Old Computers

[jimlintott]

In the Mac vs PC thread the usable life of a desktop computer came up and I was wondering who out there is still using some old hardware to do work for you.

I have an old AMD300 machine with 32megs of RAM and 1.5gig HD that still plugs along 24/7 acting as the household router, firewall, DHCP server and web server. I think it's running Mandrake 9.1, not sure because I basically never touch it.

Only the power company ever shuts it off and we don't notice until we notice that the net is down. The power supply fan sounds like a coffee grinder when first turned on. I think the machine may be pushing ten years old.

What other old pieces of hardware are out there doing thier job fathfully?

 

[Gaspode]

I have an Sony Vaio PCG-F305 laptop which I bought in Jan 2000. It has a Pentium 2 366MHz, 64MB RAM, 6GB disk and Win98SE. I've upped the RAM to 192MB and installed Windows Xp Home and up until late last year I was still using it for surfing and Word documents.

It does struggle with the latest versions of current software (Adobe 7 barely runs at all) so I installed Linux Redhat which should make it last a few more years. If only I can get Redhat to talk to the wireless card.

The only reason I can think that it's lasted so long is that I rarely took it out of the house so it didn't get bashed around like most laptops.

 

[moopet]

I have an Sony Vaio PCG-F305 laptop which I bought in Jan 2000. It has a Pentium 2 366MHz, 64MB RAM, 6GB disk and Win98SE. I've upped the RAM to 192MB and installed Windows Xp Home and up until late last year I was still using it for surfing and Word documents.

It does struggle with the latest versions of current software (Adobe 7 barely runs at all) so I installed Linux Redhat which should make it last a few more years. If only I can get Redhat to talk to the wireless card.

The only reason I can think that it's lasted so long is that I rarely took it out of the house so it didn't get bashed around like most laptops.

I know this is a complete derailment, but it's something that bugs the hell out of me sometimes. What is Adobe 7? That's like saying, "I've got Microsoft installed". What Adobe product might you be talking about?

 

[The_Fire]

My spare is a P150 with 80 mb ram and 3 gb hd. It's loaded with win95, GIMP, Microsoft Office, a couple of old games and my scriptwriting stuff. Oh and IE 5.5.

 

[Gaspode]

I know this is a complete derailment, but it's something that bugs the hell out of me sometimes. What is Adobe 7? That's like saying, "I've got Microsoft installed". What Adobe product might you be talking about?

I know what you mean! I meant Adobe Acrobat 7.

It doesn't run Apple very well either.

 

[Doc Daneeka]

I have an old 286 sitting in the corner. I don't use it, but as of about 3 or 4 months ago, it worked. It has half a MB of RAM. I can remember that being very impressive, lol. Today, it doesn't even make a decent doorstop. Too big, you see. Mostly, it just sits in the corner to earn me geek points.

"Wow, is that what I think it is?"

 

[Starthinker]

I have a Compaq luggable, 8088, about 20 years old, boots to a 5.5 floppy that launches Win 3.1 in which "Clock.exe" opens automatically. So, it's basically my clock. I still have 8088's and 8086's that boot up and someday I'll pay the landfill fee to dump them. I just can't bear to throw something away that still turns on.

 

[196]

Due to a flood in our community last year, there are a lot of wrecked computers around. This semester I rescued a group of battered old Pentium-based towers. I was going to use them for parts, but when I found that they all still worked, I put them back into service in my high school computer classes. I use them in hands-on labs where students learn to repair PCs. They all survived the semester. Even the computer that had its hard drive dropped still works. There are enough spare parts that these computers can still be teaching long after I retire.

 

[Zep]

Huh!

I have a museum full of REAL computers (PCs are really just puffed up games machines! ) dating back to the 1950's. No chips, all discrete components, etc, and yes, some of them DO still run! Then there's the newer PC ones - Amigas, Commodores, early IBM's and Apple ]['s, etc.

At work, I regularly support a few commercial machines that date back to the early 1980's, and there's a plethora of them from the early 1990's still out there running fine even now. One particular 10-year-old system I managed until recently regularly clocked over 700 days continuous 24x7 uptime supporting real users running real apps, not just the odd spot of network traffic. And it's still running today...

 

[quixotecoyote]

If my parents haven't thrown 'em out I have 2 C64's with all the perprehrials sitting in storage back home. Of course, whether they work depends on where they've been stored.

 

[webfusion]

still usable but obsolete

I am offering a great old mac laptop on craigslist
http://baltimore.craigslist.org/sys/262654570.html

Several people called asking if it runs WinXP --- what can I say?!!!

(If someone you know is interested in this deal, it is still available, and I'll mail the computer and printer for whatever the standard shipping cost is, probably like $18.00)

 

[El Greco]

I have a 386 which I've turned into a dedicated SWOS station for playing with friends, although it's been more than a year that we actually played.

 

[a_unique_person]

I gave away my hand soldered, made in Australia, Z80 S100 CPU board to Zep, for preservation in his computer museum. It even came with blue prints. Unfortunately, I tossed them out. I hope he manages to save it for posterity, even if it's just in some cupboard till a few geeks in 100 years or so wonder what went on in the dawn of personal computing history.

 

[Gaspode]

If my parents haven't thrown 'em out I have 2 C64's with all the perprehrials sitting in storage back home. Of course, whether they work depends on where they've been stored.

That reminds me - I've also got a Commodore 64 bought in 1985 that still worked when I tried it last year. Successfully loaded Nemesis from tape onto it too. Had to play it using the keyboard since the joystick was lost years ago.

 

[Zep]

I gave away my hand soldered, made in Australia, Z80 S100 CPU board to Zep, for preservation in his computer museum. It even came with blue prints. Unfortunately, I tossed them out. I hope he manages to save it for posterity, even if it's just in some cupboard till a few geeks in 100 years or so wonder what went on in the dawn of personal computing history.

We've still got it packed away neatly!

 

[GregC]

In my office I have a 486sx25 with 4mb ram 400mb hd running dos 6.22. It has windows 3.11 but I don't use it at all. I use this to run two old dos programs that I can't get running properly on any newer boxes. One of the programs was written for a 286. The 486 is too fast for it. When I need to create a project on it I need to create it on a floppy disk and then copy it over to the hd. If I try to create the file on the hd the program bombs. If I even try to run the program in dos mode on a newer box it crashes. The other program will run on a newer machine but will not print properly. I don't print that often so I would use my main computer for it but as long as I have to have the old box for the first program...

 

[Ducky]

In the Mac vs PC thread the usable life of a desktop computer came up and I was wondering who out there is still using some old hardware to do work for you.

I have an old AMD300 machine with 32megs of RAM and 1.5gig HD that still plugs along 24/7 acting as the household router, firewall, DHCP server and web server. I think it's running Mandrake 9.1, not sure because I basically never touch it.

Only the power company ever shuts it off and we don't notice until we notice that the net is down. The power supply fan sounds like a coffee grinder when first turned on. I think the machine may be pushing ten years old.

What other old pieces of hardware are out there doing thier job fathfully?

I have a firewall/dhcp/DNS server running on a p3 800 with 256 of ram using pfsense. A second machine is running as a webserver/mysql server (not heavy loads on it) and it's a dual 650 with 512 of ram. That second machine is running opensolaris.

I have a PPC mac mini running very well as a synth/keyboards engine as well as serving the printer and my itunes library. Though that's a 1.4ghz ppc with a gig of ram and has some life left in it.

My wife's laptop is a dell refurbished 1.2 ghz with a gig of ram and a 40g drive running a dual boot between windows for her games and ubuntu for everything else.

My macbook pro is brand new, so that doesn't count.

 

[Ducky]

I have an Sony Vaio PCG-F305 laptop which I bought in Jan 2000. It has a Pentium 2 366MHz, 64MB RAM, 6GB disk and Win98SE. I've upped the RAM to 192MB and installed Windows Xp Home and up until late last year I was still using it for surfing and Word documents.

It does struggle with the latest versions of current software (Adobe 7 barely runs at all) so I installed Linux Redhat which should make it last a few more years. If only I can get Redhat to talk to the wireless card.

The only reason I can think that it's lasted so long is that I rarely took it out of the house so it didn't get bashed around like most laptops.

Depending on the chipset, that's not terribly difficult using a wrapper.

 

[jimlintott]

Huh!

I have a museum full of REAL computers (PCs are really just puffed up games machines! ) dating back to the 1950's. No chips, all discrete components, etc, and yes, some of them DO still run! Then there's the newer PC ones - Amigas, Commodores, early IBM's and Apple ]['s, etc.

At work, I regularly support a few commercial machines that date back to the early 1980's, and there's a plethora of them from the early 1990's still out there running fine even now. One particular 10-year-old system I managed until recently regularly clocked over 700 days continuous 24x7 uptime supporting real users running real apps, not just the odd spot of network traffic. And it's still running today...

Cool. What is it?

Most desktop PC users are unfamiliar with the reliability, stability and security that is available on big iron. Most desktop users think the occasional crash is normal and expected.

 

[Jeff Corey]

In our operant conditioning lab, we have a couple of relay racks with digibit card files wired to a Mac Panel with removable breadboards. After 30 years, we can have students run some pretty complex experiments reliably.