Is there anyone who uses a 486 or older computer? Actually, I suppose the original Pentium computers have even fallen into the “ancient” category now as the original Pentium debuted 9 years ago (makes me feel so old now). Does anyone still have, say, an 8088, or even a Commodore 64 that is currently used for a practical purpose (not just for a hobby, for playing games, or for letting the kids use it)? What uses do you have for it? For this thread, the older the computer, the better.
Well, I did get a new iMac about a year ago, but until then I had a 1991 Mac IIsi, 68020 processor, 40 MB HD; it ran at about 19 mHz. 256 colors. 9 MB RAM. No Photoshop for jj.
I wouldn’t be here if I had a really old PC! And dial up would be painful, altho’ I must sometimes use it on the road… 
Mr Cazzle ran a BBS from one of his C64’s for a while last year. Other than that… no. But we know people who still use 486’s as their main (only) computers… I think one of my cousins has a 386 that he stores 15 years of genealogical research on.
I run circa-1990 pool & billiard room software on a 386sx. Using experienced fingers and a few macros, a speed greater than Windows-based programs is achieved. We upgraded from a 286 when the 386 was cheap and had a real small footprint.
Of course, The SDMB gets the Pentium treatment in the office.
NASA!!! They were in the news a while back because they buy up old PCs and whatnot off eBay and other places for use on the space shuttles, etc. (Hubble’s running a 486 machine!)
I still use the 486 DX4-100 I got 7 years ago at home. It has a 850MB HDD and a whopping 8MB of RAM. It runs Linux and all I can really use it for is text mode browsing on the Internet, IRC and a bit of programming.
At university though I have a 1.4GHz Pentium to play with.
I have a 486 that is presently my workshop computer. This means that it is not working now, but it did last month and hopefully will next month again. It is presently having its box modded and its OS replaced with Linux. Its not going too well 
All joking aside, that little beauty has saved my ass manys a time when something craps out on one of the “big” computers here. 28k dialup is plenty to go driver hunting. Hopefully it will one day grow up to be a router for the network.
On the oldschool front, I still have my Amiga 500 (beefed out to 1 meg ram!), my C64, and …
My ZX81 !!! Someone better have a univac to beat this baby…
Let me find a link… All my machines work, but I haven’t used them properly in quite a while. http://www.honneamise.u-net.com/zx81/index.html 1k ram … classic…
(I am a Guardian of Old Tech if you’ve followed some of my posts here. Vacuum tube equipment, etc. I’ve bought and sold Beta VCRs recently, as in “last Friday”.)
Computers:
My current laptop is a Toshiba 1000XE. 10 MHz XT processor, 1MB ram, (flaky) 20MB HD, mono screen. Boots Windows 3.0 so fast you have to see it to believe it. Runs WordPerfect 5.2. But doesn’t do networking except for a parallel cable. Ugh.
I am fixing my next laptop now: Dell Latitude 433c. 486SX 33MHz, 8MB ram, getting a “new” 810MB HD, 640x256 VGA screen. I might be able to run Windows 95 on it. Or Linux. Just got a network card for it, etc. Actually heavier than the older one.
My desktops are all Socket 7, 533Mhz max stuff. I have tons of pre-Pentium stuff but I think only one AMD 586 still working. (And it’s in my old XT case!)
I bought a working Timex-Sinclair 1000 recently for a couple bucks to play with. ZX81 rules!
Best I can come up with is my PC at work: an HP Pavilion 3265 with a 233Mhz Pentium. I also have a Compaq Presario 1625 at home with the same processor. Mrs. Blue Sky uses the laptop to do her lesson plans and tests while I’m on the “new” computer. She still hasn’t figured out how to save to a floppy for me to print. I COULD network the two, but it’s easier that way. Hell, I started on computers waaaaayyyyy back in the DOS days, so it’s no big deal.
Ooh… P166mhz here. That’s the best I can do.
And it runs Win98SE. Sorta.
Probably the only reason I upgraded from my old home-brew 486 is that the people at the college I went to insisted it couldn’t be connected to their network. I’m now running Windows 95 on a 233 MHz Packard Bell from 1998, spray painted metallic green with a handful of stickers. I used to have a Yugo emblem on it, but I found that made the computer twice as unreliable. I don’t plan on upgrading any time soon - I just use it for web surfing anyway.
Sometimes I do get an old C64 out of the closet at my parents’ house to play the old Loadstar games on it, though.
This is being posted on a Packard Bell Pentium 120 overclocked to a blazing 133Mhz running Windows 95, Version 4.00.950 B! Upgraded to 48 Mb of EDO ram With two hard drives, yet. The original 1.2 Ghz running at 5400 rpm and a huge 15Gig Western Digital drive running at a breathtaking 7200 rpm! Wow! The latest tech gear is great!! Go ahead; talk shit now!
I admit I’m more insistent than most these days about having something within the realm of the ‘latest ‘n’ greatest,’ but being a hardware guy, people constantly bring me the old stuff and ask plaintively if it can be made more like the new stuff. What with the progressive shifts in interfaces, busses, form factors, even software, the answer is almost always, “Well, no.” Still, I putter…
My latest project is an old Magitronic unit (company long gone, 'course) with a proprietary mainboard running a red-hot 486-33. Thumbing through my collection of junk, I’ve managed to put together an old but unused Amptron Socket-7 mainboard and some other odds and ends that appear to fit in the old AT desktop case the guy brought me. With a Pentium 100 CPU that I’ve probably sold to various people at least five times, and some EDO SIMMs I’ve scabbed over the years, I might just be able to make something of it.
It hasn’t been that many years ago that I parted with my beloved C128. With most of the OS carried on RAM, Commodore oversold the C64; many of you will remember the bootup screen that told you that you had roughly half of the 64K to work with. The 128 gave you the whole enchilada though, with the OS where it should have always been – on a ROM chip. That 128 was a hell of a learning tool for me, and I still prefer its keyboard to the one I’m using now, at least for feel. Always wanted to find a C128D, the one with a floppy drive built in, but never did…
I use a HP Visualize C160. It’s a 160Mhz PA-RISC system. I have Linux on it, and use it for a firewall/router. It came out around 1996, so it’s somewhat old (which makes it a dinosaur computerwise). It originally retailed for about $27,000, and I got it thirdhand for free, so I ain’t complainin’, plus it does it’s job perfectly, and you can warm up frozen food items from the excess heat!
I use two old 486-66’s to control CNC machines on a regular basis. They’re $5 these days and run as well as a modern computer in this application.
Not to mention enjoying some old fashioned DOS games once in a while. 
Just spent the better part of today configuring and upgrading the software on 5 old PC’s in my wife’s classroom. There were, I believe, at least two 486-class machines, possibly three. One or two very early Pentiums, and one more recent, possibly a PII. Upgrading some of them just so they could see the web without puking was a painful process.
In past years, I’ve done the same with some even older PC’s, and more than a few ancient classic Macs.
I have to say, the computers our country’s teachers are expected to use in their classrooms are deplorable. It’s a subtle crime, especially when most of them (my wife excluded) don’t know what to do to make it better. They need better machines, or better tech training… preferably both.
Anyway… teachers (and their students) use really old computers all the time.
I have a 486, used as recently as a year ago. There’s some software that doesn’t require much CPU or disk space, and is too much trouble to port to my main computer.
I also have a Macintosh w/o a hard drive. I would use that still for writing, if the CRT wasn’t trying to flake out. Nothing like a computer that makes no noise at all. No fan, no disk drive, no speaker…
It’s not incredibly uncommon for businesses to use computers until they’re run into the ground. If they work for the basic bookkeeping, inventory… whatever they were purchased for … there are reasons to use them indefinitely.
Then there are some situations, say with NASA spacecraft, computers, and software (or military equipment), where the testing process is so long and expensive that upgrading to faster computers is impractical. Many NASA newbies are shocked at how ancient some equipment is. But as far as NASA (and others) are concerned, it’s “better safe than sorry”.
I have a Packard Bell 70mhz, 1.1 GB Hard drive, with windows 95, oem v1. Its fun stuff…not to slow for what it is…
I have several that I use. An old 386sx is a novell server that does nothing on my in-home network but serve up a minor amount of disk space for the kids. My 8088 still runs, and I turn it on from time to time just to fiddle around wtih it. I have two 486 machines, a 33mhx and a DX4-100. The first is running Windows 3.11 and houses a database that I use to keep track of some of my E-Bay stuff, the second runs a copy of windows 3.11 and I use it to play 4-D boxing, since 4D won’t run on anything else.