How to Build Your Own PC (in 1991)

YouTube / ckmogo
YouTube / ckmogo / YouTube / ckmogo
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In 1991, Stewart Cheifet hosted a segment of Computer Chronicles discussing how to build your own home PC. It's standard geek fare of the day, but watching it now brings back some long-suppressed memories. For instance, you needed an add-in card to host your floppy and hard drives (these days, that's all integrated into the motherboard). Oh, and there were faux 3.5" floppy faceplates, so it would look like you had more drives than you did (visible around 5:50 in the video below). Set the time-machine to negative 23 years and check out what all the cool kids were doing back then.

A sample quote: "This is a standard 386 16 MHz PC clone board. This is now the Volkswagen of PCs. ... The prices of PC components have gone down so low that everyone now really has to have a hard disk." Also: "Most PCs don't have three floppy disk drives, but I really think it's a necessity." (For the record, I never had three floppy drives. Still don't.) Anyway, let's do this:

This video even includes a discussion of FCC Class A and Class B devices. Around that time, I was (illegally) rockin' a Class A (industrial-class) PC in a residential area. Take that, local radio reception!