Lagi nyari2 beberapa file di direktori data, malah menemukan beberapa dokumen tua dari Internet.
Ada sebuah file berjudul “Moan and Groan List”, tertanggal 1996. Isinya adalah daftar perangkat keras/lunak komputer yang disinyalir bermasalah.
Saya sudah lupa sumbernya, tapi kelihatannya dari sebuah newsgroup (apa itu newsgroup ?? hehe).

Membacanya membuat saya berkali-kali terpikir, “wow… begitu nikmat hidup di zaman ini” 😀
Saya juga jadi teringat pengalaman ketika awal-awal belajar komputer – Mugen Turbo PC/XT (8 MHz processor overclocked to 10 MHz ! yay), NEC V20 processor, 1024KB memory (ketika itu rasanya seperti menggunakan komputer dengan memory 1024 MB), tanpa hard disk (lha wong 1 disket sudah muat OS & aplikasi – gak butuh hard disk lah yauw) – tapi akhirnya beberapa bulan kemudian membeli hard disk 40MB (mahalnya minta ampun), video adapter CGA :D, tapi monitornya merk TVM lho, bisa juga EGA (16 warna! drool).
State of the art indeed.

Huk huk… jadi ngelantur, ok silahkan menikmati (bagian #1) :

Cardinal MVP144WIN Fax/Modem
Several users were shocked when they realized that this modem does not
work correctly under any OS besides Windows. Wanna play a DOS-based
modem game? Not with this modem, I’m afraid.

Hehe.. zaman dulu pada heboh ketika softmodem muncul.
Sekarang ? Hampir semuanya softmodem.. *gdubrak*

IBM EASY OPTIONS 14.4 Internal Modem
The modem worked fine usually. However, the modem did not have
a fast UART. In some applications, especially Windows, this
really increased file transfer times. Sounds like something IBM
would do.

Saya pernah konek ke Internet dengan komputer yang tidak ada chip UART-nya…. menyiksa sekali. AKhirnya terpaksa beli I/O card dengan fast UART, baru agak enak.
Sekarang sih rasanya tidak ada komputer yang tidak ada chip UART-nya.. well, tapi juga banyakan modem yang koneknya via USB 🙂

Supra Express 28.8i P-n-P modem
As this is a plug-and-play modem, it has no jumpers on it to configure it manually.
So when it was installed, it grabbed all the wrong COM ports and IRQs.
Evidently, one has to go through divine intervention to get this forced to
a particular setup. A change of modem brands easily corrected the problem.
Supra has requested that it’s tech address be listed. If you have any more
complaints about Supra modems, please echo them to supratech@supra.com as well.

Komplain ini ditulis pada zaman ketika Plug-n-Play sering diplesetkan menjadi Plug-n-Pray.. ha ha

Nokia 447L 17″
One user tried this brand for the simple reason that he wanted a black
monitor. The first one was dead on arrivial; the second one had random
flash problems; and the third one not only did not work, but it was not
even black.

Nokia pernah bikin monitor komputer.. ??

Cyrix 486/33 DLC
Okay, I know this is not a “motherboard,” but I still felt that this was the
best place to put this problem. Some people have noted that this CPU has a
terrible time with Dos Runtime Protected Mode games; however, more input is
needed.
Does everybody have this problem?

*ngacung*

Motherboards with OPTI Chipsets
All motherboards based on the OPTI chipsets have problems
which are based around their weak ISA bus. They will not handle
MS Bus Mouse cards. They will not boot using a Promise 2300+
controller or the older HP UVGA card. Also reported were occasional
corrupted CD-ROM data transfers. The largest german computer
publication, “C’T magazin” confirmed that the new OPTI VIPER Pentium
chipsets are not only slow, they are also buggy (problems with
PCI-to-PCI-bridge). This is probably caused by the horrible CMD 640B
EIDE controller.

Huhu.. di kantor yang lama dulu sempat ngurusin komputer2 dengan chipset OPTI ini… untung enggak punya penyakit darah tinggi.

Norton Navigator for Win 95
“If you want your Win95 to run on a P-100 like those with a DX2-66, get
this product,” one user reported. “Good features, terrible efficiency.”

LOL… still the same story with Symantec products now 🙁

Norton Utilities WAS an excellent product, but then Symantec bought them..

Acer 525e CD-Rom drives
These double speed CD-ROMs will not play sounds under WIN 95. Acer
believes that it is Microsoft’s problem and cannot fix the problem. This
is odd since it is often bundled with WIN 95 systems.

Perlu diingat bahwa zaman dahulu seringkali CDROM dibeli karena orang juga ingin mendengarkan CD Audio di komputer (gak perlu beli CD player lagi euy!)
Sekarang? “kakek, ini sudah zamannya MP3 !”

Lxycon CD-ROM/soundcard
The sound card is based on the Oak Technology Mozart Chip which should say
enough. The CD-ROM drive is also a piece of junk. The interface is a
ATAPI/IDE, but it is not ATAPI compliant. The drivers are “twitchy” and
there is no Linux support.

Konteks: Ini zaman ketika drive CDROM seringkali tidak bisa digunakan kalau belum meng-install drivernya (!), dan seringkali dibundle dengan soundcard (malah seringkali dicolok ke soundcard – bukan ke interface IDE / hard disk di motherboard)

NEC 4x IDE CD-ROM drive
A request to NEC for Win 3.1drivers returned this message: “This OEM cd-rom
reader cannot be supported by NEC due to the contractual agreements between
the OEM Dealers/PC Vendors and NEC-Japan. NEC does not provide any Technical
Support, Warranty or Service on this OEM cd-rom.” It’s a NEC drive, but NEC
does not support it. Also, it has been reported that NEC drives do not
support the CD_R gold disk technology.

Sanyo CD-ROM drives
This drive came in a plain box which simply stated Internal CD-ROM drive. The
paper work provided provides no information as to the type of interface and no
controller card is provided. Also, Win95 will not recognize this panasonic
clone; therefore, no 32-bit access is available.

TEAC 4X CD-55A CD-ROM
Many users have complained that this is the worse quad speed out. Another
users have found that certain TEAC drivers speed up the CD-ROM but that they
really draw a lot of system resources to do it. All users have been happier
with a CD-ROM with bigger cache. One user even noticed that it skipped while
playing music CDs.

Sujud syukur deh kalau Anda tidak sempat mengalami zaman ini 🙂