Upgrade path for home computers

[outdated_gamer]

I'd like to hear what kind of "upgrade path" did you pick or had to accept in terms of home computers.

For me, it went like this:

1. ZX Spectrum 48K - this was my first home computer. It came with a lot of games (almost all of them pirate) and some programming manual. I was still pretty young at the time so I didn't really use it for anything more than playing games. The games were fun but the loading times were pretty atrocious. It was my first home computer so I have a certain sentiment about it.

2. Pentium PC - the next computer that I got was not an Amiga or Atari ST, but a Pentium PC. I got it rather late and it was somewhat slow at 3D graphics due to it's ageing video card (S3 Virge). But back then, I didn't yet know that I could have added a new 3D card like the 3dfx Voodoo and more memory to the system. This limited the gaming potential of the system but I was still able to play some a little older or less demanding games and also do some computing stuff on it (no internet access yet back in those times though).

3. Pentium 3 PC - this is actually a little inaccurate as it was a "Celeron 2" rather than the P3, but it was basically the same chip. This was the first PC where I got a new graphics card for it (GeForce 4 MX) and it was able to do some gaming pretty well. At the time, I also became more of a PC gamer than a console gamer, despite growing up with the consoles. This was also the first time I got internet access and experienced the magic of it (although the 56K modem was awfully slow and expensive).

4. AMD Athlon PC - because the previous PC started to struggle running "next-gen" PC games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2, it was due time for a new machine. That machine was a spanking new Athlon XP build with a Radeon 9800 PRO card, basically the best build you could get at the time. It ran games pretty nice, although I did have to get more memory for a stutter-free experience. I also got broadband internet at the time so browsing the internet became a pleasurable experience. I used this PC for quite a while, changing just the graphics cards (first to GeForce 6800 GS, then 7600 GT) but I didn't play the latest games on it as it became dated and could not keep up anymore (at the time, I invested into a "Xbox 360 Elite" for my gaming needs, but I soon discovered that console gaming isn't for me anymore).

5. i5 PC - when browsing the internet and doing other regular things became a big problem, it was time for a new machine. I went with Intel again and got a i5 build and later on added a GeForce 750 Ti card to it. I still use this system as my primary one and I'm pretty pleased with it as it runs anything I throw at it, including compute-hungry tasks (although I don't do things like bit coin mining and similar extremely demanding things). I'll keep using it untill it breaks or won't be able to run things decently anymore, upgrading just the graphics card and adding more memory and storage to it.

6. Intel Core2Duo PC - this is actually a weird one as I got it pretty recently rather than in it's prime time, but it serves me as a server rather than my main build.

I also still repair/update my old PCs and didn't throw them away (except the very first one which was replaced - kind of a bummer because I'd like a "proper" DOS machine too ) and I also still have the Speccy (although I don't use it anymore - emulators are just much more convenient).

What about you, what kind of upgrade path did you pick or had to accept?

Write away.

[English Invader]

Atari ST - used mostly for games and occasional tinkering with other applications but no internet. The bang for the buck sold it to me over the Amiga and despite developing a fondness for the Amiga in recent years I've never been able to shed my personal bias towards the ST.

HP Pavillion ZV5000 laptop - first PC I could call my own (prior to that it was casual use on the family PC or school/college). I bought an HP laptop because they were a sponsor of my favourite football team and the only thing I knew about the specs was the price tag. It didn't go online at all for the first four years I owned it and was mainly used for DVDs, music, Championship Manager and any other odd games I found in the bargain bin. Once I got myself online, it gave me the best part of six years service and, although its internet-ready days have come to an end now, I still use it sometimes for old games, DVDs and music like I did before (it actually ran about 80% faster once I removed the anti-virus).

Home-Bulit PC - When XP came to an end, I decided it was time to learn how to build my own system and a friend gave me an old hand-me-down PC tin which got me started. I went mainly for cheap, used parts - the only new parts were the HD5450 graphics card and a Corsair PSU. I took the opportunity to move over to Linux and drifted between Mint and Ubuntu before settling with Mint. Went through two motherboards that crapped out with POST issues.

£30 local pick-up on eBay - landed on my feet with a very nice Vantage case, AMD dual-core processor, in-built Nvidia graphics and 4GB RAM. All I had to do was plug in my HD5450, wipe the Windows 7, install Linux Mint and I was away. I've been using this system for the last 16 months and, although I have some upgrades waiting in the wings, I have no great desire to change anything at present.

[Katzkatz]

Here's mine :-

C64 - First it was a joystick. A Cheetah one - I think. This was a massive improvement over having to use the keyboard on games. Then it was a second joystick. Don't laugh - it was quite novel at the time, as it allow multiplayer, and that was fun on Pitstop II. Then it was a floppy drive. The old 1541 - with all its quirks. Massive leap forward in loading times - and mind blowing at the time. I think floppy drives for the C64 were rare in the UK. A lot of people just stuck with tapes. In the US, I think it was different.

Amiga - Well, usually it was either a second floppy drive(for all the disk swapping on some games) or the 512 Mb upgrade to 1 Mb(on the A500). I got the second floppy drive first and later on the memory upgrade. I also replaced the mouse, as the Commodore standard was a bit rubbish. Never got a hard disk for the Amiga - as they were too pricey for me at the time. Only a few games took advantage of hard disk install at the time(usually the big adventure games or the flight sims).

486 SX 33 Mhz DOS PC - My first DOS PC. First up, it was a soundcard - a Thunderboard one. Next up, it was a decent analogue joystick - a Gravis one. Then it was a CD-ROM drive - I got Cinemania and a few other things free for it. Then it was extra memory - from 4 Mb to 8 Mb. Then I got some cache - 256 Kb. Then an upgraded graphics card(could show higher resolutions) - a Diamond Viper(I think) on the old VESA bus system. Then it was an extra hard disk for more storage space. Then it was the upgrade to Windows 95 from DOS(hurray - a proper GUI for the PC - glad you caught up). Then it was a processor upgrade to the 486 DX4(I think that ran at 100 Mhz). Lasted me from about 1994 to 1997.

Pentium 133 Mhz MMX PC - My second PC. I sort of got it to cope with more modern games. It handled Dungeon Keeper quite well. I think it came bundled with a soundcard(but I can't remember the name of it) and had a CD-ROM drive already installed. Ran Windows 95. I got a hand-me-down Voodoo GFX card which you ran through the VGA port for the main graphics card. It helped with Quake 2. I got a hand-me-down hard disk for the second hard disk and a hand-me-down 233 Mhz MMX processor to upgrade. It lasted me until 1999 - and I got through Dark Forces II and Quake 2 on it - as well as the C & C games, and Starcraft. I also played WinUAE on it. Oh - and I did put in a LAN card for gaming.

AMD Duron PC - I got this around the end of 1999. It had the Duron processor(which was a cut down Athlon). I got a Soundblaster Audigy 5.1 and the GFX card that I can't remember the name of(although it did come with Soldier of Fortune). I also got a DVD ROM drive for it. I had Windows ME on it. Oh dear - ME - that was a pain in the ****! The DVD drive was a bit temperamental with reading some CDs - although it was great for playing films(hey, it was 1999 and DVDs were in their infancy at the time). My GFX card did have an SVHS and composite output - so sometimes I hooked it up to the TV for that. It was an okay machine - but I didn't think ME was a good or stable OS.

AMD Athlon XP PC - I got this around 2003. Put Windows XP on it. I got a DVD writer for it from NEC(I think). It was a Shuttle PC. Pretty decent. I got an upgraded GFX card to run Half Life 2 on it. It took me through Half Life 2(and the extra levels), Shadowgrounds, Freedom Force 1 and 2, Star Wars : Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. I also got a big second hard disk for it. It also did get used for torrents(naughty - I know) and some emulators(MAME). I still have it - it's gathering dust in my flat in the corner. I also got a LCD monitor for it. Used to use it to play video files as well, and would hook the VGA output up to my TV at times. It lasted me awhile. It is on its way to the scrap heap though. I just have to transfer some files from it.

[markopoloman]

Blimey, I can't remember every upgrade over the years!!

ZX81 - Started with this (shared with my Brother). Got a 16k ram pack that wobbled around causing everything loaded to crash. Ended up just playing 1k games.

C64 - My first computer that was MINE. Still my all time fave system. Never got a 1541 disk drive - just cassettes on the good old C2N. Had hundreds of copied games and an equal number of originals.

Amiga 500 - Added external drives and a ram upgrade.

Amiga 1200 - Didn't add anything. I loved this machine but it was too little too late...

Silica 486/66 PC - my first PC.

Pentium 90 - New motherboard and new CPU. Upgraded to a P120.

Then it all goes a bit fuzzy as I seemed to upgrade every few months, swapping between pentiums and AMD CPU's until....... 3dFX!!! This changed NOTHING Continued upgrading CPU's but also GPU's going through Voodoo cards, Matrox cards, Riva cards, Voodoo 2 cards etc. etc. etc.

At the moment I am using the same PC I built about 6 years ago (as in the same CPU). It is an old i7 and still holds its own. Have upgraded the GPU a number of times over the years but have stopped with 2 x 770GTX cards. Nothing has failed to run - yet.

There are also 3 other gaming PC's in the house that I have built for the kids

[ncf1]

Apple II Europlus : this wasn't mine, it was the "family's" computer although I rather took control of it soon after it entered the house, I was addicted as soon as I sat in front on it, we would have been one of the very first in Australia to have gotten one and I loved that system. AppleBASIC was so much fun to program, I wrote lots of games for it. The Apple Paddles were tough on the hands though with those tiny pointy buttons, I needed to use oven gloves.

Vic 20 : Then Dad out of nowhere brings home this system after hearing how I'd wanted a C64, I didn't know what a Vic-20 was. I have to say, even as a kid I never warmed to it, and the transformer endlessly played up and I don't think we even had it more than a year or two. The one system I never really liked in any way. Awful to program and only a few games that compared to other systems like the Apple and C64 were even half decent.

C64 : I loved the Apple II but wow, using a proper joystick, having a big TV in full colour, amazing sound, sprites that didn't flicker relentlessly... I ended up having I think 3 C64's in the end, bought and sold a few. Lots of kids at school had one so you could rack up a huge game collection quite easily if you wanted.

Amiga : And then the Amiga came along and blew the C64 away, I ended up having 4 or 5 of them, I would buy and sell making small profits on each, as a kid who had to work for every cent the $50 or $100 I'd make was huge. But I'd never stop playing the games in the meantime, and although I'd never imagine it, I loved the Amiga games more than the other systems I'd had up till that point.

Then the 90s came along and Test Drive 2 was all the rage, and you needed this thing called a PC to run it. The first PC I can recall having was a 486 DX-33, then upgraded to a 486 DX2-66. Then I got my first Pentium, I cant even remember what it was called, the motherboard was an MMX or something, just behind a Pentium 2.
Next was a Pentium 4 1.0 or something, then I got a Pentium 4 2.0, I cant even remember the names of them. Then I think one after that, and then up to the present system, a Pentium i7 with recently upgraded graphics card to GTX 950. Also bought a laptop, an i5 but for music recording purposes. I did think of getting one primarily for emulation purposes, but for now I'm happy with the i7, I probably should have bought a more powerful graphics card but anyway, it performs very well so for now its ok!

[outdated_gamer]

@Katzkatz: interesting to hear how you bought a DVD drive and connected your PC to the TV, it seems many of us were doing it at the time

The Voodoo 3 3500 even came with a large TV cable and video out and the Radeon 9800 I used in my next system also had a in-built TV tunner (they called them "ATi All-in-Wonder").

I kind of liked Windows ME, but there were several issues with it's Media Player if I remember correctly. They also dropped proper legacy DOS support, meaning that old DOS games and programs suddenly didn't work well anymore under Windows (we had to wait till DosBox came out for proper backwards support).

Not to say what you should do, but you might also turn that Athlon XP build into a retro gaming PC.

It's what I did and it's pretty cool for the old 3dfx and DOS games.


@markopoloman: how do you cool all that gear?

I had the choice between a 750 Ti and Radeon 7950 and I went with the 750 Ti as the Radeon was simply too big and power hungry. Nowadays, even mid range cards can be as large and power hungry as monster cards like the Voodoo 5 6000 and GeForce 7900 GX2 used the be. I sort of started to look at more "economical" choices and I like smaller format cards that don't drain electricity so much. Something like the pretty cutting-edge GTX 1070 (GTX 1080 is better but overpriced) in mini format impresses me more than just brute power these days. (although I certainly don't object large versions )

I sort of missed out on the Amiga and it was certainly a shame, although at the time I was more into consoles and didn't really use computers for much more than games. I also didn't have a 286/386/486 PC myself, but I must say that at that time, PC gear was incredibly expensive and very fast obsolete so holding out a bit for Pentium builds to become more affordable wasn't a bad idea in itself. It's actually kind of funny how huge jumps PCs used to do back then compared to now, when we see pretty marginal jumps in terms of CPU processors and even several years old builds still run everything great as long as they're paired with a capable graphics card.

[necronom]

Vic-20 - My first computer. The computer teacher at school had one, we used Commodore PETs, so it seemed the obvious choice. It had colour and sound, so was better than the ZX81 I'd seen at a friends house. My best friend at school had on, too, though I can't remember if we both got one at the same time. Just a tape drive and joysticks with that. I now have an SD card reader for use with this, and it can also use the 1541 drive I got later.

C64 - A natural upgrade from the Vic-20. I had a 1541 disk drive, tape drive, Action Replay cart, light pen, joysticks, 9-pin dot-matrix printer, and thousands of games. This now uses the SD card reader for loading games most of the time.

Amiga 500 - Again, this was the obvious choice from the C64. I got a GVP Impact II HD+ 50Mb drive (with RAM upgrades - 512 Chip, 512 Fast, plus 2Mb in GVP). I had an OkiMate 20 colour thermal transfer printer that can print on thermal paper, or on other paper using ribbons for black or colour. I got a sound sampler and I think this is where I got my first ZipStick, which I use to this day.

Amiga 1200 - Another natural upgrade from the A500. I went through a few hard drives, and it now has a CompactFlash card in (I actually have two, that I swap between). I had colour inkjets with it, a Zip Drive and about 10 Zip Disks, an external CD drive, GVP Genlock, a Blizzard 1220/4 4Mb RAM board that was later replaced with an Apollo 68040 Accelerator with 32Mb RAM. I also had some more sounds samplers, MIDI ports, and a 12-bit sound card. It was linked to a dial-up modem for internet access. I did everything with this; word processing, 3D rendering, home video titles and video effects, music, email, web browsing, newsgroups, Mac Emulation, and loads of other stuff.

Then the world turns to s#!t and I had to eventually get PCs around 2001 time, so I've now had three PCs, all AMD, all pretty much tools and nothing more to me than that. I did build them myself, though I can't tell you much about them, as it's just not that interesting to me to remember. The first is Win98SE, the second is XP and the current one I'm typing this on is an AMD FX 6300 6-core 3.5Ghz, 4Gb, Win 7 box, with a few TB of storage, two screens, and 5.1 sound (carried over from my first one).

[ianpmarks]

ZX81
Computer my father brought home, loved it. Happy memories of Inca Curse and Asteroids.

ZX Spectrum
Favourite computer I ever owned. Still have it and play it, although now with a DivIDE adaptor.

Amstrad 1512 PC
Really enjoyed this. My first PC. Played many an Infocom game on this.

386 SX33
It just about ran Doom, albeit quite slowly.

486DX 100
It ran Doom very well... and also Tie Fighter, GP2... it was great.

Pentium 90
It was all about Quake with this...

Then various generic PC's that all blur into one... leading to...

I5 Samsung Laptop
Still use today with Windows 10. It's sloooow though, and I'm looking to replace it

Mac Book Air i5
Love this machine. It just works brilliantly. 2014 model. Not really a games machine though.

IMac i5
My main computer these days... no games at all on it. A sure sign of middle age.

[Matt_B]

ZX81 - Had it for less than a year, but learned to program some BASIC on it and played some memorable games.

ZX Spectrum - A huge leap forward in terms of what you could do over the ZX81. Some of the best games of the 80s, all time even I suppose, and my first steps in programming in assembler.

Amstrad CPC - After being rather disappointed with the QL, this seemed a better bet for the next step. It wasn't a better games machine than the Spectrum, but you could run proper word processors, spreadsheets, high level languages, etc. on it. Did my A-level project on it but had to look for a new machine when my brother took it to uni with him.

Atari ST - Saw me through my uni years and was the cheapest option if you wanted a 16-bit machine in the late 80s. Made for a nice leap forward in 3D games even if its 2D performance was mediocre.

PC - It gets complicated, as I've only ever bought one complete desktop PC and it's been upgrades all the way since, with numerous other machines built out of the spare parts. I tend to buy a new CPU about every three years on average; both the ones I bought in the 90s - a 486 and a Pentium - were Intel, and it was then AMD Athlons throughout the 2000s, before switching back to Intel in 2010 with the i7-920 and I've bought a couple more i7s since. The three i7s make up the current contingent of desktops for the household. On the graphics card front, I started with a Tseng ET4000 before moving on to the Matrox Millenium and the ATI All-In-Wonder 128. Since then it's been Nvidia all the way with a GeForce 2, 6800, GTX460 and GTX970 with the latter two still in use. I stuck a surplus AMD 6450 from a friend in the i7-920 though as the 6800 is just too old to support modern graphical APIs and that's an exclusively work machine anyway.

Laptop - My first was a Compaq nx6110 in 2005 which was, frankly, awful. It died only about six months out of warranty to be replaced by a Dell Inspiron 1300 that's still with me but doesn't get used much except as an occasional Linux testbed for work. I then switched to netbooks in 2008 with a Eee PC 1000 and then a Samsung n220 in 1991. Currently I'm using a Surface Pro 3.

HTPC - After getting the first i7, I hooked up one of the older Athlons to use it with the TV set as a media centre. It worked pretty well and I eventually built a dedicated machine around the AMD A10 5800K, which combined a moderately powerful CPU and GPU on the same chip. It's still holding up well as a games machine, although I'm looking at adding a discrete graphics card now there are low profile GTX1050s around.

Raspberry Pi - I've got all three generations of Pi. The original just runs the Raspbian desktop these days and doesn't get a lot of use, but the Pi 2 runs Kodi and the Pi 3 has the Retro Pie distro on it.

[markopoloman]

@markopoloman: how do you cool all that gear?

Water cooled of course!

[Antiriad2097]

Mine starts off a little odd...

Initially a borrowed TI-99/4A. Learned BASIC on that, played a few games, but there wasn't much great that we had access to.

Borrowed Spectrum. Played games mostly on a 48k rubber key around 1982.

Oric-1, 1982-83 (not sure exactly). My first computer of my own. Got the 48k version as only 16k Spectrums were left in Dixons. so went on the assumption that any 48k was better. Not perhaps the wisest decision, but I loved my Oric-1 during its brief commercial life.

ZX81. Bit of a backwards step you might think, but it only cost me £10 brand new from Boots when they were offloading stock. Let me play a few different games and most importantly, let me tinker with Sinclair BASIC which is the reason I bought it. Had a Memotech 16k RAM pack which wobbled terribly. Gave it to Sir Clive a few years back, still in its original box. I think he gave me a Wii game as a trade iirc.

Oric Atmos. £25 I think, can't remember where from. Might have been Boots again. Bit of a life saver as I killed my Oric-1 trying to rewire a joystick while still plugged into the parallel port and powered up. It never behaved properly after that and would randomly reset or crash for no reason. I'd still like to get that fixed some day. The Atmos is still working though and has been used at a Play Expo in Blackpool, demoing a preview of Skool Daze and some other modern conversions.

Spectrum+ & C64. Both bought from Woolworths on the same day, again during a stock offloading sale. I think the Speccy was £25 and the C64 £35 (with tape deck). Had some problems with the C64 not working properly, but luckily they were able to swap it for another rather than offering a refund as this was still a stupidly cheap price even for 1986. I had a part time job as I was 16 and still at school, so could afford this as well as regular games now. Perfectly timed imo, catching the peak of Speccy and C64 gaming.

Atari STFM. 1991, £100 from the local pub, may have fallen out of the back of Dixons store room somehow, but I couldn't possibly be sure of that. All I knew was I'd 'ordered' an Amiga and this was what was offered in return. Since it was boxed and minty fresh at a fraction of the retail price, I jumped on it. Added a new mouse, external floppy, sound sampler and hacker cartridge.

Atari STE, 1993. £100-£125, Boots offloading stock again. Put the STFM to one side and used this with my existing floppy etc. Since the memory upgrade was a simple slot in of SIMMS, upgraded it to 4 meg. This was great as I could create a good sized RAM disk with plenty of room still to run apps, so it fairly flew once the initial boot from floppies was over. Somehow obtained a colour monitor from somewhere, I forget where. Since SCART gave me a decent RGB display for gaming on telly, I swapped the colour monitor with a friend who was into graphics work, getting a lovely mono monitor. This gave me access to the previously unobtainable high resolution display and the apps that needed it, so quite handy. Retrospectively, I wish I still had the colour monitor for gaming. That said, both are tiny by todays standards.

October 1998. My first PC. Mrs Ant wanted a PC to do work stuff on. We'd both been applying for promotions and she needed a PC at home, the old ST wasn't cutting it. £800, Packard Bell 300Mhz Cyrix II. 2GB HDD. Eventually ended up with a Soundblaster Live card and a Voodoo3 2000 PCI card. This thing went through various up and downgrades, at one point being an internet gateway for other PCs in the house and acting as my 'download PC', auto reconnecting to dial-up every 2 hours when the ISP cut the unmetered connection, taking a week to download one movie. Bought my first CD-RW for this system, a snip at £140, then was gutted when barely a year later I'd burnt it out. Worst thing was I'd promised to send some apps to an acquaintance in the US for an Independence War mod we were working on, as he couldn't afford the dial-up download costs. Felt bad about that.

November 1998. Mrs Ant found she'd be working away from home, so we spent £1100 on a laptop. 320Mhz AMD thing. Wish I could remember the brand - it was one of those lesser known ones, but they always reviewed very well. Then work gave her a laptop. Hurrah, I had portable PC gaming. Finished both Quake and Independence War while commuting using this. Loved that little laptop.

Into the 2000s I eventually jumped to an 800Mhz Duron system, still with my trusty Voodoo 3 and Soundblaster Live, then onto a 2Ghz Athlon with a GeForce 6800. The latter is still in use as my Ultrastar Deluxe machine, only recently being retired from continual service as my download PC.

Latterly I was using an Asus laptop, an absolute beast when I bought it with dedicated nVidia graphics chip, blu ray just as that was taking off, the works. Sadly, the mobo died just over a year ago so I did without for a long time.

Now, in the last few months just, I use a Linx 1010b tablet for most of my PC needs. Surprisingly effective, I'm currently playing Arkham Asylum and Painkiller Black on it. I revived an old Dell compact desktop for my downloads, much quieter and with a more reliable PSU than the previous one.

There's another C64, a Vic 20, Amstrad NC-100 and possibly others somewhere in that timeline. Oh, and a Spectrum +3 someone at work gave me 20 years ago. And a few A500s and an A1200 (though I'm not really an Amiga guy). No doubt I've still forgotten some.

[lupogtiboy]

Amiga 500+ - Christmas, low expectations of getting one after being told it was just too much money, my brother and I were shocked to get this! I thought it was a scalectrix! Amiga 500+ Cartoons Classics pack with Bart vs The Space Mutants, Captain Planet, Deluxe paint 3, Lemmings and a couple of others. I still have never completed Bart vs The Space Mutants, always got stuck on the same bit in the shopping mall, and theres only so many times you can hear Bart saying 'Eat my shorts!' before you want to destroy everything!

Advent P2 '350mhz' Tower PC - I bought this with after selling some shares I'd inherited I think, was about £1k back in the day. Pentium 2 350 cpu, 4gb hard drive, graphics card, sound blaster and a 2ft square tower (I kid you not!) I still have it now but I think the HD is dead, came with windows 95!

Sega Megadrive 2 - I bought this at an antiques fair at Goodwood race course for £30 with about 10 games, the only remotely interesting thing there. In the days before I could drive, so myself and brother were dragged along to boring stuff like this. This started the whole console and retro-love I have now.

Its fair to say that I was quite late getting into games and consoles as I was more of the outdoors 'ride a bike' kind of kid, but now I'm fat and lazy and I love all things retro!

[Mayhem]

For home computers, it was the Commodore 64, and only the Commodore 64. Came to it from the Atari 2600, and progressed onto the Super Nintendo afterwards. If including PCs, then I bought my own while at university in 1994, a nice 486DX2 that allowed me to write reports for courses, and play some games (X-Wing, Day of the Tentacle, Doom etc) at a pretty good lick.

[kebabinho]

C16 plus 4 - First computer bough for me one xmas. Recently picked one up online and I'm enjoying showing my son the delights of fireant and treasure island

BBC Micro model B - My dad was a teacher and blagged one from school for doing 'work' on (he was a PE teacher!!)

Amiga 600 - Brought near the End of life because most people at school had one and I got fed up with the prices of games for the megadrive

Pentium 75 - Bought for me by my parents to help with my college IT course. Spent most of the time playing Doom on it and quickly changed to a compiler if they came into the room

The rest was upgrades until I got fed up with upgrading every time a new game came out

[Antiriad2097]

C16 plus 4

Which one? Or did you get both?