Dialup Modems & Other Antiquated PC Technology

My family’s first computer was a IBM Compatible 386 running MS-DOS with 5 ¼” and 3 ½” floppy disc drives, a 40mb hard drive and 1mb of RAM.

. . .

There was no mouse, modem, scanner, or anything else that you would associate with a computer today. It didn’t matter; my family’s Everex Tempo was the coolest thing I had ever seen and I was hooked on computers for life.

One of the first accessories my father purchased for our PC was a handheld black and white scanner. It only digitized four inches at a time and used incredibly clunky software to stitch multiple 8-bit images together. I’m not entirely sure we ever got it to work properly.

When we upgraded to Windows 3.1, it was finally time to purchase a mouse. Then AOL came around, so we got a veeeery slooow modem: and a second phone line.

. . .

Technology has changed so much since those early days, but the one thing I’ll never forget is the sound of a dial-up modem connecting.

When I showed the lead photograph to my wife, Carrie, I recreated the sound with my voice. Immediately after, a dog started barking just outside our window. Sure, it probably was a coincidence, but we both laughed saying, “even dogs don’t like that sound.”

. . .

I would love to hear about your first computer in the comments section!