# Order of Retrocomputing Appreciatives - CoG chapter **URL:** \ **Category:** general\ **Created:** [May 16, 2016, 4:10am UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155 "2016-05-16T04:10:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![sig](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/sig/32/286_2.png) [@sig](https://cog.discourse.group/u/sig)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 4:13pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/81 "2019-07-15T16:13:23Z")
When I replaced the innards of my 2008 desktop circa 2015, the floppy drive still had the hard drive driver disk in it from when I first loaded the system. ---
**Author:** ![Force10](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/force10/32/1550_2.png) [@Force10](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Force10)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 4:14pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/82 "2019-07-15T16:14:24Z")
> [@balance](#): > > (Fry’s seemed cool when I was in Tempe early this year. I’ve heard it’s gone downhill from it’s heights of the 90s/early 2000s?) Fry’s is definitely a shell of its former self. ---
**Author:** ![moufassa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/moufassa/32/41_2.png) [@moufassa](https://cog.discourse.group/u/moufassa)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 2:53am UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/83 "2019-07-16T02:53:50Z")
USB floppy drives are a thing - but there weren’t any on site (that I could find, and knowing that I had a known-good machine only 10 minutes away, I didn’t look that hard). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![balance](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/balance/32/1888_2.png) [@balance](https://cog.discourse.group/u/balance)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 1:14pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/84 "2019-07-16T13:14:55Z")
I guess I’m used to ‘drive home’ being 45 minutes if it’s a good day. My drive is my biggest work complaint, to be honest. Trying to get it under 30. It’d be a lot easier for my work to just go to a 24/7 Microcenter, Best Buy, etc. ---
**Author:** ![moufassa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/moufassa/32/41_2.png) [@moufassa](https://cog.discourse.group/u/moufassa)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 2:43am UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/85 "2019-07-17T02:43:44Z")
> [@balance](#): > > It’d be a lot easier for my work to just go to a 24/7 Microcenter, Best Buy, etc. If we’d been in the same situation I’d have done exactly that. Funnily enough though, I knew I had a USB floppy drive at home as well. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Ook](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/ook/32/72_2.png) [@Ook](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Ook)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 12:27pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/86 "2019-07-17T12:27:06Z")
Hey, I gots an USB stiffy drive in my drawer. Used less than 10 times. Think it’ll need to be treasured like something very, very rare 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RoadRunner](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/roadrunner/32/63_2.png) [@RoadRunner](https://cog.discourse.group/u/RoadRunner)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 3:16pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/87 "2019-07-17T15:16:41Z")
> [@balance](#): > > a 24/7 Microcenter, Best Buy, etc. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tech store that was open 24 hours. The closest I can think of would be a Walmart or Target, which it not reliable. I live 9 miles from work, but a typical morning or evening commute doesn’t take less than 20 minutes, frequently much more. One day a couple weeks ago, it took more than 45 minutes to get home after work. When it is that long, it puts me in a sour mood. OTOH, if I work late and don’t leave until after, like, 10pm, I can sometimes make it home in 15 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![balance](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/balance/32/1888_2.png) [@balance](https://cog.discourse.group/u/balance)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 3:19pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/88 "2019-07-17T15:19:59Z")
> [@RoadRunner](#): > > I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tech store that was open 24 hours. The closest I can think of would be a Walmart or Target, which it not reliable. I may be a little spoiled living in the DC metro. There’s a few that are 24/7 here. I was out in Arizona earlier this year and we did a late-night Fry’s trip, too. Admittedly in days long past I got sent out to every Radio Shack in a 20 mile radius looking for the special power cables we needed for a move. ---
**Author:** ![Johtoguy](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/johtoguy/32/917_2.png) [@Johtoguy](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Johtoguy)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/89 "2019-07-17T16:00:35Z")
I have a shrine of “Ancient technology” on my desk at work that includes a mini disk, a laptop from 2000, a usb floppy drive, what was an unopened box of floppies, a PDA, a mini disk, and my favorite thing a 3gb 3.5 inch hard drive that must be 5 lbs. ---
**Author:** ![balance](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/balance/32/1888_2.png) [@balance](https://cog.discourse.group/u/balance)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/90 "2019-07-17T16:49:54Z")
If we had space (spoiler: we don’t have space) I’d like to set up a “geek bar” with old but amusing tech on an isolated VLAN at some job. Throw some old iMacs, those 90s Sun desktops so many companies seem to have sitting around, maybe some old consoles. Purely just as art and something to play with in downtime. ---
**Author:** ![moufassa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/moufassa/32/41_2.png) [@moufassa](https://cog.discourse.group/u/moufassa)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 3:41am UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/91 "2019-07-18T03:41:54Z")
> [@Johtoguy](#): > > I have a shrine of “Ancient technology…” Very nice 🙂 those old HDDs are quite large by today’s standards, aren’t they! I recently bought an MD Walkman that came with all its extras except the box, and 25 MDs (score!). Always wanted one of those. A few years ago I got (in a job lot) an external SCSI enclosure that was surprisingly heavy… opened it up and found a Metropolis-branded, full-height, 5.25" 650MB SCSI hard drive. It’s gotta weigh around 10kg (22lb). I called it “Tall Paul” and I still use it for backing up old Macs. ---
**Author:** ![moufassa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/moufassa/32/41_2.png) [@moufassa](https://cog.discourse.group/u/moufassa)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 3:46am UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/92 "2019-07-18T03:46:13Z")
> [@balance](#): > > 90s Sun desktops I love SPARCstations. I have an Ultra 10 and two Ultra 5s (which I found out are exactly the same as the Ultra 10, just in a desktop case). I feel that one Ultra 5 is crying out for me to slap NeXTSTEP on it. ---
**Author:** ![Ook](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/ook/32/72_2.png) [@Ook](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Ook)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 12:28pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/93 "2019-07-18T12:28:27Z")
SCSI really start to shine when you have two (or more) SCSI HDD’s on the same cable (and sorted terminator issues out). It is for this reason that servers had SCSI RAID and not IDE RAID as IDE with more than one device is slower than SCSI. It is the way data is written to disks, SCSI can have two or more active disks, while with IDE only one disk can be active at a time. ---
**Author:** ![balance](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/balance/32/1888_2.png) [@balance](https://cog.discourse.group/u/balance)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 1:12pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/94 "2019-07-18T13:12:55Z")
I avoided the ‘Early Mac SCSI’ era for the most part, which is where I think it got ugly, probably due to a lot of devices in the ecosystem that were either repurposed for Macs (intended for server systems where it would be more locked down, I.E. Vendor A sells a SCSI drive for their dedicated system… Now people wanted to use it on Macs) or just suspect quality (Like today you shouldn’t buy grade Z fiber transceivers). Apple also changed their SCSI implementation a couple times. This didn’t help. Early SCSI on Macs got a ton of ‘accumulated lore’ to getting termination right. When I ran a lab full of Macs with SCSI external drives and scanners issues were surprisingly rare: Usually once something was set up. it actually worked quite well. I had a SCSI drive or two work was tossing in 99 or so, but realized it wasn’t worth ti to add a whipping 5 gigs to my environment even then. ---
**Author:** ![balance](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/balance/32/1888_2.png) [@balance](https://cog.discourse.group/u/balance)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2019, 5:14pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/95 "2019-07-18T17:14:24Z")
OldJob had a bunch that just seemed to get moved around. The UNIX team _used_ to use them, butt hey were all gone by maybe 2005. Some devs held on to theirs forever and refused to give them up. I think one had a full-sized Sun tower that jsut took up cube space and wasn’t even in use. A favorite 90s tech from a design stance was the SGI boxes. They loved their textured paint for a while, which was pretty awesome, then there was the box one job got that looked like a neon blue art deco toaster. ---
**Author:** ![moufassa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/moufassa/32/41_2.png) [@moufassa](https://cog.discourse.group/u/moufassa)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 3:03am UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/96 "2019-07-19T03:03:51Z")
> [@balance](#): > > SGI boxes - textured paint Ah yeah, the Indy. The best looking desktop case around for the era, I will agree. > [@balance](#): > > neon blue art deco toaster Is that an O2? _[rummages through Google Images]_ ![300px-Sgi_o2](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/uploads/cog/original/2X/3/346beaecf7bcb543e38a0860bdc539f8863e22d9.jpeg) Yes, it’s an O2. Lovely looking thing. It reminds me of the Cobalt Qube 2 that I had for a little while in 2003. ![cobalt-qube](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/uploads/cog/original/2X/6/6d784d48fd7fd2c264f916df11cab163a1b86b53.jpeg) I bought it to learn some Linux on, and then I discovered that it was an appliance and designed to use the web interface for all of its functions, so I sold it. Should have kept it, but I needed the money at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Viking](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/viking/32/32_2.png) [@Viking](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Viking)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:52pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/97 "2019-07-19T12:52:00Z")
On my word… The memories… I’d forgotten all about SGI boxes, the Cobalt, and all the goodness that were Sun SparcStations… ---
**Author:** ![balance](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/balance/32/1888_2.png) [@balance](https://cog.discourse.group/u/balance)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2019, 12:54pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/98 "2019-07-19T12:54:31Z")
I remember the O2 at the place that had one being curvier for some reason. I worked for a place that had one that was probably the most powerful computer in the building: It worked as a RIP for a wide-format printer, so was pretty much never used ‘interactively.’ I feel like a last gasp for a bunch of those companies was trying to get into imaging and publishing fields. It made sense, but obviously didn’t really work… I guess the Qube is a sort of distant ancestor to today’s NAS systems. I remember reading up on them when they were current, not that I had the money. ---
**Author:** ![Ook](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/ook/32/72_2.png) [@Ook](https://cog.discourse.group/u/Ook)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2019, 3:10pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/99 "2019-07-21T15:10:23Z")
> [@moufassa](#): > > ![300px-Sgi_o2](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/uploads/cog/original/2X/3/346beaecf7bcb543e38a0860bdc539f8863e22d9.jpeg) > > Yes, it’s an O2. Lovely looking thing Hey, it’s Erwin from UserFriendly! ---
**Author:** ![balance](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/cog.discourse.group/balance/32/1888_2.png) [@balance](https://cog.discourse.group/u/balance)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 6:38pm UTC](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155/100 "2019-07-23T18:38:18Z")
The O2 is definitely from the era where computers were meant to look cool. I don’t remember it being particularly large in person, but it definitely drew attention. I had a Power Mac G4 rig at a later job that got similar attention, but that was more due to the translucent monitor getting oohed and ahhed over by everyone in the wing of the building. [Previous page](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155.md?page=4) [Next page](https://cog.discourse.group/t/order-of-retrocomputing-appreciatives-cog-chapter/1155.md?page=6)