Saturday, April 12, 2014

Journey Through the Past: MS Dos 6.22, Windows 3.11, 1GB HDD

I'm getting ready to retire my Windows XP box (more on this in a future blog post), now that Microsoft is no longer supporting XP. While preparing for this event -- and process: more than 50 software applications to install on the new system when it arrives! -- I was sorting through some boxes of old files and software....

In 1995 I was finally ready to purchase my first Microsoft Windows computer (up to this point I was all Apple). But I didn't want an off-the-shelf box -- in fact, in 1995, I'm not even sure you could buy an OTS PC. So I arranged a lunch meeting in Sunnyvale (California) with my best friend Randy Davis, who worked for Lockheed at the time, and one of his best friends, Kelly Floyd, who, I believe, worked for Hewlett-Packard. And, during lunch, the three of us built -- on paper -- a top-of-the-line Windows PC. Don't forget, this was 1995.

So while I was sorting through those boxes I mentioned above, I came across the original invoice for the purchase of that first PC -- almost 19 years to the day -- on April 15, 1995.


































Since this JPG of the invoice is a bit difficult to read, here's a link to the PDF version -- much brighter and easier to read, though I can only post the link to the document.

But for those who aren't into JPGs or links to PDFs, here is the parts list direct from the invoice:

INTEL P5 PCI MOTHERBOARD 90 W/IDE U00726593
INTEL PENTIUM-9O CPU L502376050179
MID TOWER CASE
8M SIMM (72 PINS) Bl09
MITSUMI l.44M FLOPPY DRIVE 2839806
WESTERN DIGITAL 1GB IDE HARD DRIVE WT2720648236
SPIDER TARANTULA PCI SVGA 2M VIDEO VRAM 16217
MITSUMI 101-KEYS KEYBOARD
MICROSOFT MOUSE (OEM)
MICROSOFT WINDOWS 3.11
MICROSOFT DOS 6.22
SOUND BLASTER 16 SCSI OEM 073320
75W SPEAKERS
PLEXTOR CD ROM 4X SCSI 43CSO35795
850 MB TAPE BACK CONNOR DC013PV
CPU HEAT SINK & FAN FOR P5-75/90/100

Mind-boggling, isn't it: DOS! Windows 3.11. Western Digital, one of the best hard drives at the time, with a whopping 1GB of storage (I now have a 32GB thumbdrive that I use with my Nexus 7 tablet!), along with a tape backup! Thank gawd I never had to actually use that tape backup to recover files or data.... The Spider Tarantula video card and Sound Blaster sound card were state-of-the-art. And 8 Megs of RAM!

The total price, including sales tax (7.75% in 1995 -- which is quite surprising considering that the current sales tax is only one percent more): $3,325.74. That was not a cheap PC.

Of course, HKG Computers in Sunnyvale is no longer with us; probably hasn't been located in that store front for more than a decade. A lot has changed since then.

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Special thanks to Neil Young for the loan of the title Journey Through the Past.

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