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Phrea
June 11th, 2010, 06:17 PM
I posted a few pictures of some old stuff I have, and people seem to react to it, so I thought; why not dedicate a thread about old[er] hardware and software.

A few of my old machines (http://i.imgur.com/GPRWr.jpg).
The one on the left isn't obsolete, it just sits in the picture to make me feel modern and youthful.
The one in the middle, with the amber screen is an IBM 5155 'portable' computer [people call them luggable nowadays]. It still works, but as you may see, on the picture it runs without any system disk, I was too lazy to put one in.
The machine running on the right is a Macintosh Classic, I believe it runs MacOS 7.0.1.

The flat thing on top of the IBM 5155 is an IBM PC Convertible with a printer attached at the back, it does not run, it lacks a power supply.
The computer on the shelf above is an Apple ][ Europlus, it still works, but it sadly misses Disk I.

Behind the small monitor on top of the Macintosh Classic is an Apple Macintosh ED.

A few more machines (http://i.imgur.com/t5ngc.jpg).
Left to right: Commodore Plus/4, Atari 130XE [brand spanking new], Atari 2600 [also brand spanking new], Commodore 64, keyboard for a Sinclair ZX81, the Sinclair ZX81 itself [and yes, that is a picture of my grandpa next to it, may he rest in peace].
Lower shelf, in the middle, that's a Commodore VIC 20.
Lower shelf, on the right: do I really need to explain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh7YE-BMA7Q)? ;)

Also, a monster IBM HDD (http://i.imgur.com/To1N6.jpg) with a 5.25", a 3.5" and a 2.5" hdd in front of it. I think the big disk is 5MB, but not sure.

I've got a few more, but I can't take pictures of them atm, it's a bit of a mess !

Show us what you've got please !

Cheers.

juancarlospaco
June 11th, 2010, 06:19 PM
ok

kaldor
June 11th, 2010, 07:20 PM
Loving those oldschool macs!

Brent0
June 11th, 2010, 07:29 PM
Does that HDD have a motor? :shock:

Phrea
June 11th, 2010, 07:31 PM
Does that HDD have a motor? :shock:

That grey thing on the bottom left is the motor. :D
Yes, it's huuuuuuuge.

emarkay
June 11th, 2010, 08:44 PM
http://i.imgur.com/GPRWr.jpg

Reminds me of my office in 1983 or so... Trackball and all; of course only the "wierd "guy had the Mac - but he did show me how to scan things with the hand scanner... We used AT&T PC's and soon, I got myself a keen AST Premium 286 with the whopping 1.2Mb of RAM for about $2000 - and a gen-u-wine Epson FX-80 printer too!

But Hey, Bud, where's the AST TurboLaser and the Davong Hard Disk Unit; and the Ashton Tate dBaseII binders ? :)

Phrea
June 11th, 2010, 08:46 PM
http://i.imgur.com/GPRWr.jpg

My office in 1983 or so...

Where's the AST TurboLaser and the Davong Hard Disk Unit; and the Ashton Tate dBaseII binders ? :)

Do you have any pictures?
Pictures made back then are even cooler than what I've posted !

cariboo
June 11th, 2010, 09:16 PM
This is just a small part of my mac collection:

http://imgur.com/gBNfYs.jpg (http://imgur.com/gBNfY.jpg)

The G3 on the right is running headless with Debian stable, I use it for an mp3 player

The computer on the left is a Compaq with 400Mhz celeron 256Mb ram and is currently being upgraded to Lucid.

I also have a Blueberry iMac running Xubuntu

http://imgur.com/hRQN1s.jpg (http://imgur.com/hRQN1.jpg)

I have several more Macs including a Mac Classic stored at another location. BTW everything still works.

Phrea
June 11th, 2010, 09:27 PM
This is just a small part of my mac collection:

[...]

I have several more Macs including a Mac Classic stored at another location. BTW everything still works.

Please, take the time and boot a few of those up, and take pictures !

* Phrea does not feel all that alone anymore :D

cariboo
June 11th, 2010, 10:47 PM
They'll have to wait until next week, as I've got several projects on the go at the moment. I just took the time to dig them out from under the work bench to take a picture. :) Then put them back again.

Phrea
June 11th, 2010, 10:58 PM
This (http://i.imgur.com/qwGHE.jpg) is a 486 [laptop] I kicked online about a year ago, using Blueflops [live diskette distro].
What you see is the machine on IRC [what else ;) ].

Yes
June 12th, 2010, 12:31 AM
The oldest computer I have is a 486 laptop. I installed DOS 6 on it and Windows 3.1 for awhile, then switched to BasicLinux 3.5 which works quite well. Here's a few pictures of it in action:

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2675/img1183le5.jpg
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/1749/img1180hd9.jpg
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/8183/img1179se3.jpg

Frogs Hair
June 12th, 2010, 02:32 AM
I like the old-school tech museum , and I don't even have to travel to see it.

forrestcupp
June 12th, 2010, 03:06 AM
I posted a few pictures of some old stuff I have, and people seem to react to it, so I thought; why not dedicate a thread about old[er] hardware and software.

Boy, you were spoiled.

magmon
June 12th, 2010, 03:43 AM
I have found quite a few odd old objects in my basement recently.

Edit- After reviewing the thread, I've discovered that my old objects are space age in comparison to some of the others xD. Ah well, I'm too young to have any older tech.

My collection of compact flash cards. They are 8 mbs, 16 mbs, 32 mbs and 2 gig. Also shown is the adapter. (http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/378/20100611202647.jpg)

A legitimate copy of windows NT workstation 4.0, and the installation floppies. (http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/2698/20100611202818.jpg)

My trusty little compaq armada m300. (http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/5017/20100611202857.jpg)

My trackball. (http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/1272/20100611202940.jpg)

A mini SD card. I was recently told that these are no longer in use and a quite outdated. I use them all the time lol. I have about six of the little beasties. (http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/4176/20100611203016.jpg)

Windows Nerd
June 12th, 2010, 04:19 AM
The oldest computer I have is a 486 laptop. I installed DOS 6 on it and Windows 3.1 for awhile, then switched to BasicLinux 3.5 which works quite well. Here's a few pictures of it in action:

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2675/img1183le5.jpg
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/1749/img1180hd9.jpg
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/8183/img1179se3.jpg
Sorry for not being exactly on-topic, but I have an old laptop (I think it is a 486, it runs Windows 95 atm) and I have been searching around for a Linux Distro to use on it. It has 8megs of RAM and 167 mghz processor. Will Basic Linux 3.5 work on it?

Scott

Yes
June 12th, 2010, 04:59 AM
Sorry for not being exactly on-topic, but I have an old laptop (I think it is a 486, it runs Windows 95 atm) and I have been searching around for a Linux Distro to use on it. It has 8megs of RAM and 167 mghz processor. Will Basic Linux 3.5 work on it?

Scott

Absolutely, it would run fantastically on that.

proggy
June 12th, 2010, 05:17 AM
I have no old computers left but memories of the sounds when it booted up and ran is music to my ears. Now my current box is so quiet it`s like it shut-off.

lostinxlation
June 12th, 2010, 06:18 AM
you guys must love this.

http://www.amazon.com/Core-Memory-Visual-Vintage-Computers/dp/B001Q3M6HU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276319885&sr=1-1

cascade9
June 12th, 2010, 07:03 AM
Also, a monster IBM HDD (http://i.imgur.com/To1N6.jpg) with a 5.25", a 3.5" and a 2.5" hdd in front of it. I think the big disk is 5MB, but not sure.


Argh! The 5.25 is a quantum bigfoot! They were the worst drives I ever used.

lisati
June 12th, 2010, 07:33 AM
Sorry about the fuzzy picture, I'm still finding my way around photo editing tools on Ubuntu. The pic is of my old desktop, which I've had about 10 years - the BIOS is dated some time round 1996. It came with Win98SE, a 1Gb hard drive and 64Mb of RAM, and runs at 133MHz. I replaced the origial HDD with a 3Gb unit, and more recently pulled out the sound card and modem to give it USB and ethernet. It's currently got a CLI installation of Ubuntu 6.06. The monitor's a bit unreliable and doesn't always work. It's a bit slower than what I've gotten used to - it takes about 3 minutes to boot into a usable state, but at least it works!

handy
June 12th, 2010, 11:20 AM
Argh! The 5.25 is a quantum bigfoot! They were the worst drives I ever used.

There were some 3.5" HDDs that came from India some time around 7 or 8 years ago. From memory they had the the top face of the drive glued on & they were half as thick as ordinary 3.5 drives are. They were the worst drives I ever came across. Their life expectancy was very short.

I remember the bigfoot as slow.

llawwehttam
June 12th, 2010, 11:24 AM
Sadly I chucked out most of my old stuff recently, had a rig from 1994, still kept the windows 3.1 install floppy's and the dos floppy but this was one of the older things I kept:
http://i755.photobucket.com/albums/xx192/llawwehttam/th_P1000387.jpg (http://s755.photobucket.com/albums/xx192/llawwehttam/?action=view&current=P1000387.jpg)

Yanno
June 12th, 2010, 12:40 PM
pretty old guys ahha!!!

K.Mandla
June 12th, 2010, 01:27 PM
I moderate the forums with this:

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/files/2007/11/fmv-5120.jpg?w=112 (http://kmandla.wordpress.com/files/2007/11/fmv-5120.jpg)

Pentium 120Mhz running Crux Linux and 2.6.34. Techy details here (http://kmandla.wordpress.com/hardware#FMV-5120).

mr.farenheit
June 12th, 2010, 04:22 PM
i need a pic of my ti-994a

Mark76
June 14th, 2010, 08:54 AM
http://i.imgur.com/t5ngc.jpg

You're related to Richard Attenborough? :shock:

Guitar John
June 15th, 2010, 01:01 AM
This is my old Dell Inspiron 3500. I bought it new in 1999. It was my first computer.

Specs then: Win98, 6 GB, 366 MHz, 32 MB

Specs now: Puppy 431, 60 GB, 366 MHz, 256 MB

When I took the picture, it was running Xubuntu 8.04, which ran really slow but it did run. Puppy is much faster on it.

WinterRain
June 15th, 2010, 03:38 AM
I want a commodore 64. I think it would be cool to play around with.

witeshark17
June 15th, 2010, 04:13 AM
Those are so cool; now Ima go looking in second hand stores and see what I can find... :popcorn:

Phrea
June 30th, 2010, 09:15 PM
I promised you guys a few more pictures.
This time from an Atari Mega [including Steinberg Cubase 2]:

Photo 1 (http://i.imgur.com/UevQL.jpg), a nice overview, with the Atari booting [it's checking it's memory in this picture].
Photo 2 (http://i.imgur.com/tybNH.jpg), the desktop, and the desktop configuration screen. Sorry for the bad picture.

McRat
June 30th, 2010, 09:54 PM
I posted pics in a different thread about old desktop computers I'm still using actively today, every day. 8" floppy discs, S100 bus, Z-80 Zilog CPU, base system is CP/M. Attached is a 486-33DX to process the output.

Here's the thing. It was a good tool 20 years ago, and it does exactly the same thing today. Getting a newer computer wouldn't make it any better. I actually doubt any computer made today would last 20 years non-stop.

Phrea
June 30th, 2010, 09:59 PM
I've seen your post.
Nobody EVER expected the computers posted here to last 20 or 30+ years, yet they did.

If I remember your post correctly, it's never been really clear what they did. But I might be wrong, because I can't find that post anymore. Please c/p it here.

mr-woof
June 30th, 2010, 10:07 PM
wow guys, you lot have still some old stuff! :)

I recently picked up an IBM thinkpad 2645, p2-300, 256mb ram and a 6gb drive i think. I've having a play about with various distro's for it, puppy and dsl don't seem to like the graphics, but Lubuntu works really well.

I really need to get a picture :)

Out of interest, how many pc's/laptops etc do you all have? 5? 10?

McRat
June 30th, 2010, 10:13 PM
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9504932&postcount=27

While I've only been in business 17 years, the Mitutoyo Z-80 computers are ~1982, and the 486 I bought new when they first came out in ~1990.

Zeos became Micron, which is now a major memory and SSD mfr.

These computers collect output from a measuring machine then processes raw XYZ and Dia data into CAD format.

Phrea
June 30th, 2010, 10:19 PM
wow guys, you lot have still some old stuff! :)

I really need to get a picture :)

Out of interest, how many pc's/laptops etc do you all have? 5? 10?

Yes, you need to take a few pictures.

I myself have about 25 machines, almost all of them in working condition.


http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9504932&postcount=27

While I've only been in business 17 years, the Mitutoyo Z-80 computers are ~1982, and the 486 I bought new when they first came out in ~1990.

Zeos became Micron, which is now a major memory and SSD mfr.

These computers collect output from a measuring machine then processes raw XYZ and Dia data into CAD format.

Dude, I can't even comprehend how you got all of that old stuff still working effectively for you, after all these years.
Serious kudo's to you !!

mr-woof
June 30th, 2010, 10:56 PM
25 machines! God I thought I was bad with 4 :)

Metallion
March 2nd, 2012, 05:46 AM
I love digging up old stuff like this. :) Especially when you can try to put some flavour of Linux on it and see how it works. Problem is that I never have any real use for them afterwards. Keep those stories and pics coming.

TeamRocket1233c
March 2nd, 2012, 04:18 PM
I have a Duracom desktop from around '97 or '98, which has a PII~266 and 128 megs of RAM, running Crunchbang Linux 10, and it runs way better than the Windows 98se install it originally came with, and a Gateway 2000 Solo 2100 that was running Windows 95 at last boot-up, yet the charger for it died so I can't really run it anymore, would like to see if I can't get Tiny Core working on it someday.

s.fox
March 2nd, 2012, 04:20 PM
Necromancy. Closed.