Computers

This page list the computers I used during my life. It's quite personal and might not be really useful to anyone else.

Status: I'm gathering information to complement the hazy memories I have of the early days. I was around 10 years old when our family got its first computer.

Epson PC AX Portable / Equity LT-256 (1990)

This was the first computer I grew up with, it came from an uncle somewhere between 1994 and 1996. It was a heavy laptop with a black and white screen. It was running MS-DOS 4.0 originally. I still have its manual.

I played Prince of Persia a lot on it. It moved to my bedroom when we got the next one. I remember coding games and some TUI things with QBasic.

IBM PS/1 2121 (1991)

I'm not completely sure about the model but I still have the 40 MB hard drive and the manual with a note saying "Type 2121". I vaguely remember the processor to run at 20 MHz but it could have been 16 MHz.

It was our first desktop computer with a color screen. It came from a friend of my father at work I think. We probably got it around September 1996. It was running Windows 3.1 and I played many games on it. I remember the many installation disks needed for the system.

Discovering Prince of Persia in color was incredible. I remember fondly playing Another World many times, and Wolfenstein 3D a bit later, but maybe it was on the next computer.

Epson ??

Our third computer, I remember it even less except that it was a 386 DX. It was a bit more powerful with more memory.

I've had an Epson keyboard (N860-4871-T004 / 9347) for a very long time that might have come from it but it's from 1993 and has a PS/2 connector which would probably not fit.

It might have been running Windows 3.11 but I'm not sure.

Custom PC 1 (1997)

My father got me a kit from his workplace I think, and it allowed me to play better games SimCity 2000 and maybe Syndicate. I don't remember much about it.

I found a floppy that I read in 2024 containing logos I made between January 1996 and August 1997 with Banner Mania. They were all in black and white until August 1997 which mean that they were made on our first Epson computer until I installed the software on another computer. I think it was this one.

I have a picture from 2003 where I can see an AOpen Computer Mainboard box for what could be the motherboard for this computer.

I bought an external CD-ROM drive for it or for the next computer to read CDs from magazines. I also bought a Creative Sound Blaster Vibra 16 (CT4180) that was released in 1997.

I think it was on this computer that I rediscovered again Prince of Persia with a much better sound. I remember well hearing the intro music.

Custom PC 2 (1998)

My uncle gifted me the CPU+RAM+Mobo kit at some point and it was my main computer for some time. I'm not sure about which hard drive it got.

There was a dip switch on the motherboard to select the CPU, and mine could work with the 90 MHz setting. That was my first overclocking.

I have a picture from 2002 of a computer case that might have housed this kit, or the 486. But I can see the motherboard at another location in the bedroom on the picture.

Packard Bell Multimedia XLE 2417 (1998)

This was the first computer my father bought from a store in March 1998. It was a big deal, it was running Windows 95 and we could play incredible games on it like Age of Empire or Half-Life at the end of the year. There was a lot of software bundled with it so we discovered a lot of new things at once.

We got a 33k modem for it and used AOL CDs to connect to the Internet. We soon upgraded to a 56k modem.

In August 1998 I published my first website and announced it on Usenet. Although I think I did the actual coding in my bedroom from another computer. I remember vividly coding my website when France won the soccer world cup and listening to the noise from the window in July 1998.

We replaced or added another hard drive to the PC around 1999 but I can't remember which one of the following drives:

My best guess would be the 13 GB drive because I can see it next to the CD-ROM drive in most pictures after 2003. Edit: the 4.3 GB drive comes from a group of old Pentium 166 MHz I got to experimented with the various BSD operating systems in 2006.

In 2003 I got this computer in my bedroom and promptly extracted it from its case, it became my full time Linux computer with Mandrake 9.1 at first and Debian after that. When it was the family computer it ran successively Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows XP.

I wrote somewhere that I boosted it to 384 MB of RAM and that I had a 3dfx Voodoo graphic card on it but that might have been on the Epox BX6 because I still have a 64+256 MB of RAM on the motherboard. Although this Packard Bell could indeed accept 384 MB of RAM (3x128 MB).

Picture of the computer in May 2003

Custom PC 3 (2001)

I replaced the motherboard once, then switched to an Abit BF6, and ended on a Epox BX6 with an adapter that was still allowing me to overclock the processor. The many changes of motherboards was due to the capacitor plagues of that era and at one time I was not able to use this computer for almost a year.

The processor on this computer was incredible. It could be overclocked from 600 MHz at 1.50 V to 900 MHz at 1.75 V, and even 1008 MHz at 1.95 MHz. I could go higher like 1053 MHz at 2.05 V but it was not stable at that frequency.

I was fascinated by the idea of pushing the processor to its limit and got someone to build me an aluminum waterbloc to setup a watercooling system. I managed to push it to 1098 MHz at 2.30 V. I could have went further because I bought a 172 W peltier module but I didn't manage to power it properly. Instead the module was experimented on my previous Pentium 75 PC.

I also managed a pretty nice overclocking on my graphic card with a voltage mod to push it from 175/166 to 275/266 MHz but it didn't last long at that frequency and the card died.

I had to change the 40 GB IBM hard drive twice because they kept dying after a while. I learned the importance of doing backups after this.

I was able to run Quake III on this computer, that was a big deal. I also played Half-Life a lot and we did LAN parties with the Packard Bell and many bots. I remember other games like SimCity 3000, the Civilization series, and more until I stopped around 2003-2005 when I switched from Windows XP to Linux.

In 2004 I got a Pentium III 700 for this computer and it became my file server for many years when it moved with me for studying at the university from 2005 to 2010. The watercooling system didn't follow me but I was very nostalgic of that era. I still got the motherboard with me in 2023 but it's no longer running anything.

Picture of the computer in May 2003

Custom PC 4 (2005)

I built another PC to go in my apartment while I was studying Computer Science at the university. I got a second hand CPU from a guy in a small forum with a slightly newer motherboard and an Antec SLK3700 computer case, my first and last real case in a long while because a cardboard case was not good enough this time.

The processor could be overclocked to 1933 MHz to become equivalent of an Athlon XP 2300+ that was never commercialized.

Picture of my room in November 2005

Custom PC 5 (2006)

The previous motherboard died suddenly which ended my two years career playing OGame online at a high level. It was very frustrating the day it happened and liberating soon after to be free from having to connect all the time to the game. A friend sold me his old motherboard with a processor so I could upgrade my PC at a low cost. I was a good PC and lasted until I finished studying at the university in 2010 but the lack of 64 bit support and dual-core ended up limiting.

The processor could be overclocked to 2200 MHz easily to become equivalent to an Athlon XP 3200+ that was more expensive. A year later I boosted it further to 2442 MHz.

Asus Eee PC 1005HA-H (2009)

This was my first netbook. I loved the small form factor and it became fast enough once I replaced the HDD by an Intel SSD and upgraded the RAM to 2 GB.

ASUS EeeBook E202SA (2017)

I got this netbook for my second year in New Zealand when the first one stopped working. I liked having more memory and a quad-core, this was a new era for me. I immediately replaced the HDD by another Intel SSD but the RAM and the battery was soldered on the motherboard, I hated that!

Lenovo ThinkPad T440p (2013)

This was my next laptop, In 2022 wanted something powerful, cheap, and fully repairable so instead of buying new I got this 9 years old laptop and it was perfect! It is only a dual-core but with 2 threads per core it's not an issue.

I upgraded the memory to 16 GB and replaced the HDD with a SSD as usual to make it fast. At first I got a WD Blue SA510 but it died so I replaced it by a Samsung 870 EVO than seems more reliable.

This laptop can be opened with just 2 screws, I really like that.

Lenovo ThinkPad T480 (2018)

In 2023 I wanted to test the last generation of ThinkPad that was still fully repairable to have a cheap backup laptop. It is a quad-core which is a nice upgrade from the previous ThinkPad.

The memory can officially be upgraded to 16 GB but in practice the laptop will accept 64 GB while the newer models are much more limited because the memory is soldered on the motherboard. I only got one stick of 32 GB though because 40 GB is more than enough for me but I might upgrade in the future. I also bought a Samsung 980 MZ to have 1 TB of fast storage.

It is lighter and slimmer than the T440p but it's less easy to open it. The screen is better but I don't need the higher resolution and my Linux configuration is not well adapted to it.

Picture of the ThinkPads