What were you doing with personal computers, in 1992? - Page 3

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - What were you doing with personal computers, in 1992? (Page 3 of 8)

Posted: 9/2/2015 3:35:17 AM EDT

[#1]

Having my name be put in a national database...I was born in 92

Posted: 9/2/2015 3:43:13 AM EDT

[#2]

I was 20 and had a mac typing college papers.

J-

Posted: 9/2/2015 3:48:22 AM EDT

[#3]

Quote History

Quoted:
386/DX-40... you were a god among men

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Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:

By 1992 I was using a 386 with a math co processor. Yup boys and girls back then if you wanted to do a lot of math intensive stuff like AutoCad you needed an extra math co-processor.

386/DX-40... you were a god among men

I think it was a 386-25 but I'm not sure. The good old days of a PC being 4.77 MHz (not gigahertz) and a 286 (XT) being 8MHz or something like that and then all the clones were up, up, and away lol.

Posted: 9/2/2015 3:51:06 AM EDT

[#4]

Nothing.
I was 30
I think we got our first used 386 the next year and used it for strictly off line computing work for about a year before we got roadrunner

Posted: 9/2/2015 4:03:22 AM EDT

[#5]

I was just getting my start as a wee little kid on Microsoft Flight Simulator 4.0. Occasionally when no one was watching I would dial into message board and pretend to be a teenager

I remember a year or two later probably 1993 when my father had to purchase a new motherboard with PCI so he could run the SCSI card and SCSI CD ROM. I remember him using words I wasn't supposed to know to describe SCSI cable terminators.

Posted: 9/2/2015 4:13:54 AM EDT

[#6]

Mac Classic. It was my 3rd computer. I stayed with it until Win 95.

Posted: 9/2/2015 4:31:41 AM EDT

[#7]

I was 18, didn't own my own computer at the time, but had been programming since 5th grade and knew fortran, pascal, basic, and some C+. Actually I was pretty burned out on computer crap since I had taken my schools highest level programming class as a sophomore. Other than using them for work I didn't do much with them until 1998 when I built my first of many, many computers.

Posted: 9/2/2015 4:32:52 AM EDT

[#8]

Quote History

Quoted:

mIRC was released in 1995.

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Quoted:

Quoted:
mIRC and lots of porn.

mIRC was released in 1995.

Still used daily by the .mil to communicate in a combat zone.

Posted: 9/2/2015 4:34:10 AM EDT

[#9]

Oh man. 92 I was 11. I could use the Toshiba laptop my dad was issued at his government job. It was a 286 12mhz/4mhz with 1MB of Mem. It had blue and silver CGA graphics so there weren't many games to play if you could fit more than one on its 70MB HDD.

I used lots of gopher based BBSs and was participating in FIDOnet. Lots of phone calls at 1200baud. When new shareware came out I'd have to hit a few different BBSs because they all had download caps. You could download 2MB a day and if you didn't use your allotment you could put a days worth in the bank to use in the future. Sometimes it would take all day for me to hit enough BBSs to download all the disks I needed to make a game work. Half the installers were setup to only read from A: so you'd download to HDD, copy to floppy, then install back to disk.

I remember we had procomm for dos and procomm plus for win 3.1. The dos version was better for the longest time. But you had to manually select your download protocol. Lots of Kermit and xmodem.

I don't know how many boot disks I had to make for games in the next few years. Lots of screwing with himem.sys switches in the autoexec.bat. I remember getting 624k of conventional memory left open with a batch file in DOS 6.2 and feeling like I'd just cured cancer. I bought a Mortal Kombat game that required 621k but it didn't say that on the box.

Spent lots of time trying to get the best performance out of a soundblaster pro too.

Posted: 9/2/2015 4:36:38 AM EDT

[#10]

I was 20, playing with flight simulator, then in '93 Doom. Back then PC was entirely just a gaming thing for me.

Posted: 9/2/2015 4:47:18 AM EDT

[#11]

1992 I was using MSWord for the most part. WP51, Aldus Pagemaker, and Photostyler too.

By the end of the year I was learning some AS400 DBM via some ludicrous PC interface at the local junior college.

My programming days began and ended in 1984 using TIBasic on a TI99/4a with no way to save programs or data. The tape drive refused to work and we didn't have the money for a floppy drive or the I/O package to run it.

After tag-teaming 6000 lines of code(in BASIC!) with my older brother to put together a simple game that chased sprites with their own sound effects around the screen via the wired joysticks, we eventually had to turn the damn thing off and lose all our work.

Kind of soured me on programming.

Posted: 9/2/2015 4:56:30 AM EDT

[#12]

I was 31, running a university computer lab. Mixture of 386 DX's (with an unheard-of-at-the-time 12 MB of RAM each!

) running AT&T System V UNIX, and an AT&T 3B2 "mini"computer - hey, it was only the size of a small steamer trunk - with a bunch of X Terminals hanging off it.

The UNIX background was invaluable. I was actually in an unrelated major at the time (agriculture) and only ended up running the lab because I'd earlier shown some proficiency with computers, but the lab gig turned into my career... been working with UNIX ever since, as a consultant for the last 17 years. Still doing it, though it's all Linux now.

Early days of the internet; started playing around with a newfangled "browser" thing called Hot Java. And yeah, porn was one of the first things to appear on the 'net.... it's probably responsible for a lot of the internet's early growth. When the convention caught on to name web sites "www.something-or-other.com", I remember telling my future wife "Just wait, you're going to start seeing those addresses on TV commercials and stuff." Sure 'nuff.

Posted: 9/2/2015 5:19:09 AM EDT

[#13]

I was probably shitting myself

My first experience with a computer was in elementary school. Very rare we ever got to use one. I mainly remember them because they had the oregon trail and this egyptian maze game that was really fucking hard. You could like starve to death and there were monsters trying to kill you.

Posted: 9/2/2015 5:21:59 AM EDT

[#14]

Playing Oregon trail in elementary school

Posted: 9/2/2015 5:23:33 AM EDT

[#15]

Bought an Acer that year at Best Buy for $2k...had 270mb hard drive iirc...got on Prodigy and promptly started fooling with chicks on the net....ohh and used it for grad school...I was 27

Posted: 9/2/2015 5:29:55 AM EDT

[#16]

I would have only been 8, so this might be plus or minus a year or so.

We had a word processor and a Golf game of some kind. I remember other stuff on there but that's all I knew how to use. I know nothing about the system it had.

Posted: 9/2/2015 5:33:29 AM EDT

[#17]

Nothing - didn't have a computer until 1997 at age 45.

Posted: 9/2/2015 5:37:06 AM EDT

[#18]

I worked for Motorola at the time making chips. We produced the Apple processors and used their OS in the factory. I saw no need at all for one at home.

It was also the last time I used an Apple computer.

Posted: 9/2/2015 5:40:50 AM EDT

[#19]

In 1992 I was a post-doc doing numerical simulations. We had a couple of VAX machines we used for general purpose computing (data analysis, document writing (LaTeX), etc.) and an SGI desktop-class machine we used for graphics analysis, but our main work was done remotely on a NASA supercomputing facility (Cray 2s and YMPs).

At home, I had a Mac+ but don't think I really used it all that much.

Now, in 1984 I was using an IBM PC and a 300 baud modem to connect to a dial-up service in NH that allowed me to telnet to a VAX machine in MA that then allowed me to connect via DECnet to a DOE system in CA that was the front end to a system featuring Cray 1s and Cyber 205s. So painful. I was so happy when our building got wired for networking a couple of years later.

ETA: I was 33.

Posted: 9/2/2015 5:41:06 AM EDT

[#20]

I was 25. I really wasn't doing much. I think by that time I did own an Apple computer, either a laptop or desktop but wasn't doing much with it as I was only than becoming aware of the interwebz. Instead I was spending time outside and chasing girls.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:04:39 AM EDT

[#21]

ASCII boobies. I'd repost here but, you know. There were no ASCII beheadings so nothing GD compliant.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:11:35 AM EDT

[#22]

Quoted:
And how old were you?

I was 13.

I had an IBM 5150 (It's all we could afford), and I was addicted to bulletin boards (WWIV FTW! Fuck Renegade!), when I wasn't studying my Dad's Pascal textbooks from the junior college. I wrote a really sweet app in Pascal (I wish I could still find the source - it's no doubt on a 360k 5.25" floppy somewhere) that quickly logged CB channel 9 calls, as part of the REACT network. I was so proud of it. It had menus and everything. How fucking dumb is that?

It actually wasn't that sweet. My younger brother (who had an affinity for x86 assembler and later...C), tore me a new asshole over how shitty a coder I was, after finally finding one of the disks with the source code, after I moved out. It's a strange sensation, getting dressed down by your younger brother who still lived at home, and secretly knowing that he was totally right, but not giving him the satisfaction of knowing it until like 20 years later.

But I was proud of me. How about you?

View Quote

In 92 I didn't have a computer. What I had was access to the college-owned computers: Burroughs terminals and some Unisys IBM clones. For the terminals, I pretty much blew off my coding class and spent my time on MUDs. For the IMB clones, I did some programming, but primarily just copied all of my writing over from old notebooks to floppy & 3.5" discs.

Oddly enough I still play that same MUD...

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:18:12 AM EDT

[#23]

I think around 88 or 89 my brother and I (9 or 10 years old) started playing with PCs. My brother started a BBS (WWIV) and I soon discovered pixelated porn...

That and Tradewars, Foodfight, BRE.

First game we got on the PC was Vette.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:22:12 AM EDT

[#24]

Alt.binaries

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:24:58 AM EDT

[#25]

I think I still had my old Apple IIe.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:26:16 AM EDT

[#26]

Earning a living with them.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:31:12 AM EDT

[#27]

Quoted:
And how old were you?

I was 13.

I had an IBM 5150 (It's all we could afford), and I was addicted to bulletin boards (WWIV FTW! Fuck Renegade!), when I wasn't studying my Dad's Pascal textbooks from the junior college. I wrote a really sweet app in Pascal (I wish I could still find the source - it's no doubt on a 360k 5.25" floppy somewhere) that quickly logged CB channel 9 calls, as part of the REACT network. I was so proud of it. It had menus and everything. How fucking dumb is that?

It actually wasn't that sweet. My younger brother (who had an affinity for x86 assembler and later...C), tore me a new asshole over how shitty a coder I was, after finally finding one of the disks with the source code, after I moved out. It's a strange sensation, getting dressed down by your younger brother who still lived at home, and secretly knowing that he was totally right, but not giving him the satisfaction of knowing it until like 20 years later.

But I was proud of me. How about you?

View Quote

I was in kindergarten at the time. I had never seen a computer up to that point. Even on my first trip to the library, they still had a card catalogue system. I wouldn't see my first computer until almost the end of elementary school, when the library finally got one with what I assume was MS-DOS (which they were still using until just a few years ago). I was in middle school when we finally got our first home computer (it had Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS) and I discovered the Internet. The '90s were almost over by that time. Neither our home computer nor the school computer had Internet access, so it was a rare privilege to be able to access one with Internet. Didn't really know much about computers until after high school. I still don't know a whole lot about them, but I can get by with the simple stuff without a problem. Heck, I still use a typewriter sometimes (I learned initially started learning how to type on a typewriter, not a computer). I certainly know nothing about writing code or programming. I also don't know how to do graphics, photoshop, etc. and I never did much in the way of gaming. I guess it is what it is. It has yet to prove a real obstacle, even in school, but I wonder sometimes if the day will come where it will indeed become a real obstacle for me.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:32:40 AM EDT

[#28]

AutoCAD & Gaming since 1988... IBM 386!

I was only 8 years old, but that Digitizer board was the shit!

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:32:41 AM EDT

[#29]

2000 was when I bought my first PC.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:34:23 AM EDT

[#30]

2000 was when I bought my first PC. HP desktop from Wally World and I was in my early 30's.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:34:54 AM EDT

[#31]

Quote History

Quoted:
Frogger on an Apple IIGS.

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I was just about to post Frogger. You beat me. Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe as well.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:40:38 AM EDT

[#32]

I recall typing up short paragraphs and adding a clipart graphic to it...this was in grade school.
We didn't get a home computer until 1995.

We didn't get the internet until 1999.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:43:15 AM EDT

[#33]

I was 15. Had some cobbled together deal that was like $3k.

I was designing houses and playing Hero's Quest. No modem for me until 1994 or so.

Posted: 9/2/2015 6:50:24 AM EDT

[#34]

Nothing, my first exposure to PCs was in 1994, when my grandpa bought his first one. I was around 4. By age 6 I was using MSPaint. By age 10, I was a master at MSpaint.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:07:51 AM EDT

[#35]

Working on the publications staff of a statewide association. Had a Mac on my desk (probably an SE30). Used a tower type Mac with a "big" 21" screen do page layout with a program called Quark Xpress. We had a emulator device so we could connect our Macs to the office IBM AS-400 network (which we had no actual use for). Also had a device (about $3,000) which read our Mac/Quark files and converted them to commands that our typesetter could read.

We were limited to designs and graphics that the typesetter could produce --- those capabilities were very limited, basically type, boxes and lines. Even with limited capabilities the Macs offered a huge advantage. Prior to doing crude desktop publishing, even something like wrapping text around a graphic element (which had to be placed using a razor blade and hot wax) was a major pain in the ass. I remember the first time on of my co-workers decided to place an irregular shaped graphic element between two columns of text using only our pre-mac typesetting equipment. He had to manually calculate the width of each line of text and enter each line length command manually, as well as the alignment commands. It took him all day and multiple tries to get it right. The mac made it easy to do. Even after we got the macs we still output text on the typesetter and pasted it down by hand before sending page boards to the newspaper office that printed our publication.

At home in 1992, I probably had a Mac SE. I primarily used it to log onto BBS type bulletin boards and AOL.

BTW, while I had brief exposure to a DOS machine in 1984, I didn't use a windows machine with any regularity until 2010. When I left my mac-based job at the association, I had to teach my self to use a PC. I now have three at work but I still use a Mac at home.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:16:20 AM EDT

[#36]

Somewhere around there I was setting up Windows 3.11 networks. The best windows ever. You could install Word on one PC and run it on another, any other on the network.

Boy, did Microsoft "upgrade" that fast!

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:24:38 AM EDT

[#37]

I was 26 and it was my 14th year using a computer.....Started in 78 using a TRS-80 Model-I.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:25:54 AM EDT

[#38]

I was 12, I only used the schools computer to play Wolfenstien.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:28:16 AM EDT

[#39]

Just graduated college and started my career in government consulting. I was learning Clipper and building a requirements tracking database for the IRS. Jira, before there was Jira, on DOS and sucked ass. Yesterday we won a $50m contract based on what that kid doing clipper learned over the years.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:29:20 AM EDT

[#40]

Commodore VIc20 and 64 for the win, I didnt own an Intel based machine until 1994.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:29:32 AM EDT

[#41]

Mozambique Drill....

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:31:02 AM EDT

[#42]

In 1992? I played Dig Dug. Lots and lots of Dig Dug. Outside of that, I didn't think computers did anything else useful in those days.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:33:22 AM EDT

[#43]

I dont think I bought my first PC until 1994, a Gateway IntelDX2 486/66. When I had already finished college.

I used the computers in the ASU PC lab 87 to 90 ( anyone remember when colleges had PC labs so you could work on your papers? Hardly anyone owned computers so colleges had to have PC's for folks to work on)

Monitor, the whole package back then shipped from Gateway was about $2,200.00

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:38:00 AM EDT

[#44]

I was wiring up the civil engineering firm where I worked, for a network, using coax.
We had a small file server and a network card in our Data General mainframe.
At home I still had an XT clone.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:38:45 AM EDT

[#45]

92 I was 21 and I had a second hand Amiga 2000 that I had every intention of getting Video Toaster for but could never swing the cash--I was enthralled with production video/3D modeling. Ultimately, I went in a different direction with computers but the Toaster/A2000 was the shit back in the day.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:39:10 AM EDT

[#46]

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:46:46 AM EDT

[#47]

I started in 1982, doing homework in college.

Oh, how I loved not retyping entire pages due to a single typo.

Posted: 9/2/2015 7:51:33 AM EDT

[#48]

The only correct answer is Wolfenstien 3D

ETA
Fuck me I forgot Scorched Earth. Off to kill myself

Posted: 9/2/2015 8:08:00 AM EDT

[#49]

Been using personal computers at work since the IBM PC 1

In 1992 I was probably on Windows 3.1 don't remember

Posted: 9/2/2015 8:09:19 AM EDT

[#50]

3 yr old Macintosh SE in college.

college also had a VAX mainframe for email and stuff

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - What were you doing with personal computers, in 1992? (Page 3 of 8)

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