for its time, as it didn't have enough RAM to be on the internet. We could get on those old AOL like websites, and chat rooms, but for the actual web it would crash.
Anyway, flash forward to today, and I just bought a 32GB memory card for my Sony camera & a 3TB external drive.
Think how much porn a computer with Geopbyte of memory could hold!!
shareThe Web is only one part of the Internet, though.
share· 1024 Brontobytes = 1 Geopbyte
Come back to this discussion in 2020 and I bet it will be even funnier than it is today. I bet we'll 500 TB hard drives, if not more by then.
Have you ever thoiught , we ( at home) done need ever bigger and bigger hard drives because , films and music are genarally streamed ...
shareI prefer Blu-rays because they have a much higher bitrate than any streaming service offers. Furthermore, I prefer to rip my Blu-rays to my hard drive, because I can strip out what I don't want (menus and such), add in what I do want (for example, sometimes there are better audio tracks out there than what comes on the Blu-ray; The Terminator [1984] is a good example), and simply double-clicking a file is a lot more convenient than messing around with optical discs and drives (I watch movies on my PC, output via HDMI to an HD projector). However, Blu-rays are big; usually at least 25 GB, and in some cases, closer to 50 GB. So I could definitely use a huge hard drive.
Another use for massive storage is video games. Modern video games don't interest me at all, but I've read that some of them take up 60 or 70 GB when installed. There's one that supposedly takes up ~350 GB if you have all of the downloadable content (Gears of War 4).
In 1995 I'd bought a brand-new cutting-edge desktop PC, an IBM Aptiva with 8 megs of ram, a whole gigabyte of hard drive space I never thought I'd fill up in a lifetime, a 100 mHz Pentium processor, and yes, an "insanely great" 28.8kbps modem.
That same Pentium chip I saved up for ages to get and felt like a king for having is now stuck to my bathroom wall as a cheap decoration. Incidentally that was also the last time I ever bought a new desktop; I quickly graduated to building my own.
-- Rob
http://robvincent.net
Sounds like a pretty expensive decoration to me, for the price you originally paid for it.
Also, does anyone else notice that he says "twenty-eight point-eight bps baud modem!"
Sure seems like redundant talk about redundancy.
.-'-.-'-.-Once it was death for prophet - now it's death for profit-.-'-.-'-.
Expensive maybe, but I think I got my money's worth out of that hunk of silicon over the years. It's now enjoying a well-deserved retirement.
Phreak actually says "28.8 bps modem," which is even funnier since that would have been a hell of a lot slower than the 28.8 kbps modems considered "insanely great" at the time.
-- Rob
http://robvincent.net
Eh, haven't seen it in at least 10 years.
But good call on the kilos.
The guy that got me into computatin' had a 33mhz 386 w/32MB RAM!!! somewhere around 1993, that was unbelievable to me. I was trying to get Strike Commander to run on a 486/66 w/4MB and after spending days coming up with the properly brewed boot disc (Origin used a shattay aissed proprietary memory manager for their games) he snatched the floppies and had it running (almost) smoothly on his PC in about 40 minutes.
If I hadn't a been 12 I probably would a sold crack to up the RAM back then..
.-'-.-'-.-Once it was death for prophet - now it's death for profit-.-'-.-'-.
:( I didn't notice that! That pokey 28.8 bps modem would have made my 1st modcem, a 300 bauder look like Speedy Gonzales. I wonder if a fast typist could type faster than a 28.8 bps modem could transmit?
shareUh, where does he say "baud"? He said (and I cut.pasted here) "insanely great" 28.8kbps modem. No redundacy that I can see. Not trying to start a war
sharedamn you all and your top pc's i think i was still using my amiga 500.
CPU 7.09 MHz
Graphics 640 x 256, 6 bpp (64 colors)
Memory 512 kB
Media 880 kB floppy disks
Built in keyboard.
A two-button mouse is included.
15 years later and my pc is more than 1000 times faster
CPU 12 GHz (1700 times better)
Graphics 1920 x 1080, 64 bit (16-bit has 65536 colors)
Memory 8 Gb (16000 times better)
Media 50Gb Blueray disks (31250 times better)
cordless keyboard.
A 3-button mouse Cordless Optical Mouse
1 Tb storage
just wait another 15 years and it will all be Tb ram and cpu
just wait another 15 years and it will all be Tb ram and cpu
"...who would ever use or need that much?"
LOL!
I don't need you to tell me how good my coffee is. .
The sad thing is that programs are getting REALLY bloated. They say we Americans are obese, Our programs , if human, would need 2 or 3 cranes to pick up. Look at word processors or photo editing features. Do you really use all of those features? I bet at least half of those features you nevewr have used, and I bet out of the other 50%, 75% of THOSE features you have used once or twice. And....ou have to click 4 or 5 times to get to a menu, the a submenu and a another submenu. It's too crazy. Our programs NEED A DIET!
sharejust wait another 15 years and it will all be Tb ram and cpu
"Quantum computing is coming along nicely, and while I don't claim to be an expert on it, it will definitely require an entirely new metric to describe the performance of such machines"
Actually its pretty much the same just with quantum in front of it, with the understanding that each qubit (quantum bit) has dozens of more states than the 2 a normal bit has
The slowest component is the short between the keyboard and the floor. :)
shareWell, it wasn't my computer, but my godfather's. I spent much time at his house @ that point, though.
Didn't get my own until 1995 when it was a 200mhz Pentium w/32 MB RAM, 36.6 Modem, I think 1.2 GB hard drive, and after the money I spent on a 2x Burner, the total cost was something like 3500$. Another $200 for a voodoo so I could GL Quake and shoot the basterds under water ;) The monitor just went out a few months ago, and the keyboard and mouse still work.
I did recoup my costs quite a bit, though, as that CD burner lasted until 2 years ago, and burned many thousands of CDs, a lot of which I sold to people (I didn't know anybody that had a burner in MT back in '95). But it's crazy to think of blank discs costing $5 a pop (was constantly cursing those damn buffer underruns). The burners and discs were much higher quality back then, though, I still have some 15 year old discs that have survived much better than the mass produced crap they have nowadays.
I agree w/the other poster that RAM and Storage are soon to be unified, and you'll simply add a module to the board to increase your total available amount, as soon as they increase the bus speed for storage that will probably happen.
He's also right that a straight-on conversion and comparison of what was, and is, is not really that simple, but if you look at it in tangible terms of how applicable the increase is, think about all the multitasking you do that would have been impossible even 12 years ago. Having 20 web pages open, playing music or video in the background, running work programs, P2P sharing, running an ftp server, burning a disc, et cetera, all at once, on top of which you have all the neat-o visual effects built into operating systems (making them look a bit more 'hackerish') leads me to think that although it might not be 17,000 times as fast, we're definitely working in a different realm here, where an Android phone has more capabilities than my 1995 $3500 computer, and fits into a pocket.
I wonder the possibilities of distributed processing when our internet connection speeds reach a level that allows it to become efficient. Will people just buy a device and a subscription, and most processing will be done remotely? I mean, they have thin clients already, but when will the day come that you pay to have your processing done, and maybe even just get the device as long as you have the subscription (a'la cable modems), which would allow greater control over usage by corporations and the government? I'm not saying the traditional CPU would be abolished, but does that concept seem just a little frightening to anyone else?
.-'-.-'-.-Once it was death for prophet - now it's death for profit-.-'-.-'-.
That setup sounds more 1997ish. Intel released the Pentium 200 on June 10, 1996. The fastest 1995 CPU was 133MHz.
share[deleted]
CPU 12 GHz (1700 times better)No, you don't have a 12 GHz CPU; not now, and especially not in 2010 when you posted this. There's no such thing. The world record for CPU clock speed is just under 9 GHz, and that was with extreme overclocking using liquid nitrogen for cooling.
Graphics 1920 x 1080, 64 bit (16-bit has 65536 colors)I highly doubt that your video card supports anything higher than the typical 32-bit color (which is just a variant of 24-bit color [16,777,216 colors]; i.e., the extra 8 bits in "32-bit color" aren't additional colors). I've never heard of anything higher than 48-bit color for a PC graphics chipset, and even that would be highly specialized hardware, such as for use in a high-end graphics workstation.
When I upgraded from 300bps to 1200bps I felt like the king of the world. My whole life was changing. I could finally download the bigger games without running into the BBS time limit! Woohoo!
Haha, yes!!
-- Rob
http://robvincent.net
I remember my dad remarking with wonder at the thought of a "megabyte." Apparently his machine's storage was less than that at the time.
shareMy first computer was a used Commodore 64. Which was lame because 486's were out at the time and my parents didn't want to shell out for one (they also thought computers were only used for gaming, which made it extremely ironic that they decided to buy a C64 that came with a crapload of games). BASIC was fun, though, and the text adventures...
Then a year or two later, we finally bought a "real" computer, a Pentium 100 with 8 MB of RAM and 1 GB hard drive. I eventually overclocked the CPU to 133 mHz, added 16 MB of RAM, and even overclocked the built-in Cirrus-Logic video chipset by 5 mHz before eventually adding a Diamond 4MB RIVA-128 graphics card.
Back in 1994 I had a old Compaq that I got second handed with a 14.4 Modem, 95MB, 4MB Ram, and a VGA card, no SVGA. I believe it was a 286.
Then in 1997 I finally got a new computer Packard Bell finally with a SVGA card, 56K, 4.3 GB, 32MB The processor I believe was 500 MHZ
This is for Allah... and it's going way out there sucka...
Actually this was quite extraordinary speed for its day, since typical transmission lines that carried said information maxed out about 33 kbps because of, and were confined by, the actually characterististics of the wires that carried it.
V.34/28.8k and 33.6k
An ISA modem manufactured to conform to the V.34 protocol.Any interest in these systems was destroyed during the lengthy introduction of the 28,800 bit/s V.34 standard. While waiting, several companies decided to release hardware and introduced modems they referred to as V.FAST. In order to guarantee compatibility with V.34 modems once the standard was ratified (1994), the manufacturers were forced to use more flexible parts, generally a DSP and microcontroller, as opposed to purpose-designed ASIC modem chips.
Today, the ITU standard V.34 represents the culmination of the joint efforts. It employs the most powerful coding techniques including channel encoding and shape encoding. From the mere 4 bits per symbol (9.6 kbit/s), the new standards used the functional equivalent of 6 to 10 bits per symbol, plus increasing baud rates from 2,400 to 3,429, to create 14.4, 28.8, and 33.6 kbit/s modems. This rate is near the theoretical Shannon limit. When calculated, the Shannon capacity of a narrowband line is , with the signal-to-noise ratio. Narrowband phone lines have a bandwidth from 300-3,100 Hz, so using : capacity is approximately 35 kbit/s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#V.34.2F28.8k_and_33.6k
SEE ALSO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#List_of_dialup_speeds
Was it really extraordinary? As I recall it was actually quite ordinary back then. While we were aware of pushing the limits of the phone lines and 28.8k was still considered the fastest most people could get without going to ISDN or something, 28.8k modems had been widely available to the private sector for a year or two and were pretty much standard-issue modems by this film's day. I don't think people were squeeing like Phreak over 28.8k anymore.
-- Rob
http://robvincent.net
True. I had a 28.8 kbps modem before Phreak was crowing about it. And I was slightly behind times. So it really was rather common by then.
Still, 56k was a ways off when Hackers came out and while you could never enjoy true 56k speeds, 53.3k was attainable, eventually.
Is it sad that I'm jealous of you all that I was only 6 in 1995?
Ever get the feeling you were born in the wrong decade.
I was 10 in 1995 and was born in the year 1985. By my calculations you were born in the year 1989. Trust me when I say this- The 90s were the greatest decade ever, especially the early to mid 90s. I have lived through three decades- 80s,90s and 00s and 00s suck for the most part. Yes, we have advanced technologically but that has only lessened our ability to be creative.
Or maybe its the nostalgia haha.
\
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/quotes271_300.htm
In 1995 i was 17... and i have to agree the 90's were just
the best.. I keep saying that in a couple more years the 90's are gonna
get that "60's" renaissance that happened to me in the 80's when i was in
grade school..
They were just THAT darned cool.
And haha, my dad brought home a used 14.4 modem from work in 95 and i got into
the internet world. I remember my computer class at high school basically
took a field trip to go see HACKERS when it first came out!
No no no don't overthink the coolness of the 90s! I distinctly remember watching photos of Cameron Diaz download line by line and prayed I could get to the future when the photos would arrive in seconds.. Now her entire movies arrive in minutes.. woohooo!
----------------------------------------
"Another brilliant post Steinberg..."
Actually true ISDN version weren't readily available except on hardwired business type systems, however a 'mock' version of ISDN communications could be created utilizing dual 33k modems used asynchronous thus providing separate upload and download speeds yielding approximate 64kbps total throughput. As such ISDN technology was interpreted as the combined speeds of both communication devices collective thoughput and not separate transmissions during ISDN's early period. Therefore to achievement of the 128kbps throughput touted by ISDN communications at this time had been the connection speeds to/from similarly setup devices on the networked source, Also only yielded speeds of only 80% of the total signal's roundtrip speed.
ie; 28k(33k) + 28k + 28k + 28k = equaling total (128k) throughput speed of said packet through all said devices, yielding really no increase in speed as opposed to the actual efficiency of said packet's completed transmission.
http://www.lsu.edu/OCS/its/unix/tutorial/ModemTutorial/MT-Protocols.html
http://www.jet.net/isdn/isdnintro.html
I suggest also reading '56K Modems - A Reality Check, 1997' which further explains this throughput reality: http://www.pulsewan.com/data101/pdfs/56k_modems.pdf
See also 'ISDN - an alternative to Broadband | DSLReports.com (http://www.dslreports.com/faq/isdn?text=1)'
Speed up your COM port: If you have a newer ISDN modem, you may be able to take advantage of a little extra speed boost. Windows 95 through 98SE allow you to only go as high as 115200bps on the port speed.therefore only 115,200bps could be ever be achieved by 1997, yet still not even close to true ISDN's touted 128kbps speed.
ISDN never really took off in the US (a wise move in hindsight). More so in Europe and Germany in particular. This made obstacles for Germany when everybody transitioned to DSL in the early 00's.
share