If you didn't have a bicycle as a child ...

No, of course I had a bicycle, and even now it hasn't gone anywhere, the one that neither is retro - the domestic peer of Apple and the PC of the same name. An indestructible classic that takes me to the office and back every day. But, of course, we will not talk about this hardware, but about a later, but no less eminent representative of computer technology. So, if you recall the initial period of life (which is already given with great difficulty), then I sat down at the computer before I went to the nearest school. To modern children this will probably seem banal, but in those days even the simplest clone of Irisha , soldered on the knee by an engineer fatherseemed like an inexplicable miracle of technology. As time went on, gradually computers in the house became more advanced, but mostly the same homemade. This, of course, allowed me to improve my skills and save money, but unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to taste all the delights of the branded desktop "white assembly". Therefore, when the other day there was a chance to catch up, I naturally did not fail to take advantage of this.



So, he came to me in, at first glance, good condition and relatively complete set, as part of the Dell Optiplex GXa system unit, the “popular” Samsung SyncMaster 3Ne moniker and a mouse with a keyboard, a corporate sticker on the back of which unequivocally hinted at the successful career of this instance ...



























Hoping for the quality that did not leave much to be desired, he pressed the power button and the computer, beeping and blinking with indicators, showed a POST screen on the screen with an invitation to enter the BIOS.







Once there, I began to study the modest settings, paying attention to the not very fresh version of the firmware and only two megabytes of memory on the integrated video card.







I was even mentally ready to expropriate an additional version of the existing AGP, but this, fortunately, was not needed.







The oddly behaving clock also caught the eye, making this guest from the past reminiscent of the well-known Time machine from some sci-fi movie.





However, replacing the battery that went down to zero returned the device to the current time continuum, for which it was necessary to climb inside, since the case is traditionally opened with one easy movement.







An unpleasant sight appeared under the cover, suggesting that the last time the computer was opened was at the factory.







But the components exceeded expectations. Under a layer of dust, we found an Intel Pentium II processor on a Klamath core with an elaborate radiator, two lines of RAM, and even a SGRAM bar that had not worked before due to poor contact in the connector.















Well, and the rest of the standard computer components for that time.



























To install additional components, there is a four-slot corner combiner, which, alas, is not occupied with anything.











What was especially pleasing was that both coolers in the power supply unit and on the CPU with temperature control of revolutions, therefore, without load, the loudest component of the system is the 3.2 GB HDD, from which I tried to boot.

However, it did not succeed to the fullest extent; after a little rustling with the screw, the system entered the well-known file manager.











And the further process stalled at the start of the graphical shell,







from which it became clear that the disk was tired more than its comrades and it was necessary to treat it, or even change it.











Sidyuk, in contrast to, turned out to be quite efficient and started a bootable CD for me from which, through PLOP, he launched the necessary software from a resuscitation flash drive.























But since the tests showed that all was not lost, the only defect was successfully repaired with MHDD.







After that, Windows appeared in all its glory, which, however, did not quite correspond to the standard.











The case turned out to be in the wrong video card driver, after reinstalling which he saw a desktop with beautiful wallpaper, which was facilitated by more than a decent margin of brightness of the display's cathode-ray tube.







And the system revealed a typical set of software and content of that era.



















Well, with a feeling of deep satisfaction I turn off the system unit. There is still enough work to bring it to the ideal: bleaching, testing, fine tuning. Indeed, to the credit of the manufacturer, support for this model is still is present on the site .



And let this "bicycle" be invented a long time ago, but they did it so well that it gives pleasure from using it even now.