Category: computers

Remember Gateway 2000 computers?

Gateway 2000 was a computer company originally based in Iowa. They had very clever cow-based ads.

I bought my first Windows-based computer from them. It was in 1992. The CPU was a 486 DX2/66. The chip was so new it wasn’t even in their ads. I ordered over the phone. The computer had 4 MB of memory and a 120 MB hard drive. It had an internal modem. I am guessing it was 1200 baud. I paid $199 to upgrade from a 14″ monitor to a 15″ inch monitor. The best thing about it was the case. It was a huge tower – big enough to hold four hard drives – and it was made of metal, not plastic. It had two floppy disc drives. It didn’t have a sound card or CD-ROM drive. They weren’t standard then and I installed them myself later. I paid about $3,500 in 1992 dollars.

Gateway 2000 was cool. A friend and his family took a cross-country trip and stopped at the plant. They got a picture with Ted Waitt, the founder of Gateway 2000 who was in some of their ads.

I later got another desktop and laptop from them. The company moved to California and was later sold.

I ordered one