[Ham-Computers] RE: System Requirements

[Hsu, Aaron]

Points taken.  Completely forgot about the Pentium Pro (most people do!).  Yes, it was the next "evolution" of the Pentium processor.  However, it failed to gain popularity on the desktop market due to fact that it was actually slower than an equivalent MHz speed Pentium *unless* the app was re-coded/re-compiled to take advantage of the P-Pro.  It made it's way into servers and high-end workstations, but never gained popularity for every-day use.  As a matter of fact, talk about old...I'm sitting next to a Compaq ProLiant 1500 server I manage here and I remember upgrading it from a Pentium-166 to a Pentium Pro-200 a few years ago.  It's still running strong under Netware 4.11.

I also skipped a processor here and there during the past 20 odd years.  But when I worked in computer store many moons back, I "touched" them all.  I remember my boss handing me the first 80386 processor we ever bought and the full-size "AT" motherboard it was supposed to go in.  I had never needed to "insert" a PGA device into a motherboard as most XT and 286 boards shipped with the processor installed from the factory.  The ceramic processor seemed pretty frail and the 386 socket on the board was pretty stiff (ZIF sockets were almost non-existant at the time).  Man was I sweating bullets as I kept putting more and more "thumb" pressure on that 386 to get it in...the CPU itself was $875 and I sure as hell didn't want to crack that thing!  Luckily, it finally seated (with a small pool of sweat on the surface...) and fired-up just fine.  Whew!

But, I digress.  As for Win95 "OSR's", I myself list them as "flavors" because they actually added functionality to the OS as opposed to NT/2000 service packs which primarily fix bugs.  I believe OSR2 added the active desktop components + I.E. 4.0 and 2.1 added USB support.

Anyways, it's great to have good resources on this list to bounce ideas (and memories) off of!

73,

  - Aaron, NN6O

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Adams [mailto:adamsr@voyager.net]

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	Incidentally, whether a 233MHz machine was actually the first of
the Pentium II's is a matter of definition. The Pentium Pro was,
literally, a Pentium II in terms of hardware design and it came in both
a 166MHz (briefly) and a 200MHz version (I had a couple of 200MHz
machines--under NT 3.51 and linux--before buying my current machines (a
P4-1500 & a PIII Xeon with dual processors). Literally, however, Aaron's
probably right about the 266MHz--I never bought a P-II (went from the
Pro's to P-III architecture) so I didn't really keep up with them at
first.

	I _will_ argue though that some of the "flavors" listed above
aren't really other versions of Windows--the OSR's are just service
releases and still Win95--just as Windows 2000 with the current service
pack (4, as I recall, although 5 may have come out since I last
installed a service pack) is still Windows 2000, not a new version. I
_did_ forget about Win 2.0, however, but so did most everyone at the
time as well! :-)

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