Back in 1984 when I was learning to programme on a Acorn BBC Model B Micro (which I still have) my brother Brian was starting to replace his company’s IBM desktop computers for the new cheaper and better clones. Rather than trash an IBM 286 he asked if I wanted it. Wow, a whole 256KB of RAM, a 10MB full height hard drive and a green screen monitor.

The first change was the monitor, quickly followed by a whole 1MB RAM and a 130MB hard drive; and over the years my workstation has kept pace with the advances in technology.

I have just upgraded yet again; this time the motherboard is an Asus P8Z77-VLX with an Intel Quad Core i7 processor, 32GB RAM, A 500GB 6Gb/s SATA System drive and 2x1TB SATA drives mirrored as a Data drive.

The memory and drives I just brought didn’t cost me much more than the first upgrades I purchased for that old 286.