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I'm Fred, I retired in October 1995 after turning 65, and 42 years selling
Automotive Parts, Paint & Equipment for the same company .Started using
a computer in 1984 ( after many previous hobbies, fishing & camping, CB
radio in the 50's, photography, snow skiing, building and flying R/C aircraft
) an Apple IIC when they first came out. Two years later to a IIGS thinking
Apple was the rising sun of the computer industry, " WRONG ! ". After seeing
that Apple had dumped all their followers (except MAC,Yuk!) I changed to
the standard PC format. Still have the IIC and IIGS, maybe someday the Smithsonian
will want them. 12/12/2001 sold all Apple equipment for $100.00.
Started with a 386DX2-66 within two years ( cpu's came down a little) upgraded
to a 486DX4-80 and then in Feb. 1996 to 486DX4-100. The last two upgrades
I bought the board, CPU etc.(P5 or 6 is next ) and did it myself ( always
liked to find out what is inside). April 97 , did it, with the MMX CPU's
coming out prices have gone down again. Now have a Cyrix 6X86 - 200+ mounted
on a ASUS P55T2P4 mother board with a Type7 socket, a real tower of power.
Before I changed to Win95 I had on my Win3.1 setup about 40 programs, now
have 90 +, Im a softwareholic, have got to stop. June 25th 1998 update to
Windows 98. a wise move, ( love it ).
August 98 : Here I go again, Microstar MS5169 Motherboard , AMD K6-2
300 w/ 3D Now , I have to lash my hand to the track ball to hang on. April
1999 AMD K6-2 400 w/3D Now, board maxed out to BIOS limit.
April 2000: thought I was through, WRONG, installed a Microstar K7-PRO
MS6195 and a AMD Athlon 700, the board will handle up to a 1 GHz. processor.
September 14th Windows ME (might as well.)
October 2001: ABIT KG7 M.B., AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4 GHz. , 1 gb. DDR
RAM / WOW !.
October 25th 2001 Windows XP
( 2 hardware items not compatible ,had to buy new Web cam and scanner, had
to upgrade 4 programs )
See FYI page for full story.
March 2002, after the big CRASH, my computer that is, dumped programs ,
down to 44.
April 2003 : Gigabyte 7VAXP M.B., AMD Athlon XP 2500 , 512 mb DDR
PC3200 RAM .
Note: The only trouble with a faster system is, after about a year it
seems to get slower Ha! Ha!.
March 2004: Gigabyte GA-81PE1000 - Pro-G, Intel Pentium 4 3.0
GHz w/Hyper-Threading Technology. 4 GB DDR400 dual channel RAM
. New 10000 RPM SATA W.D. primary drive, all housed in a Thermaltake Damier
Gaming case ( awsome ).
February 2007 Upgrade to Vista, for my experience click
here.
Update 01/2009,05/2009
October 28th 2009 Windows 7 , Fantastic
October 30th 2012 pre ordered Windows 8 from Amazon and received and
installed today. Bought Professional full version as it will upgrade XP
or 7 where the others require a disk format and reinstall your programs.
Took 1.5 hours no problems at all except when I started it for the first
time and the new screen appeared WOW! what a shocker, where did
everything go to.
Anyway after five days and going on line and using the help files
got it down now , this is really neat and actually easier to use than
old format. Computer also starts and shuts down much faster and easier
to run the Apps ( used to be called programs). Up Up and away Windows is
here to stay.
P.S. Although Windows is set for a touch screen, which I don't
have I think I'll stick with the keys and mouse as it's a long reach on
a desktop to use a touch screen ( and costly for now anyway).
UPDATE: Nov.18th whatever derogatory remarks you
read about Windows 8 don't believe them, this program is fantastic.
Love to work with graphics (I'll never learn it all), have Corel
Paint Shop Pro X5, PhotoImpact X3, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0,a flat bed scanner Canon 8800F, Canon Pixma
MX922 printer and 4 digital cameras. Scan photos, retouch scanned photos, assemble
Windows wallpaper, custom greeting cards, Post card layouts and Web Sites (Ha! Ha!), etc.
etc. etc., Fun! Fun! Fun!.
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