What was the oldest computer that you have ever used? [Archive]

portalhavoc

January 11th, 2016, 02:20 AM

fyfe54

January 11th, 2016, 02:37 AM

Well, I had to fight to get upgraded to a 30 megabyte hard drive. DOS, 8088 CPU, 640kb ram, monochrome screen. Late 1980s if I had to guess.

lisati

January 11th, 2016, 02:47 AM

Bucky Ball

January 11th, 2016, 05:02 AM

My P4 desktop. I built it in 2004 and upgraded it with an SSD and 4Gb of RAM a couple of years ago. Alas, though, it is soon to be 'retired'. :|

I have helped out others installing Ubuntu on their ancient digital beasts, though, that would definitely have been older than mine.

SeijiSensei

January 11th, 2016, 05:11 AM

The oldest computer I ever used was probably the campus IBM 7094 mainframe from the late 1960s when I was in college. We later migrated to the "third-generation" IBM 360. I also worked on an smaller IBM 1401 to manage the vast library of magnetic tapes maintained by the research project I was working with.

When the IBM PC was released I rented one to write reports for my consulting business. Like Fyfe54 this was an 8088 machine, though in my case it was the version with dual 5 1/4" floppy drives. Hard disks didn't appear for a couple of years after that. My then wife and I bought an IBM XT clone from Radio Shack around 1985 for $3000, considered a real bargain at the time. It came with a 20 megabyte hard drive. A few years later I bought a 386/20 for $5000 which supported real multitasking. After expanding the memory from 640 KB with a 2048 KB outboard memory card, I loaded a copy of Desqview (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview) so I could run multiple DOS programs like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 and switch between them.

LostFarmer

January 11th, 2016, 05:30 AM

Heathkit H89 -z80 cpu with 64k of memory till the year 2000

Bucky Ball

January 11th, 2016, 05:31 AM

@SeijiSensei: All the computers you mention sound like they were new when you used them, not old. :)

But if we're going there, I had an Atari, or might have been an Amiga, back in '81 that had no internal storage. You used a cassette tape drive to 'save' and 'load' programs. For instance, if you wanted to load a program, you needed to cue up the tape to the correct counter number (where the data to load the program started), hit a button on the computer and the 'play' button on the cassette player at the same time and load it in linearly like that. If you wanted to save a program, same deal. Hit a button on the computer, play+record on the cassette. Hard to imagine now.

I upgraded to an Apricot I think that was called (an Apple clone) with large floppy drive. That was heaven. Then I got another large floppy drive and thought I was it! I could run a word processor from one drive and save to the other at the same time with ease. The flexibility! :D

SeijiSensei

January 11th, 2016, 05:59 AM

I also did some work on time-sharing systems with those ancient teletype terminals. I would have died for a cassette tape. We had to save programs and data to punched paper tape. Now that was a fragile storage medium! You can see it on the left of the device in this photograph: http://www.bytecollector.com/images/asr-33_vcf_02.jpg. Those keys had a long stroke, too, that required considerable pressure and tired out your fingers quickly.

The 7094 and 1401 machines were no longer "new" when I was using them. My university migrated to the 360 series in 1968/69 as I recall. I became the guru for the research project I was working on because I learned how to write IBM Job Control Language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_Control_Language) which were operating system commands to mount tapes and storage, execute programs and the like.

Of course, all the input was submitted on punched Hollerith cards. Given my penchant for mistyping, I'd say a good quarter or more of the cards I punched had to be redone. Couple that with three-hour turnaround times for jobs, and you can see how writing and debugging even simple programs could be an arduous task. Nothing beats waiting three hours for a FORTRAN program to compile, only to discover you made a syntax error on line 134, fixing the error, and waiting another three hours in the hope there were no more errors to correct.

lisati

January 11th, 2016, 06:13 AM

I don't recall using paper tape at all, but a couple of the machines at my first "real" job in the 1980s could use them. That company used mainly CRT-based terminals for the work I was involved with, but still had the capacity for using punched cards if needed. They had several mainframes based in several locations, mostly based around IBM 370 range of machines.

Bucky Ball

January 11th, 2016, 07:20 AM

Of course, all the input was submitted on punched Hollerith cards.

Those cards! We were given them to 'punch' in school when computers were going to be the next big thing back in the late '60s/early '70s. You were given some simple maths problem which you then punched into the card. The card would then disappear, be sent off-site to be fed to a computer, the computer would work out your answer and spit it out, and the result would arrive back on your desk to inform whether your punching was accurate or not a week later when you'd forgotten all about punching the card and what you'd punched in the first place.

We were interested, but can't say it was the hot topic in the lunch shed at playtime ... :D

Wadim_Korneev

January 11th, 2016, 07:52 AM

I remember using an OLD Dec terminal at a friends place, but the exact model alludes me.

The oldest one I ever used that I can name is a TI-99/4A from 1979.
Surprisingly, it has a 16-bit CPU!

Irihapeti

January 11th, 2016, 08:08 AM

At one time (late 80s), I had a Macintosh 128. Where I was working at the time, they had an Apple Lisa. I gather it wasn't running the original OS, though.

lisati

January 11th, 2016, 08:25 AM

Where I was working at the time, they had an Apple Lisa.

My work had one too. I preferred it to the one and only Mac I'd seen.

Irihapeti

January 11th, 2016, 08:45 AM

I recall that they had some other Macs. The Lisa had the biggest hard drive, though — all of 10MB!!! :o

leclerc65

January 11th, 2016, 01:49 PM

CDC 3000, 1966-67. The language : Fortran II.

pfeiffep

January 11th, 2016, 01:59 PM

I can't remember the model of CDC I used at Northeastern University in the early 70's - we punched cards and the language was Fortran

makitso

January 11th, 2016, 02:53 PM

Would you believe a Univac II, and don't ask :-)

SeijiSensei

January 11th, 2016, 03:13 PM

Would you believe a Univac II, and don't ask :-)

Who had the job of finding the burnt-out vacuum tubes?

makitso

January 11th, 2016, 03:25 PM

Actually, the UNIVAC II was in the Sperry-UNIVAC plant on Minnehaha Ave in St. Paul, MN. That machine was still in use in 1965 when I was there. At night, we would turn off the lights and just sit there in the glow of the thousands of vacuum tubes.

SeijiSensei

January 11th, 2016, 03:39 PM

Bucky Ball

January 11th, 2016, 03:59 PM

For our younger members, these are "vacuum tubes:" https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Elektronenroehren-auswahl.jpg. They consisted of a metal filament like ones found in incandescent light bulbs, an "anode" and a "cathode." I don't remember which was positive and which negative.

+1. And those of us who are into music and looking for that vintage sound would be familiar with their use in the older 'valve' amps. A friend of mine, coincidentally enough, had to replace one in their Fender Twin Reverb just last weekend. The replacement tube had been taped to the inside of the amp, ready for duty when its day finally came, for twenty years and worked perfectly ...

Sorry, bit off-topic. :)

QIII

January 11th, 2016, 05:20 PM

Has to be the analog computer I have been using for well into its sixth decade. Am am given to believe that the particular model line is has had a production run of at least 100,000 years.

Habitual

January 11th, 2016, 05:27 PM

Brain.
pencil.

Bucky Ball

January 11th, 2016, 05:49 PM

Has to be the analog computer I have been using for well into its sixth decade. Am am given to believe that the particular model line is has had a production run of at least 100,000 years.

:popcorn:

Tilted pinball machine at this end. :|

Frogs Hair

January 11th, 2016, 06:03 PM

Tandy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100

PaulW2U

January 11th, 2016, 07:12 PM

lisati

January 11th, 2016, 07:17 PM

Has to be the analog computer I have been using for well into its sixth decade. Am am given to believe that the particular model line is has had a production run of at least 100,000 years.

:lolflag:

kurt18947

January 11th, 2016, 07:33 PM

Unbranded 8088 clone. Added a 20 MB. full height hard drive with ST506 interface and and cost probably $200 used. I discovered Compuserve it was a marvel; I was able to do things that previously had to be done on the phone and were a PITA.

Dragonbite

January 11th, 2016, 09:13 PM

The oldest one I had (and have since gotten rid of ... or have I ???) is a "Pentium I w/MMX technology". I don't know the specs on it, but it was pretty painful to use.

The best thing that ran on it was DSL (Damn Small Linux). Oh, and I got something like openSUSE 9 running on it with KDE without it being too agaonizingly slow!

QIII

January 11th, 2016, 09:29 PM

QIII

January 11th, 2016, 09:55 PM

:popcorn:

Tilted pinball machine at this end. :|

Mine has some factory defects, but RMAs are extremely difficult.

SantaFe

January 11th, 2016, 11:07 PM

Mine was the Ohio Scientific C2P in 1979 with a whole 8K of ram. Even made it my wallpaper as seen here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2308275&p=13421492#post13421492 :D

buzzingrobot

January 12th, 2016, 01:59 PM

Unix was actually the first OS I ever used. The first computer I used, somewhere in the 1970's, was one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-11.

The first computer I owned was one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20, because I could not afford one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II.

Bucky Ball

January 12th, 2016, 02:55 PM

Mine has some factory defects, but RMAs are extremely difficult.

Haha! :D

I could not afford one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II.

Neither could I, but that's pretty much it, the original of the clone I was talking about earlier, my dual disk drive Apricot or Banana, or whatever the heck it was called.

HermanAB

January 12th, 2016, 08:16 PM

I learned Fortran on a Sperry-Univac with friggen punch cards. Does that count?

SantaFe

January 12th, 2016, 11:44 PM

I learned Fortran on a Sperry-Univac with friggen punch cards. Does that count?

Never heard of that brand, were they better than the IBM ones? ;)

pfeiffep

January 13th, 2016, 12:07 AM

I learned Fortran on a Sperry-Univac with friggen punch cards. Does that count? It certainly does count. I'm wondering if my first foray into the digital world actually counts for this question.
I was a radar technician in the US Navy 68-80. Part of the radar system display was Identification - Friend or Foe (IFF). I certainly know that the radar was analog and really doesn't apply; but the IFF used coded pulses (transmitted coincident with radar) to query and received coded pulses in response which identified the responder.

Wild_Duck66

January 13th, 2016, 12:57 AM

Commodore Vic 20 1980 5k of memory, (1.5k used for OS) followed by the C64 (still have), Amiga 500 & 1200.

HermanAB

January 13th, 2016, 10:43 AM

Aaaaaaarrrrrrghhhh...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC

...it brings back nightmares.

sonicwind

January 15th, 2016, 07:25 PM

Commodore Vic 20 1980 5k of memory, (1.5k used for OS) followed by the C64

Same for me (Vic-20 then C64) in the early 80's, complete with cassette tape drive! I miss my Commodore 64. It was a lot of fun. I was so excited when I got my 1541 floppy disk drive to replace the cassette drive. :D

Shane_Mundee

January 15th, 2016, 11:41 PM

December 1980, Apple III, it costed damn near $8,500 (A small fortune for some back then)

But that first keystroke, still remember it like yesterday haha

Redalien0304

January 16th, 2016, 01:28 AM

A Radio Shack TRS-80 with tape Drive. Also an Amiga & Commodore 64.

DuckHook

January 16th, 2016, 08:15 AM

Olivetti Programma 101 (http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/08/28/the-first-pc-from-1965/). An insanely cool machine that many computer historians consider to the first true personal computer... ever. From an Italian typewriter company. It had amazing innovations for its time: ferrite magnetic cores, delay-line memory, and the deal-closer, magnetic card storage which I understand to be a first at the time. Of course, this was back in '67. I can't believe you guys have got me reminiscing about what dweebish things I was doing while everyone else was celebrating the summer of love.

Dammit, now you've brought a tear to my eye.

t0p

January 16th, 2016, 03:33 PM

TRS80
ZX81
ZX Spectrum
VIC-20
My youth was spent listening to screeching cassette drives.

sonicwind

January 16th, 2016, 04:26 PM

Olivetti Programma 101 (http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/08/28/the-first-pc-from-1965/).

That was a great read! Thanks for sharing. I'd never heard of it before.

Kris_M

January 16th, 2016, 06:34 PM

An IBM 7070/7074 with a 1401 used via tape as IOCS. didn't know anything about anything then and wrote my first program for it in machine language. Fed it in on cards. Remember Hollerith code? And a 407 to print stuff on cards. Univ of Roch in the 60's Fun! Toy! Then I grew up LOL I had a COCO, then a comodore 64. and maybe a few other little RS programmable critters - mostly doing astrology. Then got an actual IBM PC with DOS - very basic. i remember windows 3.1 and 3.11. Was paranoid that someone would steal it so had a big steel strap over it and through the table it was sitting on. Now my old smartphone is vastly more powerful! LOL went through 95, 98, XP, ME, etc. All great fun! Toys!!!

DuckHook

January 16th, 2016, 09:02 PM

That was a great read! Thanks for sharing. I'd never heard of it before.My pleasure.

Most people haven't heard of it either. It wasn't very popular. The world of that period was still stuck on big iron. I didn't know anything about its history at the time. Certainly not nearly as much as I've since found out with modern-day access to the web. It was just this really cool toy that my dad bought to do the payroll in our family business. We quickly ran up against its limitations, at which point, we graduated to its younger, bigger sibling, the 203. Now, that was a real machine. I didn't know any programming at the time (still don't), so it ran on tiny little programs bought from Olivetti's local OEM.

God they were heavy. Built like tanks. The 101 weighed close to 100 pounds and the 203 seemed like it weighed more than a piano. You needed a sturdy desk for that 101 and it took four movers to manhandle that 203 into the office. And working with it was an arduous process: you fed the program into the computer through anywhere from ten to fifteen little magnetic cards, did your processing, printed the results on that little strip of paper, transcribed it onto the cheque by hand, then updated each employee on their own little magnetic card. But it was a godsend compared to the completely manual method that had preceeded it.

Thinking back, we practiced awful computing habits. No backups, no disaster planning, no offsite storage: what a bunch of rubes. But we did have something that younger people don't know anything about today... we had carbon copies! If minor disaster struck we could always reconstruct payment history from a paper trail of carbon copies. Most people have no idea what that "cc" field in all email apps really means. Except us dinosaurs. It stands for "carbon copies" and is a holdover from the days when you could retain a copy of your work by using a thin sheet of carbon paper to produce a mechanical impression of a typed or penned original.

Time to stop wallowing in the past. I'm starting to sound like your crazy uncle.

JayKay3OOO

January 16th, 2016, 09:52 PM

The oldest computer that I have ever used was an old Windows 95 computer that was made in 1997 and I used it in 2013 at my friend's grandmother's house. It had old DOS games on it, and it was my first experience with Windows 95. (it was slow, But it was usable.) :)

The second oldest computer that I have ever used was my grandmother's old computer that had Windows ME (:o) on it. She would mostly play card games if I recall. (When she was still alive.) This was back in Early 2006 when I was 5 and a half. (Now I'm 15.)

What was the oldest computer that you have ever used?

Amiga 500. I remember it like a memory that was never real in tones of orange feelings of warm, cuddly feelings. The reality is ice blue, sitting in a frozen wasteland waiting for eternal load times and feeling my life slowly ebb from my vains.

Be glad you're 15 in 2016.

Beylos

January 21st, 2016, 03:19 AM

Some old, beige Compaq PC that was pretty standard in the 90s. It ran Windows 95. It was my first computer, I've had it as long as I can remember (I've basically always had my own computer, even before I was fully literate). I think the computers at my elementary school was about the same age (also Compaq PCs). So thus far I haven't personally used any computers older than the mid 90s (so nothing too interesting). I do remember accidentally booting into MS-DOS (the earlier versions of Windows literally ran on top of DOS), but I don't think that really counts. I used an eMac in high school, but I don't think that's too old right?

mastablasta

January 21st, 2016, 10:41 AM

December 1980, Apple III, it costed damn near $8,500 (A small fortune for some back then)

unfortunately a small fortune for many still today.

Vladlenin5000

January 21st, 2016, 12:12 PM

My oldest computer was this one (https://www.msx.org/wiki/Philips_VG-8010).
I still have it and it works! :p

Dragonbite

January 21st, 2016, 07:25 PM

unfortunately a small fortune for many still today.

That was one of the signs you were a geek... when your computer cost more than your car!

Linuxratty

January 21st, 2016, 08:25 PM

Seven year old Compaq that i first installed Linspire on..And at one point there was even a mouse living in it,which I caught in a basket and relocated.

RI2CA

January 22nd, 2016, 02:32 AM

Mine was an Atari 800 I had when I was in college.

Shalanda_Vanhorn

January 22nd, 2016, 07:49 AM

I used IBM PCjr. It was released on 1984. Check this out (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PCjr).

Linuxratty

January 22nd, 2016, 04:34 PM

How expensive was it?

Nuno_Abreu

January 22nd, 2016, 06:18 PM

My first computer used to have Windows 98 on it (it was offered to me by a friend who bought a beast at the time) with a Pentium II, boxed with 192 MB of DDR RAM.

It didn't run slow, it wasn't that bad at the time. Then I made my first computer in 2006 with a Pentium 4 HT processor with 1 GB of DDR2 RAM with a silly graphics chip - it still runs decently under Linux and I never changed its specs and/or hardware - it is running a version of Arch Linux with my own compiled kernel and programs.

Christopher_Stayne

January 23rd, 2016, 09:01 PM

Not exactly sure when it was made, but the oldest computer I have ever personally used was a ancient 386 with Windows 3.1 on it. I believe it was an HP machine.

Mike_Walsh

January 24th, 2016, 08:50 PM

For me it was the Sinclair ZX-81 from 1981!

Back then I knew how to program, fix bugs and generally improve on what others had written. I certainly can't do that now.

With just 16KB of RAM it provided me with hundreds of hours of entertainment. The following year the ZX Spectrum took over where the ZX-81 left off but I decided to go with the BBC Model B instead. It was another 12 or so years before I bought my first PC running Windows 3.1 :)

http://www.oldcomputers.net/zx81.html

I kept both going for a number of years but eventually succumbed to using a relatively new PC most of the time.

Snap!

I used it for about a year.....then moved on to the Commodore 64; in my opinion, one of the pivotal machines on the market at the very beginning of the 'home computer revolution'. These still have an incredibly active community.....and the modern modifications some people are making to them you wouldn't believe. The originals had a 6502 processor, running at all of 1 MHz.....and 64 kilobytes of RAM.

266932

This one, apparently, has been modified with a dual-core Atom CPU, 2 GB of RAM, multiple USB ports, modern DVI and VGA monitor ports, FireWire, modern audio ports, PS/2 mouse & keyboard ports, RJ45, a 128 GB SSD.....and a Blu-Ray drive!

266931

Check this out:-

http://www.geek.com/games/the-commodore-64-is-back-and-it-leaves-the-82-version-dust-1338327/

There's even a company making replacement casings for them out of carbon-fibre.....to replace the original, rather dodgy thermoplastic! The original production-line staff wouldn't have even known what most of those ports were.....since the C64 pre-dated pretty well every single one of those standards.

D'you remember those wobbly 32k RAM-packs for the ZX-81? Gave you an eye-watering 48k of RAM.....colossal for those days. I ended up using a combination of insulating tape and plasticine to hold mine in place...

And the 'thermal' printer? (*Jeez, Louise...!*)

Has to be the analog computer I have been using for well into its sixth decade. Am given to believe that the particular model line has had a production run of at least 100,000 years.

^^^ Ha! Yes, indeedy...... :D

The oldest one when I was still using it regularly is my 10 year old Dell D620 laptop, which I still use.

To be honest, though, it has an upgraded processor, additional memory and an SSD now. Despite the SATA I interface, the SSD's low latency has made it a different machine.

And my oldest in regular use is one of these:-

266933

A 14-yr old, 2002 Dell Inspiron 1100. Originally a 2.2 GHz, 'P4-gen' Celeron, 128 MB RAM, 20GB HDD. Now has a genuine 2.6 GHz P IV, 1 GB RAM (maxed), and a 32 GB Transcend PATA-interface SSD. That last item alone has made it seem like a much more modern machine. And for external storage, I use a matching pair of 64GB SanDisk 'nano' USB 3.0 flashdrives, plugged into the rear USB ports, giving me 128 GB of storage.

Am posting from it now.

Mike. ;)

Old_Grey_Wolf

January 24th, 2016, 11:18 PM

...
And my oldest in regular use is one of these:-

266933

A 14-yr old, 2002 Dell Inspiron 1100. Originally a 2.2 GHz, 'P4-gen' Celeron, 128 MB RAM, 20GB HDD. Now has a genuine 2.6 GHz P IV, 1 GB RAM (maxed), and a 32 GB Transcend PATA-interface SSD. That last item alone has made it seem like a much newer machine.

Am posting from it now.

Mike. ;)

I have a working Dell Inspiron 5100 from about that time. I upgraded it from 128 MB to 1 GB RAM and upgraded from 20 GB to 60 GB HDD. I am about to to recycle it.

266935

Mike_Walsh

January 25th, 2016, 12:09 AM

I have a working Dell Inspiron 5100 from about that time. I upgraded it from 128 MB to 1 GB RAM and upgraded from 20 GB to 60 GB HDD. I am about to to recycle it.

266935

Mm-hm! The 1100's 'big brother', of course. They came with Pentium IV's as standard; but what many people weren't aware of was the 1100's Celeron could be 'upgraded' to a genuine P IV; the CPU's in use then weren't the modern, low-power mobile CPUs we have today. That was a full-blown desktop CPU in use there, complete with a cam-screw operated standard ZIF-socket; hence the requirement for that enormous battery pack. It had to provide the same power output as would normally be supplied by a mains PSU.....for a processor pulling around the 60-65W mark. And these days, you can pick up P IV's for a song on eBay or Amazon; nobody wants them any more...especially with the reputation they had for running hot, with that kind of TDP.

You're also doubtless aware of Dell's famously lousy 'thermal solution'; the output from that exhaust vent could strip paint!! :lol: You could easily end up with toasted gonads if you weren't careful. It's why I always use mine on a tray when it's on my lap.....and why I've improved the airflow, by using rubber, kitchen cabinet 'bump-stops' on the bottom, in place of the original, rather tiny 'feet'.

In all honesty, after the amount of upgrading I've done to mine, with the exception of the built-in wi-fi module & the built-in antenna behind the display screen (which the 1100's never had), it is, to all intents and purposes, a 5100 now. Both used the same, identical motherboard. The TP-Link USB 'nano' wifi adapter that I use, however, beats the 5100's built-in wi-fi handsomely for range, and signal pick-up......and as for the SSD; 'nuff said.

Did you ever have any symptoms of the 'exploding battery pack' syndrome.....which led to the well-documented, class-action lawsuit against Dell? I, fortunately, escaped that one. Mine lasted till about 4 years ago (it didn't do badly at all!), at which point I replaced it with a 'high-capacity' version. Four years on, it's still retaining about 90% of the original design charge.....

I'm well impressed with the old girl! No complaints here. Later, more up-to-date 'tech' has really helped to improve her performance.....and extend her lifespan.

Mike. ;)

Old_Grey_Wolf

January 25th, 2016, 02:19 AM

...
Did you ever have any symptoms of the 'exploding battery pack' syndrome.....which led to the well-documented, class-action lawsuit against Dell? I, fortunately, escaped that one. Mine lasted till about 4 years ago (it didn't do badly at all!), at which point I replaced it with a 'high-capacity' version. Four years on, it's still retaining about 90% of the original design charge.
...

I never had a problem with the battery pack exploding; however, I did have to replace it many years ago after it wouldn't hold a charge.

About all it is good for now is as a foot warmer under my desk on a cold winters night. Well, considering the other old computers I have. LOL

I think we are getting off topic. The Dell is nowhere close to the first computer I used. :lol:

poorguy

January 25th, 2016, 05:40 PM

My first experience was in collage in 1970s. Learned basic on a TRS-80 and had to save everything to this giant 8 inch floppy disc.
I guess at the time they were the latest and the greatest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk

After that experience I didn't touch another computer until windows xp in 2002.

And even today i am still using a 2005 hp desktop m7267c running Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c00506798

4.0 gb memory though.
(http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c00506798)

Nuno_Abreu

January 25th, 2016, 06:35 PM

The oldest one when I was still using it regularly is my 10 year old Dell D620 laptop, which I still use.

To be honest, though, it has an upgraded processor, additional memory and an SSD now. Despite the SATA I interface, the SSD's low latency has made it a different machine.

What is the expected speed of that SSD on that old SATA interface? Is it comparable to an SSD on a SATA port but on an IDE interface?
I bet it does not bottleneck.

ozo2

January 25th, 2016, 07:04 PM

Atari Amiga and my boss in the California Air National Guard had a Commodore 64 but or unit had no computers in the offices. The dot matrix printers for them were horrible but produced letters nearly as well as the typewriters of the day.

SourceSlayer

January 31st, 2016, 10:46 PM

I used Windows 90-something when I was really young, I can't remember.

I didn't realize the age of the last post in this thread. Sorry.

stevemid

February 1st, 2016, 03:19 AM

Comodore Pet computer 1979

lisati

February 1st, 2016, 03:26 AM

Comodore Pet computer 1979

I think that beats a couple of Commodore 64s I've seen mentioned in this thread, and definitely beats the Commodore 128s I have gathering dust in the spare room.

alexs.zane

February 1st, 2016, 11:05 AM

Well I'm not using this kind of old pc when i used in 2001.on that PC.I have windows98.that was new at that time.now it's outdated technology......:lolflag:

cheers.....
Alex
realpharmacyx (http://goo.gl/IrlJAP)

speedwell68

February 1st, 2016, 07:57 PM

It would be the first computer I ever used which was a Sinclair ZX81. What you could program into less than 1K of usable RAM was amazing.

kurja

February 2nd, 2016, 11:53 AM

Does getting a holiday job at a data centre run by a well known car manufacturer count? If so, the oldest computer that I've had access to would be a mainframe manufactured in the early-to-mid 1970s. If memory serves correctly, it was a Burroughs B7700 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burroughs_large_systems).

I work with industrial process control systems and hardware from decades ago is still around, early versions of Damatic systems that I still see here and there are from early 80's.

I saw 286 / 386 msdos machines in production use, I think it was in 2010...

I'd bet that somewhere, there's a commodore 64 in production use and running fine. Old machines die hard =D

SuperTrainStationH

February 10th, 2016, 01:42 AM

The oldest I had ever used at the time that I used it?

And I'm guessing this means "for real" and not purely for novelty's sake?

Well my school district was running a fleet Apple II computers up until 2000. So yeah I was writing papers and stuff on them and vividly enjoying it while all the other students and the teachers were moaning about using old machines.

Years earlier in 3rd grade I had to spend a lot of time in the math computer lab which had a bunch of Bell & Howell branded "Darth Vader" Apple II's. They were the first computers I had ever seen that weren't either beige or that platinum white color Apple was using for their Macs at the time and I thought they were the coolest things ever.