Who has the oldest laptop that still works 100%?

[bks]

I have spent the last few days getting my old Compaq back up and running, which got me wondering if anyone else has a REALLY old laptop that still works.

My specs:

Compaq Armada 1530DM
---------------------
Pentium MMX 133MHz
80MB RAM
1MB Cirrus Logic display adapter (I don't think it can even be called a "graphics card")
33.6k modem
1.4GB HDD
3-1/4" Floppy
20x CD-ROM
2 - PCMCIA slots
1 - PS2 port
1 - Serial port
1 - LPT port
1 - IR port

I'm bit ashamed to say that I have Windows 98SE running on it, but I tried Xubuntu and DSL and neither of them worked very well (or at all).

What kind of old systems are you running?

[Chame_Wizard]

that's way old

[bks]

that's way old

It is, but it still works great and I'm a bit of a nostalgia junkey.:lolflag:

[jcway212]

I think I can beat that...I will have to post when I get home. It is soooo old that I couldn't even meet the minimum requirements for DSL if I am not mistaken (it might have been, TinyME linux).....I will get back to you on this.

[MindFlayer]

My beauty:

Compaq LTE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_LTE) 286, 12MHz, 640kiB RAM, CGA screen

The hard drive is broken but otherwise it works fine. I can play gorillas & bananas game in QBASIC. :)

[meborc]

ahh... i know that game... i used to love programming in QBASIC... it was before i realized how bad it really was :)

[spupy]

I think there is an old Compaq Contura 410 laptop at my parents house.
http://geek-supply.com/images/6892305101.jpg
Black-white display
Windows 95
~250MB harddisk (is this possible?)
PCMCIA slot
3.5" Floppy
Instead of a touchpad it has a ball, like an inverted mouse. The hinges don't hold the screen anymore.

I used it to play some arcane games. Later started programming on it - QBasic! :) Last time I remember, I managed to put nethack on it.

[klange]

My PowerBook 170 isn't old enough... Brand new from 1991. (The batteries still hold a charge!)

[khelben1979]

I have an Amiga 500 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500)(512kb chip RAM + 512kb fast ram). Works perfectly! No faults.

[bks]

(The batteries still hold a charge!)

That reminds me, when I got this computer from my brother in law, he told me the battery was bad. I gave it a charge and I think it lasts longer than the one on my P4 laptop.

[bks]

I have an Amiga 500 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500)(512kb chip RAM + 512kb fast ram). Works perfectly! No faults.

I think that one takes the cake so far. The oldest with the fewest faults (none).

[khelben1979]

:D

It has no harddrive but loading games actually is faster than loading some of my games on my PC(Pentium 4 @ 2.8ghz)

[bytor4232]

Compaq LTE 5000. 75Mhz Pentium, 40 Megs of RAM, ONE gig HDD. It ran Debian Potato with Window Maker as the GUI. However, this one doesn't count, the hard drive failed about six months ago. Its a shame, being a cute little paperweight and all.

My oldest working laptop is my Compaq Presario 700. 500Mhz Processor, 250 megs or ram, and a 20 gig hard drive. Its running Xubuntu Fiesty. My wife uses it now, as my current rig is an Acer 5315 running Hardy. Good laptop, runs Ubuntu 100% like a champ.

[fiddledd]

I have an Amiga 500 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_500)(512kb chip RAM + 512kb fast ram). Works perfectly! No faults.

I thought it was Laptops, if you're going to cheat so am I.:)

I have:

Commodore Amiga 500+
Commodore Amiga 600

But I also have:

Commodore 64
Commodore 16

They all work.:) Although I haven't tested the Amigas since last year.

[doorknob60]

Compaq Presario 1600S, 192 MB of RAM (upgraded from 64), 400 Mhz AMD K6 CPU, 4.5 GB Hard Drive, Duall bootig 98SE and Debian Lenny with Lxde. It has one USB port, and a PCMCIA slot that I use for wifi :) Unfortunately it doesn't count because my CD drive died on me a month or two ago (right after I got done setting up Debian, thank god :P)

[irv]

When I get home, I will take a photo of one that should be in a museum. But you will have to wait to see it. I will try to find the specs on it also. The last time I plugged it in, it still worked.
Meanwhile, let me tell you about the one I am using at this very minute.

My hardware:
3 year old (really not that old) “No Name” laptop my son built. All it has on the bottom is Personal Computer. I put a logo on the top center with just “IWR” to make it personal.
When doing a Hardware Test it comes up with:
Sound Card 182801DBICH4 which works great.
Resolution I am running is 1280X800 @60. It says it a good resolution for my display
The video test ran the SMPTE 100% color bars, which looks great.
Wireless is 220BG (Intel Corp) pro. Rev 05 which works great also. It finds networks when I am roaming, which I am doing right now. I am sitting in a coffee shop in Winona MN.
Wire Network is Realtek Semiconductor co. Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10).
The CPU is a pentium M 1.0 Ghz. 1 Gig memory. 60 Gig hard drive. CD/DVD recorder.
Running Ubuntu 8.04.
I also have a new laptop a Dell 1521 which has all kinds of issues running Ubuntu so I had to re-install vista back on it. I use my old laptop much more that I do my new one because I love Ubuntu and hate Vista. My new laptop has twice the memory and a much faster CPU, but my old laptop boots and runs much faster. Maybe someday Ubuntu will have driver for all the hardware on my new one, then I will have two good laptops.
Let me conclude by saying that I load Ubuntu on every old desktop I get my hands on and give them away. That's how I get a lot of people hooked on Ubuntu. I find it works on old hardware most of the time. There are people who only want an old PC to get on the Internet and these old PC's work just fine.

[Ebuntor]

I think that one takes the cake so far. The oldest with the fewest faults (none).

I can beat the Amiga with my Atari ST (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_st), two years older. My father bought it before I was born and it was the first computer I used.
512kb RAM and it is still working perfectly after all this time. I can still play King's Quest and Space Quest on it. :)

However it too, like the Amiga, isn't a laptop.

EDIT: I forgot I also have a Commodore 64 from 1982 and an Atari 400XL from '79, with only 4KB RAM. Both still working perfectly. In fact I played the old game Space Raiders (http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?MENU=8&TYPE_CODE=G&SOFT_ID=4993) on the XL a while back.

[khelben1979]

I have an VIC 20 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_20) and one Commodore 128 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_128) in my apartment also. Both are working without any faults. Unfortunately one cable is missing from the VIC 20, but it's nothing wrong with the computer.

I'm not an owner of these computers myself, but I have the responsibility for them and can use them whenever I want. Does it count?

[init1]

My beauty:

Compaq LTE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_LTE) 286, 12MHz, 640kiB RAM, CGA screen

The hard drive is broken but otherwise it works fine. I can play gorillas & bananas game in QBASIC. :)
Woah, that's ancient!
I've got a Dell from 2000 that still works OK. Can't do much with it, since there's no ethernet port and no wireless. Still good for DOS games though :D

[init1]

I have an VIC 20 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_20) and one Commodore 128 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_128) in my apartment also. Both are working without any faults. Unfortunately one cable is missing from the VIC 20, but it's nothing wrong with the computer.

I'm not an owner of these computers myself, but I have the responsibility for them and can use them whenever I want. Does it count?
Heh, yeah I've got a VIC20 too. My uncle gave it too me a few years back.

[Dremora]

Canon Innova i386

Intel 386SX processor at 25 Mhz
8 MB of RAM
60 Megabyte hard disk

Came with Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 5, currently runs Minix 3

[Dixon Bainbridge]

I have a ZX80 and a ZX Spectrum somewhere in a box. Last time I fired them up, they both worked. The Z80 is, I think, circa 1979.

[grossaffe]

I've got a Toshiba T3400CT

its got like a 10 inch screen (estimating here).

One serial port, one parallel port, an external floppy drive, some other port I can't recognize, and a modem.

original hard-drive had 120MB, recently isntalled a 2GB drive in there. Now i'm just facing the challenge of installing an OS on there. I'm gonna try to get Basic Linux on there.

it has about 12MB of RAM, I think (it measures it in KB)

so yeah, I have a pretty damn old one that just needs an OS

[brunovecchi]

[...] I'm bit ashamed to say that I have Windows 98SE running on it, but I tried Xubuntu and DSL and neither of them worked very well (or at all). [...]


Have you tried installing Puppy Linux (http://www.puppylinux.org/)?

[Ptero-4]

Got a Commodore SX-64


Introduced: January 1983
Released: January 1984
Weight: 23 pounds
Price: US $995.
CPU: MOS 6510, 1MHz
Audio: 3 channels
RAM: 64K
Display: built-in 5" color screen
40 X 25 text
320 X 200, 16 colors max
Storage: internal 170K floppy drive
external floppy drive
Ports: S-video, composite video
2 joysticks, cartridge port
serial and 'user' ports
OS: Commodore BASIC in ROM


And an IBM Portable


Model: model 68
Introduced: February 1984
Price: US $4225.
Weight: 30 pounds
CPU: Intel 8088 @ 4.77MHz
RAM: 256K, 640K max
Display: 9-inch amber display
CGA graphics, 80 X 25 text
Storage: Two 360KB 5.25-inch disk drives
Ports: 1 parallel, 1 serial, CGA video
OS: IBM PC-DOS Version 2.10 (disk)

Both still work.

[nick09]

The IBM must of been high tech back then.

[irv]

All right, as I promised! Drum roll please! Beat this one. Raido Shack TRS-80 Model 100 Portable Computer, and yes, it still works.
This Portable can be used with a cassette recorder for program or data storage on cassette tapes. It has no memory storage of it own. It comes with 8K of RAM and can be expanded to another 8K giving you a whopping 16K of RAM. Just think of that! Here are some photos.

8062480625806268062780628

[K.Mandla]

Got a Commodore SX-64 ... Both still work.
Thank goodness. I was hoping someone would trump the thread with an SX-64. Those machines were great fun. :D

All right, as I promised! Drum roll please! Beat this one. Raido Shack TRS-80 Model 100 Portable Computer, and yes, it still works.
That's beautiful. You are a lucky man, sir.

[irv]

I thought this thread was about old laptop. I had tons of old PCs like Atari XL800 and ST's and TT's etc, but there all desktops.

[K.Mandla]

I thought this thread was about old laptop. I had tons of old PCs like Atari XL800 and ST's and TT's etc, but there all desktops.
I'd call the Model 100 a "laptop." "Portable" is close enough for 25+ years ago. :)

[irv]

By the way it comes with the manual and basic on the ROM. It is really usable. You can write basic programs and run them. (text only) I am a lot like this old laptop. I grew up in IT using punch cards and main a frame that fill a room. The company I worked for retired the main frame so I took it home piece by piece. I ended up scraping out the iron, and was going to try to get the gold out of the chips, but I never did.

[K.Mandla]

I've heard of people using extremely old machines (maybe not that old) to write code, then transfer it to a bigger machine for compiling or merging with other programs. The rationale was that the older machines were easier to maintain and were more portable, and didn't offer as many distractions. :)

[khelben1979]

I thought this thread was about old laptop. I had tons of old PCs like Atari XL800 and ST's and TT's etc, but there all desktops.

I myself made an error when it came to the word laptop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laptop), but it's interesting to see how the thread has developed regarding old computers.

[JT9161]

Ive got a Toshiba Portege 660CDT with 81MB of RAM, a 1.4GB Hard Drive, an external floppy, a modem, and ~10 inch screen that was running 99% with Windows 98 (floppy only worked in safe mode) that I borked trying to install Basic Linux. :)

[grossaffe]

Ive got a Toshiba Portege 660CDT with 81MB of RAM, a 1.4GB Hard Drive, an external floppy, a modem, and ~10 inch screen that was running 99% with Windows 98 (floppy only worked in safe mode) that I borked trying to install Basic Linux. :)

sounds like you had a more modern version of my laptop. I also tried to install basic linux on it. having trouble getting it to recognize disk 2

[mips]

That's beautiful. You are a lucky man, sir.

K. Mandla,

I think you would make an excellent curator for a computer museum. You seem to have a real passion for the old and discarded.

I wish I still had my C64 & Amiga, those truely were the days :)

[irv]

When we start talking about old machines I get a tear in my eye. I thinks back to the days when I bought an Atari XL800 with 64K of RAM. I thought I died and went to Computer heaven. I paid $99 for it, but it came with nothing. I hooked up a small B&W TV to it and fired it up. Wow, I was at a DOS prompt and I could start typing commands. (actually it was called TOS, for Termel's Operating System). (I'm not sure if I am spelling his name right.)
I had something that I could control. I couldn't do this with my wife. I remember storing all my basic programs on tape until I got my first 5 ¼ “ floppy drive. Man, I thought I had everything a person could ever ask for. This lasted for about 2 years and then I moved up to my Atari ST and my TT, then my 386, 486, 586, and ....
I know there are a lot of you out there who have about the same story.
Isn't computing grand!
Just loved those old machines. I think us geeks have love affairs with computers like axle heads have with cars.

[tel93]

I have spent the last few days getting my old Compaq back up and running, which got me wondering if anyone else has a REALLY old laptop that still works.

My specs:

Compaq Armada 1530DM
---------------------
Pentium MMX 133MHz
80MB RAM
1MB Cirrus Logic display adapter (I don't think it can even be called a "graphics card")
33.6k modem
1.4GB HDD
3-1/4" Floppy
20x CD-ROM
2 - PCMCIA slots
1 - PS2 port
1 - Serial port
1 - LPT port
1 - IR port

I'm bit ashamed to say that I have Windows 98SE running on it, but I tried Xubuntu and DSL and neither of them worked very well (or at all).

What kind of old systems are you running?

I have a K6-2 w/ 128MB ram and a 2MB video card.

Oh use DeLi for that :) You'll like it.

[bobbob1016]

My oldest that still works, well some of them work, are CF-25 toughbooks. I have a green screen laptop somewhere, where the screen hinge is in the middle of the length of the laptop so there is still a block on the back, and it takes a power cable in the back. I also have a digital (name of the company) laptop that is really light, and has an attachable floppy drive...


My beauty:

Compaq LTE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_LTE) 286, 12MHz, 640kiB RAM, CGA screen

The hard drive is broken but otherwise it works fine. I can play gorillas & bananas game in QBASIC. :)

I remember changing the speed number in the gorillas game, to make it go really fast to cheat.

Freshman year in high school, had to backdoor into dos to get that. They only gave us a window with a few programs, Powerpoint -> Insert Word Art -> Make the Word Art a link to c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe -> View Slideshow -> Click the Word Art -> Have fun with dos... Senior year I hacked into the IT guy's computer through the Windows help file, I could map a network drive, and I mapped the one where the backgrounds for the desktops came, and made them green, my class' color war color.