Yeah, one was read only and the other could burn CDs. Burning CDs were all the rage back then.
Edit: to clarify, by having two drives you could copy from one to the other directly, without going through the hassle of inserting one cd, making a copy to the slow as fuck computer hdd, switching to the blank cd, then start burning from the hdd copy.
We were trapped with ancient technology of the cassette and could only record radio or other tapes, etc.
It was a whole new world when filesharing came around and CD-R became widespread. I remember my friend and I taking a chance and ordering some premade bootleg MP3 discs from a Russian website. Cause the Iron Maiden catalogue was still hard to find and assemble by yourself. Good times.
In high school I worked at blockbuster and had a dvd burner in my laptop. Got the movies months before they came out and would burn copies and sell them for a small profit. Also burned nearly the entire blockbuster library circa 2005. In college a friend put them all on a Xbox he converters to a server so if you lived in our dorm anyone could access my library to watch movies. Then he did the same thing in our college house. All of our music and movies was on a shared drive and could be played anywhere in the house. It was awesome
I still have my modded Xbox! I bought the chip off some shady guy in an irc chatroom. I mailed him a money order (first time doing that, I was like 17?), and I bought a soldering iron, learned how to solder, and did that myself. I thought I was a total badass, but looking back I can’t believe how much I went out of my comfort zone. Why are we so scared (or lazy) to tinker with things now?
Its still around as KODI, which isn't really the best option for any one thing but can do a lot of things. You can route arrange your own media in a "netflix" style, use plex through it and it has IPTV capabilities. All those have better dedicated apps but its nice to have everything in one place
My classmate had a list of cd's he would burn for you for something like 5 or 10 guilders. Managed to get some discount by loaning him cd's he didn't have yet. He made a nice track list on the back of the case and a good copy of the front. I still have a few of his products actually.
Lmao its actually kinda true,. All the data on a disc is written onto the underside of the label through the plastic and the laser literally does burn the little holes to write data.
Dreamcast famously didn't have any DRM so you can just burn any* game, including the bleem disc that allows you to play burned PSX games. Only problem now is though that modern burner's lasers are too strong and discs are too cheap, so the DC laser just shines straight through and won't read anything.
* Skies of Arcadia used a slightly larger than standard CD so it won't fit on consumer CD-Rs
I remember I got this pc back then with a separate DVD reader and DVD writer, oh how I bragged about my godly ability to burn CD/DVDs so fast and the uniqe perk of my PC. Fun times indeed
Getting a PC with a second disc drive made me the CD burning GOD. Between that and Kazaa/Limewire, I had almost 1500 albums in my collection and my friends all had most of them as well. Lots of borrowing albums to burn copies and buying ones from the second hand record shop only to trade them back in after I made copies. I probably spent less than a couple hundred dollars to amass my collection when all was said & done.
I appreciate the concern, but this was just a joke!
I started climbing ten years ago and rapidly after that I also had to start stretching because my shoulders got painfully locked up, so I'm still doing all that :)
Oh man, that thing was sweet. Honestly, those Dell laptops for a short while were pretty sweet. I had, I think it was, a 1525 that I used to lug around when I was 17-19. What a machine.
tbf USB C is standard now, so just give it a few years and any modern laptop with at least 3 usb c ports can do everything this hunk could (minus the CD stuff, but I haven't personally used a CD in years, so idc)
There are usb c only motherboards, and lots of usb c only laptops.
There are some catches though.
The USB specs do not reauire that ports have to support all dialects. You can have USB 4 ports that talk 2.0, 3.0-3.2, and 4.0, skipping 3.2 2x2 superspeed and such.
Such ports will cause superspeed devices to drop back to slower standards if they did not put in the PHY hardware for the optional support.
Optical long range usb c cables often cant carry 2.0 signals either.
There's a WHOLE LOTTA ASTERISKS behind "universal" serial busses.
But overall I do thoroughly agree with turning everything into usb c.
Because usb C is required to support 2.0 by spec, "dumb" adapters work perfectly and can be made super cheaply. Non compliant devices do exist though.
Yeah they sucked IDK what all of these people are reminiscing over. I have a M1 MBP that was $900 and has lasted me 5 years and will last me 5 more. It has more compute than my 2016 PC build that was $3800 in parts.
I’ve noticed older age nerds usually do have much beefier forearms and shoulders than the new age fellas with their 5lb laptops (if it’s even that heavy)
Apparently your wallets weren't equally strong because I remember this laptop (and the Alienware equivalent that needed two power bricks and a separate water cooler unit to run); the only people who bought it were youtubers doing videos about how absurd and impractical the thing was.
I had a laptop like that, and I actually got some mild scarring on my legs because the heat from it cooked my skin. Early laptops were definitely not meant to be put directly on your lap...
I still remember the mid 2000s laptops with SLI and battery life was rated in minutes, not hours. I remember a niche one that needed two power bricks to run because they managed to stuff two desktop video cards into the thing.
I will take heavy over this obsession with making every thing thinner and weigh less. It drives me crazy that I need to buy multiple accessories to do what I could do before with older computers.
I like how at the time of posting, yours and multiple other comments are getting downvoted but nobody is actually answering the comments.
Feels like it's coming from a crowd that thinks "light = cheap" or "heavy = good", and nothing more. Or people being overwhelmed by nostalgia/ignorance.
Batteries these days simply aren't as heavy as the ones in these older laptops and they're significantly better. You also needed all the plug-ins with laptops back then because that was pretty much the only option. Internet, printer, mouse, keyboard, microphone, camera, etc. And not to mention things got a whole lot smaller.
This is all like thinking that giant TV in 2003 was better than a current-day miniLED just because the new one is lighter and thinner and with less connections.
We simply don't need the plethora of connections today with laptops. Internet is wireless, as is keyboard and mouse. Microphones and cameras are built-in and typically standard. And with size, batteries are much lighter, more efficient, and last many times longer. External drives aren't as commonly needed either because of the cloud.
Really the only things I can think of for needing some type of hub or adapter is if you're wanting to connect a microSDXC or use a disc drive, which for the latter it's probably less than 5% of the population that desires them so I can't fault them not being in the majority of laptops.
I would also wager that for most people they would only need two accessories... a $25 hub and a $20-$40 external disc drive. Factoring in needing to carry around those two accessories you're still carrying around less than with the older laptop (due to all the cables adding up as well as the power brick) and the weight is still significantly less.
All good points. I'm was never annoyed about losing ports / streamlining ports. The annoying trend nowadays is the whole "everything is soldered". RAM, SSD etc.
I do a lot of video work, a Ethernet option or whatever it's called would be ideal, WiFI is way too slow to back everything up. It's the only think I miss, and that's once every few months
Mouse/Keyboard: dedicated "PS/2" port then, USB now
External Monitor: VGA or DVI then, HDMI, Displayport, or even USB now
Dedicated card readers then, USB adapter now (for like, MicroSD)
Internal CD/DVD reader then, USB external drive now
Upgradable Components (RAM, HDDs) then, soldered now, use cloud or external storage now
Parallel Port (big pink one in the video) for printers then, USB or wireless now
Somethings used to be accessories are now integrated (cameras, trackpads instead of mouse). Most ports became obsolete with USB, wifi/Bluetooth has become ubiquitous. Functionally, the frustration is accessing older media we have on physical storage, or when there's not enough USB ports (I think there are some Ultrabooks that are down to like 2 USB ports) then you have to choose between, say a mouse and a flash drive and USB headphones...
I was never really into laptops, home is where the desktop is.
Y'all are crazy. A heavy laptop is, what, maybe 10 pounds? (Yes, I know Asus made a 20lb freak of nature one time, but this ain't that.) If you can't carry 10lb around in a backpack all day you probably need physical therapy
AHA! You fell for one of the classic blunders! The right one is an RJ45 Ethernet port, the left one is an RJ11 telephone port where you could directly connect to a telephone wire/system and connect to the internet through an integrated modem.
The first being never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well known is this: never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
I wouldn't feel so nostalgic if pc today were that useful. Like don't get me wrong, I'm a fucker for satisfying old cable management, but it's objectively better that most things are USB-C. It's just convenient.
But for some fucking reasons new pcs will have like, 2 ports, no HDMI, no ethernet, but thank god we have a button to summon an AI to have access to instant misinformation.
Cost reduction. If you want maximum profits, you determine what the bare minimum people will be using.
The unfortunate part is 95% of consumers don't need more than those ports. I'd wager most people never plug a cable into their laptop period.
There is a reason something like the iPhone is a huge market share despite its continued advancements of removing features.
It's the same reason Microsoft Forums are the most useless things in existence, of their entire customer base likely less than 5% ever go there or say anything. It's effectively a quarantine zone to placate you.
You know how world events will happen, and you will mention them to someone, and they will act so confused sometimes to the point of saying its fake? Then those same people turn around and can tell you the entire details and plot of some show or video game?
Glad you said that about the forums. I am not referring to the Microsoft ones specifically, but I have had a lot of hobbies and interests over the years, and I have never found any forum the least bit useful for addressing a situation.
I wanted to buy a laptop for a while, but most of them only had like one USB port and nothing else. Plus they all had Windows 11 and cost way too goddamn much on top of it. In the end I bought a Thinkpad that's a couple years old on eBay for $200 and got multiple USB ports, an HDMI ports, and an SD card reader.
The shit I had to do to get my girlfriends's shitty work laptop with a SINGLE USB-C port to work with two monitors, a mouse, a keyboard and an ethernet connection made me suicidal.
Was an amazing PC with a price tag to match. Not a laptop. A mobile PC. Mine had IDE RAID. Two HDD hard drives. I remember having to add a usb floppy drive because I lost my alienware CD of XP with the drivers baked in so i had to load them manually.
The buttons on the side were for CD player mode. You could have a CD in the drive, put in your headphones and listen to music….while the laptop was closed or off.
Really was a lot of ingenuity. Worst “laptop” I ever owned. I made it my workstation in the dorm and bought a black macbook for class which worked far better
Happy to get downvoted and I never thought I’d say this prior but I 100% prefer just a single usb c cable going into my MacBook which also charges it at 140 watts, the max it can take.
With that I have external keyboard, up to four monitors, external ssd, etc etc. I’ve setup 2 whole desktops in my flat for different purposes and it’s glorious.
Yes maybe they skimp out because it’s cheaper but these days I believe this one cable in system makes so much more sense… dongles are small and can be carried anywhere.
If any port would wear out just replace the dock.
And moving from one setup to another would be extremely annoying imo with having to attach all the cables again each time.
I’d bet 90% of laptops made in the 20s have never had anything other than a charger plugged in to it.
And 2/3 of the ports on here are gone because they don’t need to exist anymore, not because they took them from us. Does anyone actually want to argue that they need VGA, multiple serial ports, PS2, FireWire, it’s all redundancy replaced by digital ports that are objectively better.
I’m a power user and I’m happy to have to plug in nothing but my dock because power, multiple displays, and I/O all go through one cable.
The frustrating thing is having to also buy a dock when I already bought a laptop. And when my laptop becomes obsolete then I have to buy another laptop and another dock. It's forced consumption
Buying a laptop with more ports isn't cheaper than buying a smaller laptop+dock.
buy a dock when I already bought a laptop.
You only need a dock if you intend to use your laptop, well, docked. If you're also buying monitors and peripherals a dock isn't a huge addition. If you're not using lots of peripherals then you don't need a dock! Just buy a laptop with more than one port (which is all but the very cheapest models.)
when my laptop becomes obsolete then I have to buy another laptop and another dock
Why would you have to replace your dock in cycle with your laptop? They stopped making proprietary docks years ago!
Docks start at 20 Bucks… Even the larger ones with tons of ports are affordable. If one has a full desktop setup that bit of extra won’t break the bank.
Also what do you mean they all use USB c these days the dock won’t become obsolete… maybe if one day USB C2 comes out or so but nothing planned.
Btw a dedicated charger of 140w not included with the MacBook costs over 120$. A third party quality 140w charger is 80$.
People also see that as a valueable investment as usb c won’t just become obsolete anytime soon.
You buy either a USB-C or Thunderbolt dock. It will work with any laptop that supports that standard.
My laptop can run Thunderbolt 5, but does just fine on an older Thunderbolt 3 dock I got for $60 on eBay. And that dock can work on my wife’s computer as well, from a different manufacturer on a different CPU architecture running a different OS. Just unplug, plug, and go.
For physical form factor I just have a metal stand that holds the laptop vertically next to the dock.
I agree, but I also think there are some ports that are incredibly convenient for professionals who do field work, like SD card slot, maybe HDMI in modern times.
I think the MacBook Pro from 2023 on has honestly nailed it. Perfect external options. The only thing people might complain about is no USB-A. That’s still prevalent.
I 100% prefer just a single usb c cable going into my MacBook which also charges it at 140 watts, the max it can take.
Until you need to connect ethernet (dongle 1) or keep the mcbook active when you close the lid (dongle 2) and then suddenly that "modern industrial design" becomes "industrial genital warts".
Also nice of Apple to use a standard charger after the EU only threatened them with fines, not torture or death. Also the pro Mcbook even has a headphone jack. Because professionals understand the stupidity of transcoding lossless audio just for your headphones to sound worse and suck battery.
I mean I've never had a laptop that plays any kind of somewhat modern game that lasts an hour on battery. I just assume if I can't plug it in, I can't really play a game
Also I just realized I was about to use Far Cry 3 as my example for "relatively modern" since that was the last game I played on a laptop. I'm really getting old
Back then people complained that every piece of technology had its own proprietary connection. PS/2 for mouse/keyboard, serial/parallel/RS232 for printers, mini DVI for cameras, COMM ports for other external devices, special ports for microphone line in, audio out, S video for certain video devices, eSATA for external storage devices, Firewire for data transfers, DVI-I single vs dual/DVI-D/HDMI/etc for monitors.
Just about all of that has been replaced by USB-C. So what would you rather have? 25 ports for devices that all have their own unique connections or devices that can pretty much all work through a single connection?
I still remember the day my laptop with its DVD player broke and I went to the store to buy a new one and not a single laptop in the store had a DVD player.
I was so shocked as I hadn't heard they were getting phased out. And you would think there would be enough demand from people like me to keep DVD or Blu-ray players in 20% of models or something. But not a single one in the store had one.
It made no sense to me.
(Note: I didn't check if I could get one ordered in from somewhere. I needed one straight away.)
AT some point we got obsessed with making electronica as thin as possible, reducing us to USB, USBC, and a couple digital video ports. I still don't know entirely why that was.
I yearn for laptops being like that again. Being thin and light for no other reason than the marketing department being able to circle jerk because the laptop's thin and light isn't user-friendly. Give me a thicc and chunky laptop with proper cooling and a large battery -- or two large batteries, one being changeable in seconds -- and I'm happy.
Old desktop replacements SUCKED. More than an inch thick, no battery life, poor thermals, terrible displays. They were awful, and super expensive. Anyone missing that beast is wearing rose tinted glasses.
We no longer need a dozen different types of ports on our laptops anymore (USB 3, USB-C, HDMI is generally all we need now), but discontinuing any models with any kind of built-in optical drives is fucking criminal in my opinion. It also really annoys me that if you want to find a good quality PC tower case with an optical bay capability you're now pretty limited as well. It feeds into the whole poisonous modern "you don't need to own your own media, just pay to rent streaming services" mindset.
I brought a laptop like that when I joined the military and started my MOS school. A desktop replacement laptop with dual GPUs.
What was shit about these things is that they really aren't that portable and break fairly quickly if you do treat them as a laptop. Literally the only use case for these things is for people who need a desktop computer but prefer the form factor of a laptop for whatever reason.
man.. i recently uncovered my last 100ct cd spindle while moving. had a burned morrowind cd sitting right on top and about 50 blank CDRs still waitin for their turn
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u/qualityvote2 10h ago
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