Remember that old post I made on old computers I grew up on? The one I focused on most was my childhood computer. I have since gotten it out (for the one day it actually worked), and I have been able to acquire MUCH more information on it since that post.
First off, it has a 486 DX4 processor, something I was unaware of when I made that post. It's a 100 MHz processor, and came just before the days of the Pentium. At one point, it was a 386. I also have learned why it was so slow - it has a terrible video card, which is now broken. Any of you ever heard of Trident video cards? Yeah, they're terrible. The one I had contained a whopping 512 KB of video memory. On top of that, it had non-existent acceleration. Because of this, anything above ten frames per second would be too much for this thing, although some games did manage to put it above that. Such an inconsistent card... Anyway, it also had 16 MB of RAM, and a Sound Blaster 16 sound card. It also has a 44x Speed CD-ROM drive, though it's not the original one.
Also, my dad incorrectly remembered it being originally MS-DOS, then being Windows 95. It was a Windows 3.1 at one point as well. I know this because it has a lot of the sounds, files and applications that were included with 3.1 (including Cardfile, Calendar, Clock, the "ta-da" and "chime" noises, a corrupted CANYON.MID, and, can you believe it, Reversi!).
Through scouring within the files, I've found even more cool and interesting stuff. The first HE game I ever played was Putt-Putt Joins the Parade, on that rare 4-game disc! I then had Spy Fox 1, and THEN I had the Humongous Classics Collection. I also happened to own a few of the games very close to their release dates, including Spy Fox 1, Pajama Sam 2, Pajama Sam 3, and Freddi Fish 3. I also now understand why the games ran in Slow Machine Mode (it has a special mode that turns off certain things to allow easier play on slower computers) -- the video card was a pile of crap! To further emphasize that, when you played HE games on it, you could very clearly see a "wipe" between every screen. I'm looking to get another one soon, though, so don't worry about it.
I should also mention it has quite a few games I totally forgot about, including Toy Story Activity Center, Aladdin Activity Center, and George Shrinks, a faux-Living Book game (I'd definitely like to cover Living Books in a later post, if I ever make one). I also thought I got Tonka Search and Rescue after Construction before, but I actually got them for my fourth birthday.
Those are basically extra informative tidbits on my 486 computer. I'm glad to have finally gotten the thing out, and it's awesome that I was finally able to relive it, even if it was only for one day. I promise I will get that video card issue resolved ASAP. See you next time.
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