The Pentium is now 30+ years old

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by coldacid

Northern Telecom had a whole line of office phone equipment that used the '060, as I recall.

Yes, ppl have been buying Nortel equipment just to get the CPUs. Some used full 060s so understable if you can get it for a good price ;-)

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Yes, ppl have been buying Nortel equipment just to get the CPUs. Some used full 060s so understable if you can get it for a good price ;-)

Hey Ixnay on the Ortel Nay

[ImmortalA1000]

I remember the original Pentium wasn't that greatly received in magazines, it was only after the P60/P66 models that things improved and the tech mags gave them a more favourable reception.

Think it was late summer 1995 when I got a P120, the top end model was a P166 at the time so whenever that was. Pentium kept the heat on the rival chip architectures that the 486 had started the battle in earnest. Nothing wrong with the 486, that was the game changer that put Motorola down for good in cost/performance stakes IMO.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

I remember the original Pentium wasn't that greatly received in magazines, it was only after the P60/P66 models that things improved and the tech mags gave them a more favourable reception.

The P60 and P66 were the 'orginal' Pentiums.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by TCD

The P60 and P66 were the 'orginal' Pentiums.

I know, and they weren't that great from what I remember PC system reviews stated, although that could include mediocre motherboard performance.

I never used anything below about P90 at University so I can't say.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

I know, and they weren't that great from what I remember PC system reviews stated, although that could include mediocre motherboard performance.

I never used anything below about P90 at University so I can't say.

The first Pentium, the 60 MHz version was a 5V part manufactured on a 0.8 micron process leading to pretty terrible thermal performance. Cooling was a real issue. The 75MHz version was a 0.6 micron process and it ran on 3.3V so thermals were significantly improved.
No one has fond memories of P60

[TCD]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

No one has fond memories of P60

I do.

[pandy71]

I should still have complete mobo with p60(66?) - worked fine but too expensive when compared to 486DX2 or DX4.

Btw month ago Intel announced proposal to kill everything before x86-64 https://www.intel.com/content/www/us...hitecture.html so this chapter of computing seem to began closing.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by TCD

I do.

Of course there will always be ”exceptions to the rule” ;-)

I remember urban myth stories of ppl having the plastic foot of the monitor starting to deform /melt from the heat in early pizza-pox P60 systems ;-)

[TCD]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Of course there will always be ”exceptions to the rule” ;-)

Back in those days the rate of new processor releases seemed crazy fast. I got a Pentium 200 system a bit over a year after I got the Pentium 60. Still the Pentium 60 was quite a bit faster than my friends' DX2/66 at the time, so yeah there's that. The funny thing is that the P60 system ran pretty solid (even with all the bugs and overheating it apparently had).

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by TCD

Back in those days the rate of new processor releases seemed crazy fast. I got a Pentium 200 system a bit over a year after I got the Pentium 60. Still the Pentium 60 was quite a bit faster than my friends' DX2/66 at the time, so yeah there's that. The funny thing is that the P60 system ran pretty solid (even with all the bugs and overheating it apparently had).

I guess the stability of the system was down to the system builders, with proper cooling Im sure it was Ok.
but the P60 in particular is AFAIK a rejected P66.
The P66 is listed at 70degrees C. P60 as high as 85 deg C so clearly issues with thermals, needing a speed downgrade. To be fair, this is hardly unusual for a new CPU design of that era. The 040 also has famously bad thermal characteristics..

[Karlos]

Forget the Pentium, the Pentium Pro is where the action was

[Aulapatchuc]

Originally Posted by Karlos

Forget the Pentium, the Pentium Pro is where the action was

Exactly. You could run Quake in 640x480.


My first Pentium and PC, was a P1 166 MMX in 1996. Was a great machine, OC'd to 233 MHZ and stable. I put a large fan on the case to give more air from the side. Sold it a year later to buy a Mitac laptop with a real 233 MMX and double the RAM. It endured till 2001 on a daily basis work.

[rKickrkds]

Originally Posted by Aulapatchuc

Exactly. You could run Quake in 640x480.


My first Pentium and PC, was a P1 166 MMX in 1996. Was a great machine, OC'd to 233 MHZ and stable. I put a large fan on the case to give more air from the side. Sold it a year later to buy a Mitac laptop with a real 233 MMX and double the RAM. It endured till 2001 on a daily basis work.

MMX came out in 1997, and was expensive right up to late 1997 until release of Pentium II.


Looking at PC's back then most people bought complete systems. I think we are looking back with rose tinted spectacles unless you guys are all rich.

Mail order prices in mags like Computer Shopper, competitively priced Gateway/DAN/Compaq/HP - branded Pentium- 75mhz cost £1750 in August 1995 with 8MB EDO ram and 15" monitor.
Complete systems with P120mhz were £2500 with 16MB ram in late 1995.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Aulapatchuc

My first Pentium and PC, was a P1 166 MMX in 1996.

I still have a PC parts price list from my shop in March 1996 (prices in NZ$, divide by 2 for GBP):-

Desktop Case & Power Supply $93.00
Trio S3 PCI 64 bit VGA Card PNP 2MB $194.00
Triton PCI Motherboard 256k Pipeline $279.00
8MB 72 Pin EDO RAM Simm Module $360.00
1.08GB Hard Disk Drive Conner $442.00
Pentium 166 CPU Intel & Fan $1387.00

[coder76]

My first PC was a 200 MHz Pentium MMX, with 64 MB of memory, it was great for running Linux. I got it for free in 2001, because it was old technology by that time, but still good enough for Linux. 486's were crap stuff compared to an A1200 with a good accelerator board, never considered buying a 486.

[Aulapatchuc]

Originally Posted by rKickrkds

MMX came out in 1997, and was expensive right up to late 1997 until release of Pentium II.


Looking at PC's back then most people bought complete systems. I think we are looking back with rose tinted spectacles unless you guys are all rich.

Mail order prices in mags like Computer Shopper, competitively priced Gateway/DAN/Compaq/HP - branded Pentium- 75mhz cost £1750 in August 1995 with 8MB EDO ram and 15" monitor.
Complete systems with P120mhz were £2500 with 16MB ram in late 1995.

Make it 1997 then. I remember buying the Mitac in Summer 1997 and costed me 520000$00 back then, divide by 200 for Euros. I sold the Pentium 166 MMX to recover a bit the cost of the Mitac beast, though.

[Total Eclipse]

Originally Posted by coder76

My first PC was a 200 MHz Pentium MMX, with 64 MB of memory, it was great for running Linux. I got it for free in 2001, because it was old technology by that time, but still good enough for Linux. 486's were crap stuff compared to an A1200 with a good accelerator board, never considered buying a 486.

Gotta disagree there.

My first desktop was a 486 DX4/120 in mid 1995, and it ran rings around my A1200, and that of my friends (with a 40MHz 040). Being able to play 3D games at seemingly incredible frame rates, and listening to 16-bit 16 channel mod music made it clear that the Amiga hardware in its current iterations had run out of steam.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Total Eclipse

...and listening to 16-bit 16 channel mod music made it clear that the Amiga hardware in its current iterations had run out of steam.

Yep. I still like Amiga mods and their sound (hoffman does some amazing stuff with it), but it's quite the difference to a XM with 16-bit samples. Still remember when I heard songs like this one for the first time and could see how they were made thinking I could do that too (spoiler: I couldn't ): [ Show youtube player ]

[coder76]

Originally Posted by Total Eclipse

Gotta disagree there.

My first desktop was a 486 DX4/120 in mid 1995, and it ran rings around my A1200, and that of my friends (with a 40MHz 040). Being able to play 3D games at seemingly incredible frame rates, and listening to 16-bit 16 channel mod music made it clear that the Amiga hardware in its current iterations had run out of steam.

Ok, the fastest 486 DX4's were still better (faster), but the overall user experience was still poor with MS-DOS and Win95 at that time. You can listen to 16 channel xm, s3m and it modules even with a 50 MHz 68030. And that with 14bit quality.

The A1200 didnt get many good 3D games unfortunately, but those that were ported, run quite well on a 68060 in 320x200 resolution compared to a usual 486.