So, back in ’93 or ’94 I got myself a x486…

…because I needed a real computer, by gum; and since student loans were paying for this anyway I might as well go live a little, right?  So I get the computer, and a bit later I need to add some hardware.  I figured, hey, let me just install it myself, right?  How hard could it be?  Three hours later, I stopped trying to figure out where all the cords that I had disconnected were supposed to go and just called in a computer technician.  I mention this because I looked at my new memory, looked at my new video card, and said “How hard could it be?”  Bear in mind that I’m married to an engineer, so I figured that I would at least have a tech person at hand; also, hey, Youtube videos.

And the heck of it was, it wasn’t very hard. I mean, even I could figure out where the power cord was supposed to go, and it was just a matter of unplugging and plugging and listening for the clicks.  And it worked. And the PC could handle things with a bare-bones video driver until I could update with the latest NVIDIA ones. And it all just worked.  My video games run much more smoothly now, thanks.  And I’m very bemused, because my first computer hardware experiences happened in an era when mouse drivers were an hour-long pain in the ass. I shouldn’t be shocked that technology has jumped so in the last twenty years, yet here we are.

Moe Lane

PS: When I mentioned this to my wife, she chuckled and pointed out that computers were first put together by engineers, who always assumed that the people doing the repairs would of course have access to basic tools, like… well, ‘soldering irons’ was the only one I recognized.  Something ‘box.’

2 thoughts on “So, back in ’93 or ’94 I got myself a x486…”

  1. Welcome to the Dark Side of DIY computer assembly. We’ll have you making custom closed-loop watercooled PCs in no time… 🙂

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