Building My First Computer (A Memory)
A couple of years after we got the Tandy 1000 RLX, my dad decided it was time for an upgrade.
Somewhere along the way he had picked up a couple of books on building your own PC, one of which was Build Your Own 486/486SX and Save a Bundle by Aubrey Pilgrim. After reading through them, he decided our next computer wasn’t going to come from a store. We were going to build it ourselves.
Even though the book was about building a 486, we ended up going with a 386SX because it fit our budget better.
I can’t remember the exact CPU speed, but it was probably somewhere between 16 and 33 MHz. Our original build had 1 MB of RAM, a 250 MB hard drive, and a brand-new copy of MS-DOS 6.22. There’s also a pretty good chance we reused the VGA monitor from our Tandy 1000 RLX, since there wasn’t much reason to replace it.
We bought all of the parts from a small computer store about an hour from home. When you’re eight years old, an hour-long drive feels like you’re crossing the country.
Once we got everything home, it was time to put it together.
I don’t remember every detail of the assembly, which probably means it went pretty smoothly… right up until we pressed the power button.
Nothing.
No computer.
No success.
I can’t remember whether we had the PC speaker connected and it was giving us beep codes, but I do remember that absolutely nothing was appearing on the monitor.
After trying everything he could think of, my dad finally packed the computer back up and drove to the store where we had bought the parts.
The problem turned out to be something simple.
On a 386SX motherboard, the memory had to be installed in matched pairs. We had bought a single 1 MB SIMM, assuming that was all we needed.
While my dad was inside getting everything sorted out, my mom, my brother, and I waited out in the car. Back then, this wasn’t the kind of computer store where kids wandered around looking at parts.
Eventually my dad came back out carrying the computer.
It now had 2 MB of RAM…
…and one other surprise.
A copy of Windows 3.11.
Looking back, that’s probably my first memory of discovering that computer projects rarely go exactly as planned, but most problems have a solution if you’re willing to learn.
The computer served us well for years.
Then, about a year later, we decided it was time for another upgrade.
One day we went shopping and came home with a sound card and a CD-ROM drive. I don’t remember what prompted it, but suddenly our computer could play digital audio, install software from CDs, and felt like an entirely new machine. My dad remembers it coming with a game, although I can’t remember what it was. It may have also included one or two demo discs, which were always fun to explore.
This was also the computer where my interests really started to expand.
I spent countless hours playing games like Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos, Lost Secret of the Rainforest, The Island of Dr. Brain, Gobliins 2, and Mystic Towers.
Programming also became a much bigger part of my life.
I continued learning GW-BASIC, got my first introduction to C after my dad bought C Programming in 12 Easy Lessons, and eventually discovered Visual Basic 3.
Visual Basic completely changed how I thought about programming. Instead of writing text-based DOS applications, I could create real Windows programs with buttons, menus, and windows. It built on what I had already learned with GW-BASIC while opening the door to a whole new way of writing software.
Looking back now, that home-built 386 wasn’t just another computer. It was the machine that taught me how PCs went together, that troubleshooting was part of the process, and that programming could become much more than just typing commands at a DOS prompt.
It’s funny to think that it all started with a book, a box of parts, and one missing stick of RAM.
— James