An ode to machines past
I’m going to, periodically, do a tribute to old computers of mine. Today it is the Dell Optiplex GX-Pro
I had this machine from 1996 to 1998. My configuration was a Dual Pentium Pro 200mhz with 64 megs of RAM and a 720 megabyte Hard Drive. The OS that this machine ran was Windows NT 4.0 (aka Daytona).
This machine was a dream. The Pentium Pro 200mhz was a pretty substantial processor in terms of power, and coupled with the 32 bit only splendor of NT 4.0 ran more like a “modern” OS than Windows ’95, which I had prior. The only challenge was, drivers for Windows NT 4 were in scarce supply, and often flaky.
The internals of this machine were also really nice, especially for a home-tinkerer like me. The power supply flipped up and out, and the entire drive cage was removable to operate on, making adding hard drives (I eventually had three in there) easy.
The machine served me well until I upgraded to an Intergraph TDZ-2000 3d workstation (more on that in a later post).
The GXPro then went on to serve as the primary machine for my parents until it was retired in place of a Pentium IV and eventually their iMac.
The machine currently is buried in my parents garage.