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Old Computers

jimlintott said:
What other old pieces of hardware are out there doing their job faithfully?
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My original DTP SE/30 is still working as a print server, and a few NeXTCube (68040)s are still running websites for clients. (Ain't broke; don't fix it.)

My nieces still play Gorf on my 1980 Commodore Vic-20. I'm not sure if that counts as "doing its job".
 
Oh, oh, I forgot about the Sinclair! Not that I'd call it a "computer," by today's standards, but hey, at least it was better than a trash-80 (if only marginally)!
 
Starthinker said:
They still had OS/2 on them. Did that die out with the PS/2? I managed to get Win98 to run, but it was nothing to write home about.
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No IBM actually just stopped officially supporting OS/2 a few weeks ago as odd as that sounds. 12/31/06 was the last day. What most people do not realize is that despite the lack of known success OS/2 was the prime OS for ATM's until ~2003/4 when windows finally became stable enough to run. In fact there is still a pretty large number of OS/2 ATM's running around the world right now, but most should be gone in the next 1-2 years

For Old boxes, up until very recently I ran an IBM PC300GL from 99/2000 it was a P3 333 I believe that I had set up as a router/firewall and for some games that ran on Win2K Pro (I now have it as a Virtual Machine, though I never run it) I also have a P3 750 mhz 512 RAM IBM think pad running Win2k circa 2001 that up until this time last year was my prime machine. I still use it occasionally for web browsing and such though the battery lasts all of 5-10 mins. I am going to rebuild it soon as a kitchen computer for my wife/kids.
 
A lot of you have me beat it looks like. The oldest computer I have is an IBM PS/2 486dx50, bought between '91 and '94 (can't remember for sure, sorry), which I keep just to run old games, like Simcity 2000 (had to upgrade it to 8megs of ram to get it to run! :D), and my favorites, Starflight 1 and 2.

The oldest computer I have for actual productive stuff though is a toshiba 2545 laptop (333Mhz), which runs all the essentials when I'm away from home.

My grandmother used to run an antique shop, and we'd picked up a couple of IBM PC's and PC juniors (8086's), and they ran fine back then (2001), but I have no idea what happened to them, probably dead by now.
 
I have a bunch of old computers in my barn, including, until recently, a Panasonic Sr. Partner, a Compaq-like luggable PC XT clone that had a built-in thermal printer. I gave it to my daughter, who likes to sell junk on Ebay. I don't know what it went for, but she says someone in the Ukraine bought it and paid 160 bucks for shipping!

I'm hoping she'll take my pair of original Compaqs next.
 
Crazycowbob said:
A lot of you have me beat it looks like. The oldest computer I have is an IBM PS/2 486dx50, bought between '91 and '94 (can't remember for sure, sorry), which I keep just to run old games, like Simcity 2000 (had to upgrade it to 8megs of ram to get it to run! :D), and my favorites, Starflight 1 and 2.
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SF2, one of the most fun games I ever played. Never did get to the end though. I wonder if that's downloadable somewhere?
 
A c64...and don't laugh... my present in use computer is an Intel dot.station with a 256 MB ram, 10 GB HDD and a Pentium III 700mhz processor. I am very happy with it because it does what I need it to do.
 
Susheel said:
A c64...and don't laugh... my present in use computer is an Intel dot.station with a 256 MB ram, 10 GB HDD and a Pentium III 700mhz processor. I am very happy with it because it does what I need it to do.
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I don't see anything to laugh about then. As I mentioned earlier, my girlfriend's is just a notch below that even, and she's a developer. What IMO is laughable is people spending big wads of money on machines they don't really need and likely won't in the near future just to keep up w/the Jonesies.
 
bigred said:
I don't see anything to laugh about then. As I mentioned earlier, my girlfriend's is just a notch below that even, and she's a developer. What IMO is laughable is people spending big wads of money on machines they don't really need and likely won't in the near future just to keep up w/the Jonesies.
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... or if they don't know what they want. I've just given a friend of mine, who's curious about PCs and the net but doesn't have any spare cash at all, an old P2/350 with a load of RAM onboard, running W2K and loaded with all kinds of interesting bits and pieces - all legal, I hasten to add. He's doing a bit of dialup surfing and mail and some officey stuff and having a ball, secure in the knowledge that he hasn't paid €x (that he doesn't really have) for a machine that would be running at 99% idle the whole time.

The developing thing is interesting, too. What little serious code I write nowadays I prefer to write on an old and underpowered box, on the basis that if it compiles and runs properly there it'll do the job properly on a more modern machine. I do have colleagues whose reaction to a bit of code running slowly is not to review it for efficiency, but simply to order a bigger bit of kit.
 
Well in fairness I don't know how hard she really pushes her machine when she works at home and I think her speed is largely dependent on her Citrix connection so the old PC might not be as much of a bottleneck as you might think....still, the point is it's used for more than net surfing and email and although a little annoyingly slow at times, is holding up amazingly well. In fact if WinME was worth a crap she wouldnt' have upgraded to XP and probably would be running even faster.
 
I recently sold my last ZX81. Before I did, I typed in 1K chess and played it - and it worked. That's right, chess in 1K (which is all the base ZX81 had).

Kind of weird to think that my current PC, which is 2 years old, has more memory than all the ZX81s ever produced.
 
I've still got my old Tandy 1000! Runs DOS 5.3, I think. I don't use it anymore, but it's in the closet and if I wanted to, I'm sure it would boot up.
 
baron said:
I recently sold my last ZX81. Before I did, I typed in 1K chess and played it - and it worked. That's right, chess in 1K (which is all the base ZX81 had).

Kind of weird to think that my current PC, which is 2 years old, has more memory than all the ZX81s ever produced.
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Hard to believe how, not so long ago, we sat hunched over the screen, banging on big heavy keyboards with clubs.


BTW, is you avatar painted or CG?
 
IMSAI, Cromemco Z80, 64K RAM, OP-80 reader, Tarbell floppy controller. 300 baud TI thermal keyboard/printer.

Can't wait to get Colosal Cave running.
 
Olivetti P44, 486/25 processor 16Mb RAM, now consigned to the loft

Just replaced in the last month a 1999 vintage PC which was the destop at home.
 
Thx I was wondering if I missed the big thermal keyboard craze :cool:
 
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