and yes: the supplied pc docs back then >>>>>>>> supplied pc docs today
My first "PC" was a Sinclair ZX80. I got my soldering iron out.
Much later on (1986ish) my Dad bought a Commodore 64, unfortunately he plugged the power lead into the video socket, when me and my brother arrived home for Chrimbo. Dad got it repaired and it served us very well for several years.
I still have that C64 and it was repaired again a few years ago (re-capped). It now has a USB interface etc. I also have an original Quickshot II joystick and it still works fine.
My first "real" PC was a 80286 based thing. A maths co pro (80287) was a Chrimbo prezzie too and costed something like £110. It had a whole 1MB RAM and the co processor enabled me to run a dodgy copy of AutoCAD. Yes, AutoCAD used to run in 1MB of RAM! The next version needed something mad like 32MB minimum.
If the product succeeds and the market starts saying that this is acceptable for desktops, I could see more and more systems going that way to get either maximum performance (in workstations) or space/power optimisation (e.g. N100-based systems). Then other manufacturers not optimising for either of these things might start shipping soldered-together systems just to get the BoM costs down.
If the latter ("the highest end CPU tech of the particular day"), I think it's going to keep getting harder and harder, with more top end options like the M4 Max being "prebuilt only", but I don't think it'll go to 0 options in as short as 10 years from now.
If the former ("newer and better CPU tech than before") I think it'll last even longer than the above, if not indefinitely, just because technology will likely continue to grow consistently enough that even serving a small niche better than before will always eventually be a reasonable target market despite what is considered mainstream.
gsibble•2h ago
My first ever build was a 386 though.
What fond memories.