Do you like to play with old computers ?

[asifnaz]

I love to collect thrown/abandonend or gifted computers . More they are older more i like them . It was fun installing debian on 386 with 4mb ram

[cecilpierce]

Yea like mine, one came out of a dumpster (Dell), had bird dodo all over it but it works ):P

[Jakin]

I recently took my old Performa 450 (system 7.6) from the attic, still works fine. I cloned its drive; It will live on in spirit- via Sheepshaver on Ubuntu 12.04 :lolflag:

(By the way, has someone figured out how to get qemu to run on 12.04? It crashes if i choose anything other than x86 emulation :( )

[|{urse]

No. I am finally sick of old computers (after decades of loving nothing else), I like to play with newer ones all day tho! I must admit it was a little difficult to give my Sinclair ZX81 and
Tandy 1000ex (256k ram) away but the kid who asked "Do you have any old computers for nostalgic geekery?" will undoubtedly have just as much fun with them as I did. Even if he heads straight to Ebay with them I'm sure someone will end up re-soldering old joints, try to get linux (I'd be shocked!) to run etc etc

[Lucradia]

I had an IBM T41 for a long time. I managed to record 1080p video via VGA on its ATI Radeon graphics card via a monitor. It was quite trippy that the video ended up less laggy processed and encoded than it did while recording.

[electrosquirrel]

I had an IBM T41 for a long time. I managed to record 1080p video via VGA on its ATI Radeon graphics card via a monitor. It was quite trippy that the video ended up less laggy processed and encoded than it did while recording.

Really, you call that old? I used to have an Osborne 1 some thirteen years ago. Actually it was my mothers, but since it was already thrown aside, I was allowed to play on it. We had a copy of Zork for it, you know those text based adventures? It was fun for a while, but the machine had no real use anymore.

Back in 2000 a local science rag had this article about the "future mobile phone". They were talking about mobile internet and streaming video in full colour over the mobile network in that article. I laughed at it. Back then, mobiles hardly ever had colour screens, and thinking that the mobile network could stream video didn't only seem far stretched - but rather hilariously optimistic. 48 kilobits per second was the barrier just broken in mobile, and wired internet wasn't that much faster back then either. And that's quite recent, actually!

I'd love to have an old minicomputer, PDP 11, System/34 or something similar. In fact, I envy those who were there to work with machines like the IBM System/360; back in the days when IT was something magickal and mythickal. You had to attend a certain priesthood to ever even see these machines in action! Punched cards, magnetic tapes, machines filling up a room bigger than my apartment!

Even knowing of the machines we had to live with just 20 years ago gives a certain perspective. I think my first PC had like 40 megabytes of hard drive space. On two drives! Nowadays I have 64 gigabytes at hand in my pocket! My cell phone has more storage, more processor speed and a higher screen resolution than even my third PC had. Actually, even in the year 2000 I didn't have this much speed and storage in my PC as I have now available anywhere anytime!

Only looking back do we realize the distance we've travelled.

[Lucradia]

it was also running 3D Effects too so yes, I do say it was old.

I did have a Zenith 386 laptop though once, no Ethernet, no network connection ports. It was originally loaded with Windows 98 when I bought it, but that wouldn't boot. Tried Windows 3.1, but it often maxed out the RAM too quickly, so I used it mainly for note taking in DOS. No USB Ports, no nothing, couldn't even hook up to a printer, so I had to transfer data to another computer via Floppy. Have since removed that computer from my life.

[lykwydchykyn]

I can't say no to a donated old computer. My most recent acquisition is a powermac 6500.

I have a pile of Pentium2 machines in the corner of my home office, waiting for me to figure out something useful to do with them.

[Lucradia]

I can't say no to a donated old computer. My most recent acquisition is a powermac 6500.

I have a pile of Pentium2 machines in the corner of my home office, waiting for me to figure out something useful to do with them.

I had an old Apple that my mother bought in a package with a Laser Printer from Apple. It had a motorola processor, and had integrated RAM up to 2 GB. It was the most expensive computer at the time, and could run up to MacOS 8 (if not 9.) It came with a tube monitor as well. it was a thin, long and heavy machine with a floppy disk and parallel port and S-Video out and PS/2. The machine's height was about 5~7 inches thick. It lasted 10~15 years before we upgraded to a G4 cube.

[OrangeCrate]

It's not that old I guess, but, I'm currently using a 2005 IBM Thinkpad (T43). I cleaned her up, bumped the memory from 512mb to 2gb, and installed Xubuntu 12.04. Works great.

[lykwydchykyn]

I had an old Apple that my mother bought in a package with a Laser Printer from Apple. It had a motorola processor, and had integrated RAM up to 2 GB. It was the most expensive computer at the time, and could run up to MacOS 8 (if not 9.) It came with a tube monitor as well. it was a thin, long and heavy machine with a floppy disk and parallel port and S-Video out and PS/2. The machine's height was about 5~7 inches thick. It lasted 10~15 years before we upgraded to a G4 cube.

Surely you mean 2 MB of RAM. I can't imagine what MacOS 8 would do with 2 GB of RAM.

[Lucradia]

Surely you mean 2 MB of RAM. I can't imagine what MacOS 8 would do with 2 GB of RAM.

Yeah, sorry, it was actually 512 MB now that I re-checked. This was in 88 or so when she bought it, I was like, 2.

[electrosquirrel]

it was also running 3D Effects too so yes, I do say it was old.

I did have a Zenith 386 laptop though once, no Ethernet, no network connection ports. It was originally loaded with Windows 98 when I bought it, but that wouldn't boot. Tried Windows 3.1, but it often maxed out the RAM too quickly, so I used it mainly for note taking in DOS. No USB Ports, no nothing, couldn't even hook up to a printer, so I had to transfer data to another computer via Floppy. Have since removed that computer from my life.

Oh, the joy of floppies! I remember copying a game from a friend, then rushing back home to try it on my own computer, just to find a floppy had been damaged in transport. Those were the days... When you think how it was back then, and then think of the "hardships" you have to endure today to make a clean linux install on a new computer... We've really been spoiled recently with all the easy-to-use distros... Still, I don't complain, though.

Oh, by the way, even these days one might run into a 486 computer in industrial use. It's surprising how capable they are even by todays standards once they were once programmed right. I still see them on a daily basis, in automation. And running into a Windows 98 is even more usual... Having said that, Windows has fortunately come a long way since that. Even Windows...

[lykwydchykyn]

Yeah, sorry, it was actually 512 MB now that I re-checked. This was in 88 or so when she bought it, I was like, 2.

Hrm, sounds high for 1988. My first DOS pc in 1990 had 1 MB of RAM; in 1988, 512 Kb of RAM would have been reasonable. But it wouldn't run MacOS8, surely.

[Jakin]

Yeah, sorry, it was actually 512 MB now that I re-checked. This was in 88 or so when she bought it, I was like, 2.

512mb in 1988? wow.

[kurt18947]

I'd love to have an old minicomputer, PDP 11, System/34 or something similar. In fact, I envy those who were there to work with machines like the IBM System/360; back in the days when IT was something magickal and mythickal. You had to attend a certain priesthood to ever even see these machines in action! Punched cards, magnetic tapes, machines filling up a room bigger than my apartment!


Go to work for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. I don't know if they're still running but not so long ago IBM System /360 s were running the Enroute Air Traffic Control Centers. And keeping those running did indeed require rituals and incantations. There were stories prior to the cold war thaw of the U.S. government having to source vacuum tubes from the USSR because there were no western producers of one particular type. I don't know how true those stories were.

[electrosquirrel]

Go to work for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. I don't know if they're still running but not so long ago IBM System /360 s were running the Enroute Air Traffic Control Centers. And keeping those running did indeed require rituals and incantations. There were stories prior to the cold war thaw of the U.S. government having to source vacuum tubes from the USSR because there were no western producers of one particular type. I don't know how true those stories were.

Sadly, I'm halfway around the world away. But vacuum tubes for the S/360's? That's folklore, since those machines were solid logic technology based, and the second generation of IBM machines after computer manufacturers gave up vacuum tubes.

[forrestcupp]

I have a pile of Pentium2 machines in the corner of my home office, waiting for me to figure out something useful to do with them.I'd say the best use you'd get out of those would be to use them as boat anchors. ;)


Yeah, sorry, it was actually 512 MB now that I re-checked. This was in 88 or so when she bought it, I was like, 2.After my C64, it took me until early 1995 to get my first x86-based PC. It had 16MB of RAM, which was pretty decent for the time. I have a hard time believing that a computer 7 years earlier had 512MB of RAM. Especially, since it was contemporary with my C64, which had 64K of RAM.

[mips]

Even if he heads straight to Ebay with them I'm sure someone will end up re-soldering old joints, try to get linux (I'd be shocked!) to run etc etc

Be shocked :biggrin: linux on a 8-bit processor http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=12207817

[asifnaz]

512mb in 1988? wow.
i think he mean 512 kb

[forrestcupp]

Be shocked :biggrin: linux on a 8-bit processor http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=12207817

That's crazy! You'd better hope for a good uptime with that. :)

[Grenage]

I used to like toying around with old PCs, but once I had a job and more disposable income, the novelty wore off.

Now I only keep three PCs: A fast modern desktop, a decent laptop, and a media centre.

[Lucradia]

i think he mean 512 kb

No, it was definitely 512 MB. It cost her a whopping 1200~1400 or so USD for the entire package. The RAM was integrated, so there were no slots to remove them or install any from.

[Grenage]

No, it was definitely 512 MB. It cost her a whopping 1200~1400 or so USD for the entire package. The RAM was integrated, so there were no slots to remove them or install any from.

Wouldn't 512MB RAM around that time have cost... over $6000?

[Lucradia]

Wouldn't 512MB RAM around that time have cost... over $6000?

Re-asked, and you're right. I gotta stop pulling numbers from my head. Maybe I'm too tired -_- All I know is that she paid a lot for it, saved a ton of money. It was a custom built computer, one of the first.

[Grenage]

Happens to us all, sometimes you've just got to sleep. ^^

[mips]

No, it was definitely 512 MB. It cost her a whopping 1200~1400 or so USD for the entire package. The RAM was integrated, so there were no slots to remove them or install any from.

Do you remember the year or model of the Mac?

[lykwydchykyn]

I'd say the best use you'd get out of those would be to use them as boat anchors. ;)


Well, I don't know; they still work, still boot; run debian acceptably, and do at least as much as they did in 1999. Something in me hates the fact that a perfectly functioning piece of equipment is utterly useless just because it's old and slow.

I have to say it's gratifying to take what others have deemed useless and put it to work.

[Lucradia]

Do you remember the year or model of the Mac?

It was like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS

But had a floppy drive on the front and it didn't have a bottom lip.

[mips]

It was like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS

But had a floppy drive on the front and it didn't have a bottom lip.

Well that's a IIGS which never ran any form of MacOS/OS X.

So it could be,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Performa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_LC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Quadra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_II_series

Do you remember the year or close to it at all?

[Jakin]

My performa 450 has 36mb ram! Is that close enough to 512mb to be awesome too? [-o<

Honestly though, i don't see what a mac 68k/ppc of the 80's and 90's could ever do with 256mb let alone 512mb.. seems like wasted money.. ALTHOUGH Adobe Photoshop products ate up twice the amount of ram that the system itself used- when the program loaded..

I never even attempted video editing on old macs... so, you never know..

[Lucradia]

Now that the above poster said Performa, I can give the computer that I had:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_IIvx (Performa 600)

It was custom built though. I remember it costing more than 4000 USD. My mother used photoshop, Quark and all that jazz, and Escape Velocity took a lot of power too.

[mips]

Now that the above poster said Performa, I can give the computer that I had:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_IIvx (Performa 600)

It was custom built though. I remember it costing more than 4000 USD. My mother used photoshop, Quark and all that jazz, and Escape Velocity took a lot of power too.

None of the Mac from that time period could however have had 512MB of RAM, physical limitations were much lower.

The first Macs with 512MB of RAM would have been ones with PowerPC processors much later on.

[forrestcupp]

Well, I don't know; they still work, still boot; run debian acceptably, and do at least as much as they did in 1999. Something in me hates the fact that a perfectly functioning piece of equipment is utterly useless just because it's old and slow.

I have to say it's gratifying to take what others have deemed useless and put it to work.
If you could connect them all to the internet, you could set them all up to headlessly run folding@home.

[Petro Dawg]

Recently built a "new" computer system for my mother using an old dell dimension computer tower that my employer had thrown away due to a failed HD. I bought some new components from amazon, new 40Gig HD, 2 Gig of ram, laser mouse, printer ink and such. BTW, the ink was the most expensive component. For about $100 and a bunch of old components I had laying around (old cd burner, HP printer, and HP scanner) I built a fully functional, reliable, and fast PC running Xubuntu. She's now addicted to PyScrabble :lolflag:

Now I have her old Pakard Bell running Win95 that I don't know what to do with it. I already have an older computer running Puppy, don't really need another. Perhaps I'll put FreeDos on it :P

[whatthefunk]

I love my ancient Sony laptop and will until the day it dies. Currently running Crunchbang on it...runs great as long as I dont play video.

[forrestcupp]

Now I have her old Pakard Bell running Win95 that I don't know what to do with it. I already have an older computer running Puppy, don't really need another. Perhaps I'll put FreeDos on it :P
Another good candidate for a boat anchor. :)