Nine Ingredients Essential To The Modern PC Experience

[in_the_loop]

[citation][nom]Fokissed[/nom]Those CRTs were super high-end, and very few people owned such screens. 1024x768 was the most popular resolution until at least 2009. Even in 2012, low resolution screens are still the most popular. Is it really surprising that a high-end niche product from the past is better (arguably) than a current, affordable, mainstream product?If you think high end PC components are loud, then you've never used a computer with vacuum tubes, floppy drives, early model CD drives, a dot matrix printer, a tape drive, certain CRT monitors, ancient hard drives, or been anywhere near a mainframe (which seem to be cooled by industrial hair dryers). Computers are getting quieter, with the exception of a few very high-end niche products (6990/690). Even then, most people going that far will have water cooling, which is nearly silent.Edit: forums ate my links[/citation]

1024X768 most popular until 2009?
Was that a typo? You must mean 1999, surely? In 1999 1024X768 was becoming the standard resolution on 17 inch monitors. I bought one back then at least.
By 2009, at least 1600X900 (or 1680x1050) was standard, probably 1900X1080 even.
The 1024X768 4:3 was long gone in 2009, except for very cheap "netbooks". And eveb websites were hard to use at that low resolution.

 

[toadhammer]

The first hardware 3D graphics card I used in a PC was from SGI in 1991, and used what later became opengl (from SGI's gl Graphics Language.)

 

[internetlad]

[citation][nom]Onus[/nom]If the mouse belongs there, the QWERTY keyboard certainly does too.[/citation]
Let's not discount DVORAK and, as one prior user said, COLEMAK

 

[Belardo]

VLB had no future. It was a short-term fix, nothing more. PCI was an industry standard replacement that was backed by intel.... while VLB slots were not. VLB did its job what was needed... was was not sad to see it die.

 

[Belardo]

If you want a refresher, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Local_Bus

It was worse than I remembered...

 

[Thorfkin]

I had a Rendition Verite first. Later I added in a 3dfx voodoo for those games that only worked with the Glide drivers. They were both pretty awesome cards =D

 

[Guest]

You can even unlock another core on the Sempron.

 

[Simu]

is there much diff. between anti-glare led and just led panel.
which one should be better led with 2ms or led with anti-glare 5ms time.

 

[teddymines]

Let's not forget plug-and-play, which has come a long way in and of itself. No longer do we have to fiddle with IRQ conflicts, DMA settings, and the such. The BIOS and OS support has been remarkable.

 

[RedJaron]

I bet you didn't know that the qwerty keyboard was designed to force the user to type as slow as possible. because back when they had typewrites pressing the keys too fast would cause them to jam.
So qwerty = as inefficient as possible.

I'll take that bet, and you'll actually lose it since your statement has only the smallest possible truth to it. The history of the QWERTY layout is rather commonly known among the tech savvy, so I don't know why you're trying to brag about it.

Typewriters don't jam simply because you type fast, they jam because two striker arms get caught on each other. This typically happens when two keys, usually close to each other, are pressed in rapid succession and the arms bind up as they hit the ribbon.

The QWERTY layout was designed to evenly space the most commonly used keys away from each other so the striker arms wouldn't bind as much meaning you can functionally type faster. Yes, I know there is some modern research that suggests some keyboard layouts are a little more efficient, but the fact is the QWERTY actually improved typing speed and efficiency.

 

[the great randini]

=) Imagine being that person or people who made the alto...

 

[niceget]

And I use dual 19" Flatrons at 1280x1024. Plenty of resolution and very little eye fatigue. To be quite candid, I don't even like using a computer with a wide-screen.

 

[Cyberat_88]

C64 and a tape drive, 14"CRT with a TV tuner.
Last CRT I owned in 2006 had a resolution of 1920x1600.
Show me an LCD or LED today that can break the mindnumbing 1080P for under $300.
It's always about making the product cheapest and selling it for a higher price than previous models.

 

[army_ant7]

Last CRT I owned in 2006 had a resolution of 1920x1600.

I just have to say that it's the first time I've heard of a monitor with 6:5 aspect ratio. So it sounds pretty unusual, at least to me. Nice resolution though. Did you get it for less than $300?

 

[Cyberat_88]

About $300 more or less, might've been 2044x1600, I may have been mistaken.

 

[Jdorty]

[citation][nom]Cyberat_88[/nom]C64 and a tape drive, 14"CRT with a TV tuner.Last CRT I owned in 2006 had a resolution of 1920x1600. Show me an LCD or LED today that can break the mindnumbing 1080P for under $300.It's always about making the product cheapest and selling it for a higher price than previous models.[/citation]

I'm assuming you mean higher resolution that 1920x1080, not just a different ratio. Seeing as I can find a lot of screens with different aspect ratios.

You also failed to mention screen size.

And there are several 1920x1200 monitors for under $300 on Newegg right now...

 

[mamailo]

No love for the audio ?.
From dos games using chirps to make music to digital multichannel audio has been a long road to modernity.
Even office machines not longer use the buzzer or build-in speakers to make sound you know.

 

[Cyberat_88]

Analog audio worked just as well, the digital audio is having compatibility & DX/GL problems, still.
My screen was 21" CRT, I loved setting my own IRQs & DMAs in Bios then sleep easy.
Slot 1 CPUs & Voodoo 5 VLB video with up to 5 GPUs were awesome.
What video card today has multiple GPUs & for what price ?
New Bios today are all locked, can't even set your memory speed.

 

[InvalidError]

Slot 1 CPUs & Voodoo 5 VLB video with up to 5 GPUs were awesome. What video card today has multiple GPUs & for what price ?

New Bios today are all locked, can't even set your memory speed.

The difference between the old V5 and modern GPUs is that modern GPUs pack several times more processing power in a single GPU so multiples aren't necessary to reach playable framerates in most modern games.

As for BIOSes being "locked", most on retail boards aren't but the choice of CPU and chipset may lock some options out. The BIOS can't do much about features that have been locked out by the chipset or CPU at the hardware level. My h77 board and i5-3470 still let me override SPD defaults to let me put whatever timings I want and pick between 1066, 1333 and 1600 memory speeds.

 

[Cyberat_88]

Well, my new laptop I had to unlock the bios with a 4th party bios writer, like Insyde H2O because the given bios locked everything but the basic features (no clock access, no monitoring sensors, no full time AMD video option, nothing).
I've seen dozens of laptops with dedicated video cards on that list, so yes, they design bios rom to lock you out of hardware features.

 

[InvalidError]

I've seen dozens of laptops with dedicated video cards on that list, so yes, they design bios rom to lock you out of hardware features.

Laptop and prebuilt OEM systems are not RETAIL motherboards.

Most OEM designs have most stuff locked out. That's why I was specific about RETAIL.