What is the oldest computer that you currently use, whether at home or at work? I know a lot of us have a 386 system sitting in the attic that hasn’t seen the light of day since Windows 95 was released. I’m mostly interested in are the systems that you use and what you use them for. What operating systems and other software do you run in them? If you do have an old system just sitting around and would like to mention it, that’s fine, too.
One of my oldest systems actively in use is a 300MHz laptop that uses Windows 98. The hard drive is 6GB and it has 32MB RAM. I believe it was new in late 1999/early 2000 as I bought it secondhand. I mostly use it for drafting emails that I work on while waiting in restaurants and at other idle times when I am away from home. It has no Internet connectivity, so I physically transfer files between it and my workstation at home via a USB flash drive (which required a special driver to use in W98). I run Word 97 and Excel 97 onm it, I also have an IBM server that was brand new in 1996 and still suits my needs today. It has dual 200MHz processors and 64MB RAM with a RAID-array set of hard drives. My brother-in-law acquired it as surplus from some government office that had used it. I run Linux on it as a server in my living room.
I have a 486 DOS only computer in my office.
I use it about twice a week for 10 minutes to run a program of civil engineering calculations that I bought in 1991. The program has been updated for Windows since then, but the mathematics remains the same. It fits my needs perfectly, so why pay for a new version.?
I still use a 6-year-old Compaq laptop at home. The HD and RAM have been upgraded (to 40 gig and 128 mb, respectively). It runs Windows XP. I’ve been wanting to replace it for years but there always seems to be a higher priority to spend money on. One of these days it’s just going to give up the ghost and I won’t have a choice.
My main computer that I use every day is a Dell that was purchased in 2000. But I’ve upgraded the CPU, hard drives, and all kinds of other things in the last 3 years. Still works great.
I use a mid-1980s DOS box running my own data acquisition software partly in FORTH and partly in Assembly, at work. Right now I have 8 at work and about 15 at home, including a 4.77 MHz IBM PC that worked the last time I ran it. My oldest machine that is connected and runs when I just flip a switch is a 286.
I also have a drawer full of Z80’s but they don’t have anything to run in at the moment.
And I have a K&E Log Log Duplex Decitrig sitting on my dresser - does it count? I’ve owned it since 1969 but it was probably 20 years old then.
I use it at least once every day Monday-Friday, and oftentimes also from home (in both cases I Timbuktu into it and control it from a much more modern PowerBook).
It runs MacOS 8.6. (It can boot systems as old as 7.5, but 8.6 is what I can honestly say I use every day of the work-week for at least brief intervals).
We have two server volumes, one of which is for work-in-process and the other of which is published to client access via web. I handle the request to “make job xxx live”. FileMaker automatically opens the respective folders in Finder and I select and copy the appropriate files. They are TIFFs in the 250 MB to 2.5 GB range, plus Quarks and fonts and whatnot, and the volumes are accessed via AppleTalk.
MacOS X, trying to be modern and slick and fancy, is determined to display each and every TIFF as a calculated thumbnail, which means the OS must read all the TIFF info over the network and calculate the thumbnail via algorithm. That totally destroys the otherwise overwhelming superiority of the gigabit ethernet connection and the fast data path — the 10 year old OS 8.6 machine with 10 base T and frontside bus of 40 MHz (IIRC) can open folders, display contents (as generic TIFF file icons, thank you), and copy them over AppleTalk about as fast if not faster than much more modern equipment. More to the point, I can hand off that task to the 7100 and continue using my regular computer for other things.
So the old relic is still gainfully employed and I’m getting good use out of it!
(It does have a 210 MHz G3 upgrade card in it, so I suppose it’s misleading to imply that I’m using an 80 MHz machine every day)
The home computer, which is perfectly adequate for composing this post, is a PC clone with an AMD processor running Windows 98. It’s becoming more and more difficult to find software that works with Windows 98, but for now we’re hanging tough. The plastic case to to the CPU is showing the passing of the years, though. It’s slowly but surely taking on the color of a lifelong smoker’s teeth. We use this computer for everything. We’re kind of primitive – no gaming, no CD burning, no downloading songs. Just the internet and some word processing, spreadsheets, and photo editing.
I also have a rarely used IBM Thinkpad that runs Windows 95. Last time I turned it on, a couple of months ago, it ran fine.
I use an organic model that first went online in 1957. It is very slow and imposable to upgrade. It also has a strange type of spell check in that I know a word is wrong but can not fix it.
I have a sort-of IBM DOS 386 that I use exclusively for writing (in WordPerfect 5.1+). I use it daily. I need to get it checked out because the only problem I’ve had since the Great Hard Drive Crash of 1995 is that the b&w monitor caught fire. (I think this was in about 1998). It will run Windows 3.xxx, but not very well.
Actually the one that’s connected to the Internet is something of an antique, too. Bought it back in ought-one. I mention this only because people have come into this thread and talked about Windows 98.
I have a Toshiba 200MHZ machine that I bought in 1997 running Mandriva Linux in the corner of the kids room.
I maxed out its memory (256mb) and hard drives (2x128gb) and it’s now a handy dandy file server on our network.
The server runs Samba.
Our entire MP3 library as well as all of our photos reside on that server.
Samba is configured so whenever a kid logs in to a Windows machine anywhere in the house, he/she has a personal network drive, quite useful for having a common area for their homework. That way, the kids can work on any available machine and have access to the same files.
It’s actually pretty darned stable – it usually runs for a few months unattended until there is a brief power outage and then it reboots.
I’ve still got the 350mhz PII that I bought back in 98 when a 400 was the fastest you could get at the time. It still has the original 8.4g HD in it and win 98 (re-installed about 75 times). The kids use it several times a week for their kiddy games. The only real upgrades are as follows; Ram upgrade from 32 to 384M, video upgrade from the 8M Vodoo to a 32 meg ATI, and swapping out the CD rom to a CD burner. It works flawlessly for the children, prolly 'cause it’s never on the net anymore. I used to play Half-Life on this thing.
Oh, it had the MB replaced back in '02 or so and the power supply isn’t the same anymore. I still use the Epson (photo stylus) printer that came with it. That printer is a brick, and prints pretty good photos too, for its age.
I remember my Dad telling me when I bought the computer that I would NEVER fill up that much harddrive space. Of course, he was speaking with his 386 (with a 512 Meg harddrive and like 2 grams of Ram) as his reference.
I have a Mac LC II currently hooked up (68030 processor), with System 7 on it. I still boot it up in system 6 from time to time to play a couple old games.
I recently acquired a few old early model Macs (SE, SE/30 variety, but including one Mac Plus – 68000 processor) – I plan to get at least one of those up and running, because I still have some boxes of old programs on floppies that ran on original Mac models. Want to dig some of those out and see what’s still working. Haven’t had time to play with them yet.
Here at work, I use a 1998-vintage Dell. Recently, we stopped using early-'90s, 75 MHz CPU computers running our automation in DOS. They had been in service, nonstop, for 12 years. They don’t make the parts for them anymore, so we had no choice but to upgrade to recent computers running Windows and real automation software. We still use one old computer running OS/2 Warp. That’ll be retired in a couple of months.
