Your first upgrade

baron calamity · Post by **baron calamity** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:59 am

This sort of came up in the Rise of the Triad thread. What was your first upgrade?

Mine was memory. I wanted to run Test Drive II and it needed 640k ram. My Tandy 1000ex on had 256k. Cost me $200 to upgrade.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:03 pm

I bought a Soundblaster specifically to play Wing Commander, and I remember having to upgrade my video card for 7th Guest, but couldn't tell you to what.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:05 pm

Well got my computer in June 94 and got a SB 16 sound card the next day and some cheap Labtech speakers. Nov I got a USR 28.8 modem..then X-Mas 4 more megs of ram.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:15 pm

A soundblaster. After hearing the voices and sounds from my friend's copy of Stunt Island, I knew I couldn't play games without sound again.

Eduardo X · Post by **Eduardo X** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:18 pm

I got some RAM. 16 MB, up to 32!
It was amazing.

Peacedog · Post by **Peacedog** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:20 pm

I assume we're not counting whole system upgrades? I can't recall. I remember getting a CD-rom drive and having to get a new sound card.

I remember swapping out my mobo, processor (468), and memory (8 megs) for a new mobo, processor (p120), and new ram (16 megs!).

I cannot recall which of those things I did first. I think it was the CD Rom.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:21 pm

RAM. I went from 16 to 32 MB on my 486 so I could play the larger maps on Total Annihilation.

My second upgrade was 32 up to 64 so I could play the much larger maps on Total Annihilation.

dbt1949 · Post by **dbt1949** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:34 pm

I had a 486sx 33Mhz and I got a 486 60Mhz chip and upgraded it myself.

It did help some but was somewhat unstable.I wasn't online in those days and was just doing a do it yourself thingy without any knowledge of what the hell I was doing.

ChrisGwinn · Post by **ChrisGwinn** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:01 pm

I seem to remember trying to put a 56K modem in my 386 to replace the old 1200 baud one.

Fretmute · Post by **Fretmute** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:04 pm

We added memory to our Apple II+ to bump it up to 64k from 48k.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:05 pm

tgb wrote:I bought a Soundblaster specifically to play Wing Commander

Ditto on the Soundblaster and speakers, plus I also had to buy a gamecard so I could also get a joystick. And of course I bought the separate the Wing Commander speech pack. The gamecard also had a funky external knob that you had to adjust based on the speed of your machine. Mine was a 486SX-20MHz. I think you also had to put batteries in the speakers.

Kobra · Post by **Kobra** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:12 pm

Upgrade for PCs or total?

I think my first real upgrade was a tape drive for my Timex Sinclair 1000 computer.

For PC's, my first upgrade was a Adlib sound card. I have many horror stories of spending $15,000 on a harddrive and such though.

My how times change.

Greg Wak · Post by **Greg Wak** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:48 pm

I got civ 1 for the mac and the animations had slowed to a crawl. I was just getting into gaming then and my roommate said I needed more ram. So I doubled up from 2meg to 4meg. It ran like a charm. Little did I know how that would start me on a never ending hamster wheel of upgrades and new rigs. Heck new platforms as gaming on the mac became pretty much pointless.

dfs · Post by **dfs** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:58 pm

Floppy Disk Drive.

Rich in KCK · Post by **Rich in KCK** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:59 pm

I made my mom get a soundblaster way back when but as far as my own personal upgrade I would say a 12mb Voodoo 2.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 2:06 pm

Upgrade my 386sx-16 from 2MB to 4MB of RAM... by plugging 16 chips into my mobo. It didn't work, I bent a pin, so I took them out one by one checking the pins until I found the right one... Then I used all the extra RAM to make a virtual disk and loaded games on it... ultra-fast load times! Now I have 2GB of RAM and we use Hard Drives as virtual RAM...

Kyosho · Post by **Kyosho** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 2:35 pm

We always just bought completely new systems when we needed to upgrade. My first self-installation was a Voodoo3 3000 video card so I could play Half-Life with hardware acceleration. I guess that wasn't extremely long ago. 6 years maybe? After that was memory, and, well, everything else since then.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 2:38 pm

I had to upgrade from 2 MB of RAM to 4 MB so I could play Syndicate.

mmmm... Syndicate.

s

Toe · Post by **Toe** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 2:48 pm

5.25 Floppy drive for my C64.

Ralph-Wiggum · Post by **Ralph-Wiggum** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 3:25 pm

Toe wrote:5.25 Floppy drive for my C64.

Damn, I forgot about that. That was my first upgrade, too.

When I was 5 years old and in kindergarten, my teacher asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told her that I wanted a "disk drive". She had no idea what a disk drive was and called my mom to find out.

Rubyeye · Post by **Rubyeye** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 4:21 pm

My first internal upgrade was for my Apple II GS. It came stock with 256k RAM. After a month with the new rig (right after it was released) my dad let me get the 1.25 MB upgrade!!! I believe it rang in around $500. I was helping my folks move about a year ago and actually found the invoice for the full system. The Apple II GS, Meg and a qourter of ram, color RGB monitor, and the color Image Writer II came out to about $3200.

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 5:27 pm

A tape player for my Vic20.

Ernest · Post by **Ernest** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 5:59 pm

80 column card for my 2e!

jg93 · Post by **jg93** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 7:01 pm

It was either a 20 MEG hard drive or a 1200 Baud modem, I forget. Actually, it may have been the 4 color (including black) monitor. What a difference from monochrome!

killbot737 · Post by **killbot737** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 7:08 pm

TI-99/4A Extended basic cartridge. Then the speech synthesizer. Parsec was never the same again.

TI's BASIC random() function was actually deterministic, btw. Totally predictable. Strange that I know that now and not when I was 9. I guess college really is good for something!

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 9:17 pm

There was a Rise of the Triad thread?!? Shit, I missed it! Loved that game.

1st upgrade:
My 486.
Changed out my cartridge 1X CD rom drive for a blazing-fast 2X drive so I could play Wing Commander 3 and view the cut-scenes without them freezing all the time.

Clanwolfer · Post by **Clanwolfer** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 9:21 pm

Upgraded RAM so I could play Wing Commander II. Who here remembers EMS vs. XMS?

Making people set that up on a fresh DOS machine is still my watermark for true technical prowess.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 10:35 pm

First upgrade: changing out my amber monochrome monitor for a fabulous 4-color CGA monitor.

Second upgrade: adding a HIGH DENSITY 3.5" floppy to augment my low-density 5.25" drive. This upgrade would by me a year before...

Third upgrade: a 40MB hard drive. More space than a mere mortal could possibly use!

Campy · Post by **Campy** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:20 pm

First upgrade was RAM for a TRS-80 Model 1. I installed the memory chips to upgrade from 4 KB to 16 KB (yes KB not MB)!. The memory chips looked like wafers with little pins coming out of the sides. They resembled spiders or centipedes. You had to be careful not to break the pins as you were installing them. I now have a laptop with 1.28 GB of memory or about 300,000x what I had in my first home computer.

Ka Faraq Gatri · Post by **Ka Faraq Gatri** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:41 pm

RAM - from 4MB to 8MB in my 486 DX66 in mid '94

Hrothgar · Post by **Hrothgar** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 11:54 pm

Another old schooler here. Let's see, the first upgrade would be to the Timex Sinclair 1000. That took it from 2k to 16k. Even hunting and pecking on a membrane keyboard with a program you wrote yourself, you can fill up 2k of memory pretty quick.

Other odd upgrades:
-- Adding a 'wigi' board to improve data read from the tape drive

-- Got a voice module for my Odyssey 2 console. Pretty cool for back then.

-- Added individual memory chips to my 286 so I would have upper memory. I think I went from 640k to 768k. No more pesky mouse driver keeping me from playing my games.

-- Replaced my Hecurles monochrome graphics card with a super VGA card (and a new monitor, of course). I think that was in anticipation of X-wing.

-- First sound card was the original soundblaster. I remember thinking how cool the little text reading program was. My computer talked to me.

-- Added a 287 math coprocessor. I vaguely remember some debate about the SX line standing for Sux since it didn't have the built in coprocessor. I think that was later around the 486 time.

-- Running a 25 foot serial cable with a null modem to play Doom coop/deathmatch.

-- First 3D card was, I think, a S3 Virge, aka the worst card ever. I learned to do my research after that. That was during the dark ages when I didn't have internet access, but after Byte magazine died. Oh Chaos Manner, how we missed thee.

Jerry Pournelle wrote:Well, Cyrus the Cyrix 6x86 P-166 system no longer has a Cyrix chip. Admittedly, this was more experiment than necessity: the Cyrix 6x86 P-166 was certainly fast enough for almost anything you'd want to do.

Now I feel old.

RookieCAF · Post by **RookieCAF** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:59 am

A Thousand Dollar Multimedia Upgrade Kit on my 486, Included a 2x SCSI CDROM, a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 Soundcard, and about 10 CDROM Titles, including Civilization, and Battlechess 3000..

KiloOhm · Post by **KiloOhm** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:39 am

512K Ram upgrade on my Amiga

moss_icon · Post by **moss_icon** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:55 am

probably the multiface for spectrum +3, so i could copy games from tape to disk.

EvilHomer3k · Post by **EvilHomer3k** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 9:32 am

My first upgrade was from 8 to 16 meg or ram for a 486sx 25 to help Doom run better. The next upgrade was from the 486sx25 to a 486dx2 66. Doom was such a great game for it's time.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 9:59 am

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
Toe wrote:5.25 Floppy drive for my C64.
Damn, I forgot about that. That was my first upgrade, too.

Me too, but for my Tandy 1000EX. Being able to keep the DOS disk in drive A while having a game disk in drive B was a real luxury.

Peacedog · Post by **Peacedog** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:03 am

Doom was such a great game for it's time.

But borderline unplayable on a DX2-66 and 8 megs of RAM (I know, it was my first PC). I generally had to deturbo down to 33Hz for it to play at an acceptable speed.

Boy, was that a different era.

KiloOhm · Post by **KiloOhm** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:17 am

Ironrod wrote:
Ralph-Wiggum wrote:
Toe wrote:5.25 Floppy drive for my C64.
Damn, I forgot about that. That was my first upgrade, too.

Me too, but for my Tandy 1000EX. Being able to keep the DOS disk in drive A while having a game disk in drive B was a real luxury.

Well if we're counting peripherals then that would be mine too.

I don't count peripherals as upgrades. I assume upgrade meant "opened up yer machine and swapped components".

I mean does buying an extra joystick for my Atari count?

Caine · Post by **Caine** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 11:46 am

my first upgrade was the whole pc. after my dad bought a 386 with 4 megs of ram from a catalog

and we tried doom on it, he sent it back and got a 486-33dx with 8 megs. man, what a difference. the first piece i bought was a cd/soundblaster 16 combo and wing commander 2 cd. i loved that game. especially with the thrustmaster joystick with 4 buttons.

godhugh · Post by **godhugh** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 12:38 pm

First upgrade was buying a CD-ROM in order to play Command and Conquer and some Star Trek: TNG game whose name escapes me (the box was a trapezoid).