Solid Block of Ise

I recently turned 30 years old. Supposedly it’s a milestone, but I feel just as silly as ever. In most cases, as far as I’m concerned age is yet another bogus measure of a human beings worth.

Anyhoo, one of my oldest friends, Magnus Lindholm (the same bloke who recently welcomed his first child) recently gave me the nerdiest gift ever. I was in shock for several minutes after being presented with it. I had planned to keep it a secret for a few weeks longer but I just can’t control myself any longer.

Without further ado:

“What the heck is that?” you might ask. Well, he’d found one of my old motherboards complete with shipping-label and slapped it inside a frame as a kind of monument or reward of some kind. The motherboard in question is my first 32-bit computer, an AM386SX-40 that I bought to upgrade my then-computer which consisted of an ancient 286. I can’t remember how long ago this was. We’re not quite sure that the shipping label is the right one, but it’s neat none the less. This thing dates from the early nineties, probably around 1992 or so.

How he got possession of this piece of computer history is rather convoluted. Apparently I gave it to a mutual friend at some point in time, which in turn passed it into his mothers computer for a cheap upgrade, and served there for several years until it transferred somewhere else and then somewhere else and somehow ended up in Magnus’ hands where it lay dormant for several years until he discovered it in an old box of stuff not too long ago. He then framed it with the supposed shipping-label and provided a helluva laugh for me.

This motherboard provided a lot of fun for me and my nerdy friends. Among other milestones, this was the motherboard that allowed us to try Doom for the first time.

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