How to Build a Good Computer (in 1992)

It's been a long time since I built a computer. The rise of portable systems turned PC assembly into a rare practice, defended only by the most die-hard hardware enthusiasts. Of course, in the early '90s, a very different story was told. What was the 'top' hardware back then? When you see the specs, you'll burst out laughing.

It's a true privilege for all of us who enjoy hardware and computers in general to have free and open access to episodes of the famous show Computer Chronicles, broadcast by PBS from 1983 to 2002. Anyone who wants or needs to learn about the evolution of computers will find in Computer Chronicles countless references to systems of all brands, types, and formats.

In the early years of home computing, building a computer required some electronics knowledge, but by the 1990s, the presence of new interfaces and standards limited the process to fitting components together, secured with a simple screwdriver. Assembling a PC was simple, however, the question that tormented the potential user back then remains perfectly valid now: What should I buy?

The 1992 Build

In this episode of Computer Chronicles from the 1992 season, titled "Build Your Own PC," Stewart Cheifet interviews Jonathan Chilvers of "Edventures," who describes a 386 processor running at 16 MHz as the Volkswagen of PCs. He then mentions the drop in component prices, to the point that installing a hard drive in the system was no longer an option but a necessity.

He also rates the presence of three floppy drives the same way. That's right, the man said three: one for double-density disks (360KB), one for high-density (1.2 MB), and another in 3.5-inch format supporting 1.44 MB disks. Considering that 5.25-inch disks lost much of their popularity in the mid-90s, I think Mr. Chilvers was too enthusiastic about floppy drives.

The hard drive capacity he installed in the case was 200 megabytes, a value that today couldn't hold an audio disc in FLAC format, or the average episode of a series in low quality. The RAM (two megabytes in total, a real fortune) used SIPP format (Single In-line Pin Package), which was quickly replaced by 30-pin SIMM modules, much easier to install. The 386 motherboard used in the demo had no integrated controllers, so Chilvers had to add a board supporting the hard drive and floppy drives.

Another Guest's Machine

The system presented by the other guest, Chuck Lee, is even more interesting: His motherboard uses a 386SX processor at 25 MHz made by AMD, offers a socket for a math coprocessor (the ancestor of the floating-point unit) and eight SIMM slots, while in the case you can see a bracket designed to turn hard drives into portable units for security reasons. 23 years that seem like 500. How far we've come.