Trip to the past... ancient computing

[[JR]]

Technology sure advances exponentially relative to the rest of the world. I got my hands on an ancient Intel 80486DX4. This beast operates calculations at a whopping clock speed of 100MHz (pretty good in '94). In terms of age, it's not that old, but it is ancient technology.

I put it on my laptop's keyboard to create some sort of contrast of old vs. new... I have a few spare "current" processors, but too lazy to get them!

 

[Quickmagic]

Love this photo, its awesome.

 

[mrodgers]

I've got ya beat if I could bother with a photo. I have a whole drawer full of old 66 MHz processors. I have a handfull of EDO RAM and a collection of hard drives that specs under the MB range.

I also need the latest and greatest dSLR camera so that I can take a shot of it and my Casio QV-10A 0.25 mp camera.

 

[Ls3D]

Pop started on 8088, my first was a 286, then a 386 33 Mhz with a turbo button! BTW - A client of mine spent $6000 dollars putting 256Mb's of RAM into a box with that CPU. $17K for a 11X17 dye sub printer,.. eventaully peaking at about half a million for the SGI Onyx II with Infinite Reality graphics... Then came Nvidia's Geforce 3... all in the name of 3D graphics and animation / real time sets. Lived that history.

-Shea

 

[PhilGarber]

Cool. Would make great stock photography.

 

[RMThompson]

Technology sure advances exponentially relative to the rest of the world. I got my hands on an ancient Intel 80486DX4. This beast operates calculations at a whopping clock speed of 100MHz (pretty good in '94). In terms of age, it's not that old, but it is ancient technology.

I put it on my laptop's keyboard to create some sort of contrast of old vs. new... I have a few spare "current" processors, but too lazy to get them!

Good composition, but it's too yellow/orange.

Also, the contrast between old and new is lost on the majority of people. It's a computer chip and a keyboard, all seemingly "new" to the layperson.

A computer chip and an ABACUS, now that's contrast!

 

[GrfxGuru]

I like it, I wonder if the color choice is to promote the retro feel?

 

[icassell]

Oh god. I was afraid to open this link when I saw your title --

I learned Fortran on an IBM 1620 with punched cards ... graduated to a DEC PDP-8 ... then onwards ...


Made it through college with a slide rule (which I still have) ... and didn't own a calculator until I got out (although the HP35 came out when I was still in school -- for about $400)

Bought an 11 MB (Not GB) Winchester hard drive for $17K when I was doing some laboratory automation work.

When you say ancient, I think I'm gonna donate myself to the local anthropology museum ...


Excellent image, BTW!

Ian

 

[[JR]]

Thanks all. The best thing about that old Intel, is that she still works like a charm

 

[dheerajjuneja]

I think if the marking on the chip would have been clear and in focus, it would turn out to be a much better photograph. Its still very good BTW