My first compaq was actually a bar-mitzvah gift to my brother in 1995. It was alright...it had the basics for a computer of that year, but still, many of the other computers available during that time seemed to surpass the capabilities of mine.
In 1999, I had my bar-mitzvah, my grandpa not knowning alot about comps purchased yet another Compaq for us. This time, the computer was only sane for about 2months before it started to wack out on me. Constantly freezing, illegal operations and such. Not a fun situation to deal with.
The computer i’m on right now is a Compaq Presario 7000. Just two weeks ago I had to quick restore it due to the fact that it was doing the same thing as my old computer. Overall, Compaq comps aren’t the most reliable. I suggest you go with a Gateway or Dell.