Downgrade

My computer became a new hobby as I now had access to cheap parts and the occasional surplus items, which was good since I didn't have a lot of extra money. I remember getting a tip for a house call I made in the form of a 20MB hard drive and some RAM chips. It turned out that they just happened to be the right chips for a memory board someone had given me a few years before. My computer was getting pumped up with hardware and software, then one day, the 286 chip died. Luckily, we had some spare 286 boards from upgrades, and I was able to use them. Unfortunately, they would not fit in my case, so the board with cards sticking out of it sat beside the case with cables snaking in to the drives. Not pretty, but it worked. Then that board died, and I started to go through all the spare 286 boards there were, the last of which were even slower than where I had started. Then, of course, my nice SVGA monitor died. There was no way I could afford a new one. Luckily, there was a spare monochrome monitor, and my super VGA video card had dual output, so you could hook up the older monitor types and run the card in the old video modes. I was just able to run Windows 3.1 in a low-resolution Hurcules Monochrome mode to get by. My downgrade was a low point.

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