Why FireWire was featured heavily on Macs and not PCs
Ars Technica has a really great read about the formation of FireWire and how companies like Sony and Intel almost helped it become a worldwide standard if not for Steve Jobs' greedy mind.
Why did old PCs have key locks?
This brings me back. I had a computer that had a key lock at one point in time.
Do older PCs use more energy than newer ones?
This video from vwestlife on YouTube uses a Kill-A-Watt electricity meter to show that an old PC from 1989 uses about the same power as a PC from 2009. The video was created to dispel rumors that older PCs use more power than modern ones and despite the answer being that both computers use about the same power, the fact remains that the newer PC uses the same power while being able to do significantly more than the old PC.
That's no surprise of course since CPUs have always stayed on the trajectory of doing more tasks at a minimum power requirement. Still, it's interesting to note that power-wise, I guess if you really had to run an old PC, you aren't wasting any more power than you normally would if you just plugged in a newer PC.
Honestly, I'm not sure where I was going with this post. I think I just liked the comparison.
The Hot Wheels PC restored and booted up!
This is hilarious. LGR has gotten his hands on the infamously bad Hot Wheels PC and actually got it restored and working. All the manuals, all the components, all the flames! This is such a fantastic video showing the horrible design era we went through with the rise of PCs in the home. Glad this is over.
Here are a few ads I found of the PC being sold.
Those old TURBO buttons on PCs actually slowed your computer down
Well, I feel stupid! This is all news to me! I remember growing up with several PCs that had a TURBO button on the case and I would always push it thinking that it was speeding up my computer. It turns out, that for a majority of those computers, the TURBO button actually slowed down the computer so that certain programs or games would run at slower clock speeds and not be entirely unusable. Talk about the power of deceptive labeling! I honestly thought my computer was going faster!