Home Computers
We have had a home computer of one sort or another for almost thirty years, beginning with the Sinclair ZX80 in about 1981. This was followed by an Acorn Electron. After seeing what a friend's ZX Spectrum could do, we moved on to one of those, and used it for a number of years while the children were in primary school.
I had started using Windows at work in the late 1980s and when the children moved on to secondary school we decided to get a Windows based PC for home use. The first machine we had was a Packard Bell desktop running Windows 95, which we upgraded to Windows 98 when that version was released. The desire to get internet access and to use email led to us buying a new desktop from Tiny Computers, running Windows ME. While we didn't much like that version of Windows, we kept the PC running for a number of years.
In 2003 we first ventured into on-line purchase, buying a desktop from a well-known supplier in the south of England, running Windows XP. While that was arguably the best operating system we've had, the PC itself was a bit of a disaster, crashing frequently and switching itself off without warning. I only found out that there was a fault with one of the RAM modules after a number of frustrating years. As by now we were increasingly using the PC to help run our business, it became clear that something had to be done. I replaced the faulty module and the machine improved immediately, but we never really trusted it again.
In 2007 we bought a Philips Freevents computer from PC World, running the Windows Vista operating system. The machine worked well, but Vista proved not to be hugely to our liking. By 2010, the system was slowing down noticeably and we decided to upgrade to a more powerful machine, running the new Windows 7.
This new machine was made for us by Computer Planet to a (for us) quite high spec. The Cooler Master case houses an Asus P5KPL SE motherboard, with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU. It has 4GB of RAM and the NVIDIA GeForce 9500T graphics card. With a 500W PSU and a powerful cooling system, we have high hopes that this machine will last us for a decent length of time. Now all we have to do is get the hang of Windows 7...