I've futzed around with many primitive (and damned expensive) computers in the past, like the TI-99/4A, the Apple IIc (was so chuff that it had 128kb of RAM) and the TRS-80 III. But it's the IBM compatible PC's that really opened the window (so to speak) to so many possibilities. Here's the heartfelt list of what I had.
*PortaBox WDC 65C02 1.023 MHz, Apple IIc, cassette tape and floppy drives... everything was glued together, and no expansion slots at all on mine. In a classic boner (Genesis/32X//Saturn) move, they made a different version which could accept upgrades, but only after the Apple IIgs came out. I wrote my first copyrighted piece on that turd, and played many games, more advanced than what 's in the Game Portal right now!
*The Box Pentium Pro 200 MHz, Matrox Millennium 2 MB video card (that could be expanded to a whopping 8 MB), 2GB hard drive, 4 MB of RAM on an awesome Legacy motherboard, which took a pounding from very unclean electricity and still kept ticking. This box was my life's blood for many, many years. I probably spent months watching porn on it.
*Box II AMD 2.4 GHz 64 bit single-core, eGeForce 7100GS (which always claimed it was a 512MB card, but on the back of it, it says 128MB!), ASUS motherboard, 2 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive, 500 Watt power supply, yadda-yadda... This box was the first one, I ordered parts over the internet to build... borrowed my Ma's credit card to do it. This thing kicked the shit out of the PS2, and ran Fallout 3, F.E.A.R. and Half-Life and all it's modded goodnesses. Took forever to install WIN XP from just a copy of the install disk (has to be bootabale in a very specific way) - ended up installing Server 2000, just to be able to get around the 'bootabale disk' part of it. Necessity is the mutha of all invention, ftw.
*PortaBox II Pentium M 1.60 GHz (yeah, right, an overclocked 800MHz, is what it is) Dell Latitude, 512 MB ROM, utter POS ('piece of shit', not 'point of sale'). Can barely run WIN XP Pro and play a 720i video without choking on its own cud (using the HD as onboard memory, biiig turn-off). This 10 y/o turd was given to me, by a tenant who skipped out owing a few grand :\ Had to use it after Box II got fried on an old, faulty sound card. It's currently microwaving my left hand all to hell >:(
*Box III Under Construction It'd be a high-end six-core AMD, either 16 or 32 GB of RAM, a video card that doesn't cost over a 100$, 2TB SATA hard drive, a whatever size solid-state drive for the OS and browser (thx Tony!), a motherboard (that hopefully can also accommodate older IDE hard drives) that cost at or just over 100$. DVD, big flash drive to extract the info from PortaBox II, a wireless N card and antenna (if they do those sort of things) and an analog to digital A/V converter. And some coleslaw and a pickle (dammit).
....and some mutha-fuckin speakers. Not only a shit-ton of satellite speakers and a box woofer, but also a wireless set (L, R and bass box) that I can keep in the kitchen or move outside :) Figure they have to be at least 200-300 watts capacity, more so for the remote system.
I'd appreciate any suggestions, as to what individual components I should buy. Really need to hear from someone who's very thoroughly impressed with their current speaker system. The cost of this rig, is aimed at the lower high-end, of the retail spectrum.
nggangsterpimp
I can't say I have any input since I'm more into Laptops, but being techy, this was a interesting read. You definitely have some history starting from those olden day machines. Must have been a blast.
I like a Desktop for how much you can customize with it, but I'll always prefer a laptop for the portability. I love to be able to take it places. Even though some people speak against it, I'll be fetching a "gaming laptop" someday, not just going for it by brand of course, but by the specs.
VicariousE
Eh, it was okay, but there wasn't much progress in transistors in the 70's and 80's that you'd notice, still didn't have enough RAM to play around with. Once speed and memory got better, the programming could be more robust... then there was the learning curve... Still, there was enough clever code to keep things moving forward.
Yeah, I just don't like getting my hands cooked, so even a newer laptop might not be a good fit for me. Quite glad you'll be using your brain for your next laptop... Apple products are pricey and not all that powerful, name brands vary depending on who's supplying the chips.. but usually, if the thing doesn't burn out in 24 hours, it's good for life.
To run a laptop is very good on electricity usage, I'll grant you that. I don't travel much, but when I do, I'm usually pretty busy... and I do worry about catching something off of free wi-fi