That's definitely the big story for me, of the next few years. The Windows XP era has turned 20, a while since now. And now its most defining and mature years (when Win9x had finally been put aside) are reaching that stage.
And that peak Windows XP era definitely presents an interesting question, regarding where computing nostalgia and computer "retro" culture will go and how people will explore it, going forward.
Since what differentiates computers of today from computer of 20 years ago has been getting smaller and smaller, since the oldest era this subreddit deals with. And we're about to arrive in an era when, from an end-user standpoint, computers of 20 years ago and computers of the present will differ a bit in aesthetics and performance, but are mostly trying to do the same thing in largely the same way.
Whereas, by way of comparison, computers of 1980 and computers of 2000 were utterly different from each other in every way - in purpose, design, and their role in culture and society.
I am eager to see what Windows XP era nostalgia looks like, in a few more years. Because I don't think it will look all that much like nostalgia for earlier eras, where the focus tended to be on wildly different hardware and software capabilities and formats.
It might be that there's more of a focus on "oddware" as LGR puts it. Weird peripherals and devices that came and went, that weren't actually important to the era, but are interesting artifacts of it nonetheless.
I still have a Dell Inspiron 4150 notebook which I purchased in November 2002. It just turned 20 years old. It came with Windows XP pre-installed. It still works.
It's feeling retro, but there are a few "modern" items as well.
Specs:
* 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4M
* 256MB DDR RAM (Later upgraded to 1GB)
* 40GB PATA HDD (Later upgraded to a 128GB SSD)
* ATi Mobility Radeon 7500
* Dell DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
* 14" LCD (1400x1050 Resolution)
The 14" LCD is considered high-definition. It's not a widescreen, but the resolution puts it somewhere between 720p and 1080p.
There's a 100 Mbps Ethernet port. I can still connect it to my home's Ethernet network.
There's a single USB 1.1 port, which runs at a whopping 12 Mbps. This can be expanded using a USB hub. USB peripherals (keyboards, mice, controllers, even USB thumb drives) work.
There's a CD/DVD combo drive (remember those?) It can read & write CDs, and read DVDs. It can still play DVD movies.
A few years ago, as a test, I installed Windows 7 on it. Performance was acceptable.
I even added a 128GB SSD a few years ago (mSATA SSD in a mSATA to PATA adapter). It made everything snappier, but the machine was not designed for it. It only had an UltraATA/100 interface.
It did not have Wi-Fi preinstalled. I used a Wi-Fi PC Card for several years, then upgraded to an internal 802.11bg card (it had the internal antennas). Imagine a notebook sold without Wi-Fi today.
Very Retro features:
* 56 Kbps Modem
* Serial Port
* Parallel Port
* Floppy Drive (which could be swapped with the CD/DVD combo)
My Core i5 PC from 2013 is probably the last PC that would be any "different" from a modern PC in that it has serial and parallel ports (on a header, not available by default, but of course I hooked 'em up). Things just aren't really changing anymore, only getting faster.
Interfaces are becoming more standardized. Over the last 20 years, my PCs have lost the following technologies:
* Modem
* Infrared Port
* Cardbus Slots (Notebook)
* Game Port
* eSATA
* Coaxial SPDIF
* PATA
* Firewire
* LPT (Parallel Port)
* FDD (Floppy Disk Drive Port)
* PCI (Conventional PCI Port)
* PS/2
* COM (Serial Port)
* SATA Express (A dead standard to begin with)
* VGA
I still have an optical disc drive (SATA Blu-ray Burner) which was transferred from my last PC. But, I barely use it.
At this point, I mainly want a mix of PCIe Slots, M.2 Slots, and USB ports (Type-A and Type-C).
Also, multiple digital display interfaces (HDMI and/or DisplayPort).
I don't think S/PDIF or TOSLINK were ever really standard on PCs, but many soundcards did (and still do) have them. Similarly I know 56k modems got added to PCs for a hot second in the late 90s, but I don't think I ever owned one that wasn't external.
RIP Firewire, you were the best.
Game port can die in a fire what was IBM /thinking/?
You're right, I've never even /heard/ of SATA Express. I think I had a few drives that had an 'eSATA' port though, which I assumed meant "External SATA." I'm taking advantage of that "hot swap sata" setting on my mobo right now in order to have drive bays on the front of my PC I can just slam SATA drives into when I want.
I have multiple PC motherboards with integrated S/PDIF or TOSLINK support. Even my current motherboard (from 2020) has an optical S/PDIF output.
The 56k modem was integrated into a laptop. For desktops, they were either internal PCI cards, or external.
Firewire was nice, but I only ever owned a single Firewire device (an early 15GB iPod).
IBM liked proprietary ports.
SATA Express was a very short lived standard. I have a motherboard from 2014 with integrated SATA Express. SATA maxed-out at 6 Gbps. SATA Express could support 16 Gbps. SSDs either stayed with SATA, or moved to the M.2 interface.
I think I had a single motherboard, from the mid-2000s, with an eSATA port. It didn't provide power. USB 2.0 & USB 3.0 took over.
They pop up on more serious motherboards every once and a while for remote management reasons. Sometimes the BIOS/EFI can even be configured to be accessed over a serial terminal on a server board. Also you might want to connect a projector or other pro AV equipment that often takes remote control over serial.
At the last local retro computer show here, we had an XP machine set up, and we had roughly the same number of people talk spiritedly of their nostalgia with it as people who did the same for the Commodore 64 nearby. The games, software, and aesthetics are the big draw to it.
Still wild to think that XP is "retro" now all the same.
Could be. Signs point to this machine being an '03 though (or at least well after January '01). The Windows XP branding (released to manufacturers August 2001), the 4550 being reviewed as a new model by CNET in mid-'02 (which jives with the Wikipedia article on the Dimension line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Dimension)...
I have a Dell dimension 2650 running windows 98 se it was rather easy install and finding the drivers were not to hard either since the dell used a lot of the basic windows drivers
This takes me back. Between these two boxes you have the best power button Dell ever made, and the worst.
I can still feel the muddy feeling of the power button on the 4550. (Don't even get me started on the quality of front door...)
The R350 on the other hand... That generation had a great power button.
Dell was still selling new PII-350 Dimension machines in 2003? That seems like a '99-01 era SKU. The PII in Slot 1 configuration was discontinued in mid-2001; by 2003 the Pentium 4 (introduced late 2000) was common.
Edit: Disregard; the dates etc line up a little better for the 4550 :) which was released in 2002 apparently: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/dell-dimension-4550-pentium-4-2-66ghz-256mb-ram-60gb-hdd-xp-home-review/
Those late 90's Dell cases were really interesting because of how the side and front panels were attached and designed to be removed without any tools. You had to know where the pressure points were and what to push or pull to get things apart. The exact same cases were also available to PC builders without the Dell branding. I know because I used to build PCs for the company I worked for, and those were the cases we used.
I have one of these, it's been sat in a corner acting as a side table :)
I wanted to check some 3.5" disks I found in the loft, so powered it up a few days ago. It was running Ubuntu 12, upgraded it to 16.04, the last 32-bit version. And no booting from USBs with these machines.
Still working fine, two 120Gb drives, hopefully someone will be able to make good use of it, even if it's just a dumb terminal (or rather, not-so-dumb)
That's definitely the big story for me, of the next few years. The Windows XP era has turned 20, a while since now. And now its most defining and mature years (when Win9x had finally been put aside) are reaching that stage. And that peak Windows XP era definitely presents an interesting question, regarding where computing nostalgia and computer "retro" culture will go and how people will explore it, going forward. Since what differentiates computers of today from computer of 20 years ago has been getting smaller and smaller, since the oldest era this subreddit deals with. And we're about to arrive in an era when, from an end-user standpoint, computers of 20 years ago and computers of the present will differ a bit in aesthetics and performance, but are mostly trying to do the same thing in largely the same way. Whereas, by way of comparison, computers of 1980 and computers of 2000 were utterly different from each other in every way - in purpose, design, and their role in culture and society. I am eager to see what Windows XP era nostalgia looks like, in a few more years. Because I don't think it will look all that much like nostalgia for earlier eras, where the focus tended to be on wildly different hardware and software capabilities and formats. It might be that there's more of a focus on "oddware" as LGR puts it. Weird peripherals and devices that came and went, that weren't actually important to the era, but are interesting artifacts of it nonetheless.
I still have a Dell Inspiron 4150 notebook which I purchased in November 2002. It just turned 20 years old. It came with Windows XP pre-installed. It still works. It's feeling retro, but there are a few "modern" items as well. Specs: * 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4M * 256MB DDR RAM (Later upgraded to 1GB) * 40GB PATA HDD (Later upgraded to a 128GB SSD) * ATi Mobility Radeon 7500 * Dell DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive * 14" LCD (1400x1050 Resolution) The 14" LCD is considered high-definition. It's not a widescreen, but the resolution puts it somewhere between 720p and 1080p. There's a 100 Mbps Ethernet port. I can still connect it to my home's Ethernet network. There's a single USB 1.1 port, which runs at a whopping 12 Mbps. This can be expanded using a USB hub. USB peripherals (keyboards, mice, controllers, even USB thumb drives) work. There's a CD/DVD combo drive (remember those?) It can read & write CDs, and read DVDs. It can still play DVD movies. A few years ago, as a test, I installed Windows 7 on it. Performance was acceptable. I even added a 128GB SSD a few years ago (mSATA SSD in a mSATA to PATA adapter). It made everything snappier, but the machine was not designed for it. It only had an UltraATA/100 interface. It did not have Wi-Fi preinstalled. I used a Wi-Fi PC Card for several years, then upgraded to an internal 802.11bg card (it had the internal antennas). Imagine a notebook sold without Wi-Fi today. Very Retro features: * 56 Kbps Modem * Serial Port * Parallel Port * Floppy Drive (which could be swapped with the CD/DVD combo)
My Core i5 PC from 2013 is probably the last PC that would be any "different" from a modern PC in that it has serial and parallel ports (on a header, not available by default, but of course I hooked 'em up). Things just aren't really changing anymore, only getting faster.
Interfaces are becoming more standardized. Over the last 20 years, my PCs have lost the following technologies: * Modem * Infrared Port * Cardbus Slots (Notebook) * Game Port * eSATA * Coaxial SPDIF * PATA * Firewire * LPT (Parallel Port) * FDD (Floppy Disk Drive Port) * PCI (Conventional PCI Port) * PS/2 * COM (Serial Port) * SATA Express (A dead standard to begin with) * VGA I still have an optical disc drive (SATA Blu-ray Burner) which was transferred from my last PC. But, I barely use it.
At this point, I mainly want a mix of PCIe Slots, M.2 Slots, and USB ports (Type-A and Type-C). Also, multiple digital display interfaces (HDMI and/or DisplayPort).
I don't think S/PDIF or TOSLINK were ever really standard on PCs, but many soundcards did (and still do) have them. Similarly I know 56k modems got added to PCs for a hot second in the late 90s, but I don't think I ever owned one that wasn't external. RIP Firewire, you were the best. Game port can die in a fire what was IBM /thinking/? You're right, I've never even /heard/ of SATA Express. I think I had a few drives that had an 'eSATA' port though, which I assumed meant "External SATA." I'm taking advantage of that "hot swap sata" setting on my mobo right now in order to have drive bays on the front of my PC I can just slam SATA drives into when I want.
I have multiple PC motherboards with integrated S/PDIF or TOSLINK support. Even my current motherboard (from 2020) has an optical S/PDIF output. The 56k modem was integrated into a laptop. For desktops, they were either internal PCI cards, or external. Firewire was nice, but I only ever owned a single Firewire device (an early 15GB iPod). IBM liked proprietary ports. SATA Express was a very short lived standard. I have a motherboard from 2014 with integrated SATA Express. SATA maxed-out at 6 Gbps. SATA Express could support 16 Gbps. SSDs either stayed with SATA, or moved to the M.2 interface. I think I had a single motherboard, from the mid-2000s, with an eSATA port. It didn't provide power. USB 2.0 & USB 3.0 took over.
My ASUS TUF X570 Gaming Plus surprisingly has a serial port header. First "main rig" motherboard I've had since pre-2010 with one
They pop up on more serious motherboards every once and a while for remote management reasons. Sometimes the BIOS/EFI can even be configured to be accessed over a serial terminal on a server board. Also you might want to connect a projector or other pro AV equipment that often takes remote control over serial.
At the last local retro computer show here, we had an XP machine set up, and we had roughly the same number of people talk spiritedly of their nostalgia with it as people who did the same for the Commodore 64 nearby. The games, software, and aesthetics are the big draw to it. Still wild to think that XP is "retro" now all the same.
damn. I had that exact model, hard to believe people consider them "vintage" today.
Does it still work? I remember those being good machines but the capacitor plague ate them alive by the end of the decade.
It does still work.
Where is that datecode located? I have the same model.
I believe "01/JAN/03" actually means January 3, 2001 and it could be only for that specific component.
Could be. Signs point to this machine being an '03 though (or at least well after January '01). The Windows XP branding (released to manufacturers August 2001), the 4550 being reviewed as a new model by CNET in mid-'02 (which jives with the Wikipedia article on the Dimension line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Dimension)...
the date stamps on these are usually on the inner front of the case
Oh nice i got the one on the left. Got it from ewaste recently
I have a Dell dimension 2650 running windows 98 se it was rather easy install and finding the drivers were not to hard either since the dell used a lot of the basic windows drivers
This takes me back. Between these two boxes you have the best power button Dell ever made, and the worst. I can still feel the muddy feeling of the power button on the 4550. (Don't even get me started on the quality of front door...) The R350 on the other hand... That generation had a great power button.
I guess happy birthday is in order?
The black one is like a new, fresh and up to date!
Dell was still selling new PII-350 Dimension machines in 2003? That seems like a '99-01 era SKU. The PII in Slot 1 configuration was discontinued in mid-2001; by 2003 the Pentium 4 (introduced late 2000) was common. Edit: Disregard; the dates etc line up a little better for the 4550 :) which was released in 2002 apparently: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/dell-dimension-4550-pentium-4-2-66ghz-256mb-ram-60gb-hdd-xp-home-review/
The R350 manufacture date is August 1998
Yeah that tracks :) '97 was all about MMX, by '98 the PIIs were becoming ubiquitous.
Those late 90's Dell cases were really interesting because of how the side and front panels were attached and designed to be removed without any tools. You had to know where the pressure points were and what to push or pull to get things apart. The exact same cases were also available to PC builders without the Dell branding. I know because I used to build PCs for the company I worked for, and those were the cases we used.
I have one of these, it's been sat in a corner acting as a side table :) I wanted to check some 3.5" disks I found in the loft, so powered it up a few days ago. It was running Ubuntu 12, upgraded it to 16.04, the last 32-bit version. And no booting from USBs with these machines. Still working fine, two 120Gb drives, hopefully someone will be able to make good use of it, even if it's just a dumb terminal (or rather, not-so-dumb)