20 year old computer.

[HamburgerBoy]

I lost a sound card to one. It happens.

But yeah, thanks for douching up the thread.

lol, Californian?

 

[Triumph]

Run it off a thumb drive

I'm not even sure how to do that. It may not allow me to select USB as the boot, not sure. How slow would it be? I only have a 1 gb thumb drive hanging around, anyway.

Thumb drives are one of those things where if you need one right away, the only option is Best Buy and they'll charge you 20 bucks for something that cost 10 bucks on sale 5 years ago.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm not even sure how to do that. It may not allow me to select USB as the boot, not sure. How slow would it be? I only have a 1 gb thumb drive hanging around, anyway.

Thumb drives are one of those things where if you need one right away, the only option is Best Buy and they'll charge you 20 bucks for something that cost 10 bucks on sale 5 years ago.

You'll be doing a GNU/Linux distro, but it's simple as long as your machine USB boots, and anything made in the last 10 years should USB boot. 1gb is plenty. Things that access the disk will be a little pokey, but it isn't that bad, especially if you have a good drive. Puppy loads into ram, so you don't have to deal with the disk. You could also use one of the ultralights; DSL TinyCore, or Slitaz. All of those give you gui desktop, and the images are less than 100mb, some are far less. They aren't the prettiest, and they require a bit more general tech knowledge than something like Puppy or Ubuntu, but you don't have to to be an uber hacker or anything.

Anyway, give it a try. If you want a web surfer/email/light office machine, try Puppy. It's fast, light, and looks decent. It also will fit on your drive.

http://www.puppylinux.com/

 

[Vdubchaos]

Here is a little secret. (keep in mind that person in the OP is a bit over the top to apply this perhaps, but as long as it works for them/whatever floats that boat).

Hardware upgrade has reached it's peak 5-8 years back. Only thing that's helping it right now is development which is coded to force people to upgrade (especially in gaming). From OS to specific programs, they all demand newer hardware.

Let's face it, MOST things people do don't need lot of horsepower. Entire hardware progress past 5-10 years hasn't really been all that great at all AND there is only SO much people need to do their bits.

When it comes to specialized sectors (let's take gaming), truth is, graphics have not improved that much AT ALL. Yet each new game requires more horsepower than the one before that. Look at COD for example, why is it that the engine is the same/game looks almost the same....but you need better hardware?

Compare the hardware specs of a video card from 3 years ago and today. We are talking 3-4x better specs. Do the games look 4x better? Does your computer run 4x faster/better?

Can basic users surf the web or do Office that much faster?



We are talking worthless milliseconds. Wow we are at 5ghz speeds? Impressive, but what has that REALLY gained you specifically?

It's called "we have run out of steam so let's have devs make things more demanding so people could buy new hardware".

So for most folks that surf the web, only reason for upgrade is really "just for shits and giggles" In most cases the gain is minimal AT BEST.

For advanced users, they got you on the lockdown.

: D

But us PC Gamers/hardware buffs can always make ourselves happy just by looking at the console people.

:biggrin:

 

[waggy]

lol

My mom worked with with computers since the 70's up until she died a few years ago. Her computer she used in her house was a old 486 dx4 100. witch she built.

It did everything she wanted. All she would do at home is research and email.



edit:

vdaub is correct to a point. computers today are insanly fast. while they aren't makeing the huge ghz jumps they are so much better in other ways. But do we really need that? When i was working i used ot upgrade about every 6-9 months. but you could see the diffrence with programs! now? not so much

I'm still running a duel core 2.6 Ghz with 6 gig of ram. It does pretty much everything i need (and i am a gamer). Though i do need a bigger HDD.

I am tempted to upgrade. My daughter keeps bugging me for her own computer. she is 10 so i guess its about time. but i would prefer to get her a cheap one.

 

[bignateyk]

I can appreciate that. I built my "good" computer in 2006, but sometimes too old is too old. I could see some niche uses where running a 486 makes sense, but for most people, the extra benefits of security, compatibility, and speed make getting a new(er) machine a good investment.

Security through obscurity! I can't imagine anyone is writing viruses to target Windows 3.1 anymore.

 

[bignateyk]

So for most folks that surf the web, only reason for upgrade is really "just for shits and giggles" In most cases the gain is minimal AT BEST.

:biggrin:

Yeah...go ahead and try to load a modern webpage on a 10+ year old computer. Most websites have so much content on them now they use 200+mb ram and a good amount of CPU to run all the flash and other stuff on them.

My web browser is currently using 900mb ram for 4 tabs. 10 years ago my computer only had 512mb ram total.

 

[BUTCH1]

Here is a little secret. (keep in mind that person in the OP is a bit over the top to apply this perhaps, but as long as it works for them/whatever floats that boat).

Hardware upgrade has reached it's peak 5-8 years back. Only thing that's helping it right now is development which is coded to force people to upgrade (especially in gaming). From OS to specific programs, they all demand newer hardware.

Let's face it, MOST things people do don't need lot of horsepower. Entire hardware progress past 5-10 years hasn't really been all that great at all AND there is only SO much people need to do their bits.

When it comes to specialized sectors (let's take gaming), truth is, graphics have not improved that much AT ALL. Yet each new game requires more horsepower than the one before that. Look at COD for example, why is it that the engine is the same/game looks almost the same....but you need better hardware?

Compare the hardware specs of a video card from 3 years ago and today. We are talking 3-4x better specs. Do the games look 4x better? Does your computer run 4x faster/better?

Can basic users surf the web or do Office that much faster?



We are talking worthless milliseconds. Wow we are at 5ghz speeds? Impressive, but what has that REALLY gained you specifically?

It's called "we have run out of steam so let's have devs make things more demanding so people could buy new hardware".

So for most folks that surf the web, only reason for upgrade is really "just for shits and giggles" In most cases the gain is minimal AT BEST.

For advanced users, they got you on the lockdown.

: D

But us PC Gamers/hardware buffs can always make ourselves happy just by looking at the console people.

:biggrin:

I think hardware improvement has slowed because they can't go much further with die shrink and faster clock speeds get harder to attain. I'm still running a 775/E8400/3.6ghz machine and feel no reason to upgrade at all, the few games I play are easily playable on this machine so why bother, (I did buy an SSD recently, love it..).

 

[pmv]

Not long since I got rid of an old video-genie (TRS80 knock-off circa 1980). It still worked perfectly well (obviously I wasn't actually using it for anything), though the disk operating system wouldn't allow you to set the year to any time later than 1988 (sort of an 8-bit version of the Y2K bug, I guess).

I've been using this current computer far longer than any I've had previously. Don't know if that means desktop technology is slowing down or that I'm just getting old. I guess its phones that get all the upgrades there days.

 

[bas1c]

Pfft...it's not even a DX-2.

 

[Kaido]

I just replaced a cmos battery on a Canon computer with a 486 DX-66 cpu running Windows 3.1.

It has to be 20 years old.

The woman uses it every day as a word processor.

That's got to be a record. I don't think I have even worked on a Windows 98 computer for at least 5 years.

I know a guy who lives on his 486 laptop. He's a fiction writer. Amazing.

 

[PingSpike]

Security through obscurity!

Betcha win98 is now one of the more secure OSes to put on the internet since nothing runs on it

I often wonder about that...if there's still malware sites and other things sitting out there trying to attack 9x systems or if they don't really work anymore and have been taken down.

 

[Triumph]

You'll be doing a GNU/Linux distro, but it's simple as long as your machine USB boots, and anything made in the last 10 years should USB boot. 1gb is plenty. Things that access the disk will be a little pokey, but it isn't that bad, especially if you have a good drive. Puppy loads into ram, so you don't have to deal with the disk. You could also use one of the ultralights; DSL TinyCore, or Slitaz. All of those give you gui desktop, and the images are less than 100mb, some are far less. They aren't the prettiest, and they require a bit more general tech knowledge than something like Puppy or Ubuntu, but you don't have to to be an uber hacker or anything.

Anyway, give it a try. If you want a web surfer/email/light office machine, try Puppy. It's fast, light, and looks decent. It also will fit on your drive.

http://www.puppylinux.com/

Thanks, I will try running Puppy. I forgot that I had a 2.5" drive I had put into a cheap USB enclosure laying around. I'll load Puppy on that and see what happens.

 

[JoeyP]

I'm running a 1.7 GHz at home, and it is terrible. But with a slimmer OS, I'll bet the 486 feels pretty snappy, and with no new software or upgrades it won't slow down over time. She's probably very happy.

I have been planning a new computer for over a year now. Prices have not dropped very much lately.

 

[BlitzPuppet]

And you confirmed it, how?

Lightning hit a tree by my house when I was around 13. It arc'd over and took out our phones and a few other things. My computer failed to turn on after that...turns out it fried the NIC card.

Once that was out everything started right on up.

 

[jupiter57]

I'm running a 1.7 GHz at home, and it is terrible. But with a slimmer OS, I'll bet the 486 feels pretty snappy, and with no new software or upgrades it won't slow down over time. She's probably very happy.

I have been planning a new computer for over a year now. Prices have not dropped very much lately.

I am using a 1.7 Ghz. P4 M laptop as my "Everyday" computer, 2 Gig RAM & 80 gig HDD, running XP Pro.
Does everything I need, as fast as I need it.
(I do not game, stream movies, nor torrent, so meh, whatever, it's an HP nc6000 I got from corwin for ~$80!)

I do have a newer Core Duo Toshiba w/ 4 Gig RAM & 320 GB HDD running Windows 7 in my "office", but for what I do, I can really tell no difference.

 

[westom]

I know a guy who lives on his 486 laptop. He's a fiction writer. Amazing.

My last 486 (an HP) was retired last summer. Its power supply stopped working when room temperatures exceeded 95 degrees F (35C). Was not worth finding and replacing its defective power system part. A failure probably traceable to a manufacturing defect.

Meanwhile, I still have many machines and peripherals from the 1990s and 2000s. All work. Some are still used for various functions. Hardware failures are extremely rare due other factors. Since the 486 era, normal is to have hardware still functional a decade later.

 

[HeXen]

You guys do realize the nostalgic market in Commadore 64 computers? Talk about an old computer, People still use them, probably more for gaming. Even AVGN had his in a couple episodes still in use.

 

[Red Squirrel]

All this talk about old computers makes me regret parting out and getting rid of our first computer. It was a Pentium 3 slot processor. Huge beige box. Top of the line at the time. 10 gig hard drive. I also still remember the boot up sounds of my sister's old 486, which she eventually gave to me, and that one I regret even more parting out and mostly getting rid of. Oh how it would be so nostalgic to boot up that beast. It is so old the power button actually switched the PSU on at the 120v level.

 

[Mixolydian]

I still use my PowerBook 3400c on a daily basis. Runs Mac OS 8.5. Still works pretty well.

 

[MovingTarget]

I work for a property management company and when we buy a place like an apartment complex we generally inherit the existing employees. This one place we bought had an old lady working in the leasing office. She did her documenting on a type writer. It took over 10 minutes for her to understand what the start button is (Good thing we aren't moving to Windows 8 lol).

Haha....its funny, but there's nothing logically wrong with it. Paper/typewriter can still work for most offices. Its cheap, it works, and is durable.

I could probably still be browsing the net with my old 486 DX4 with the 14.4 modem and using my old Panasonic KXP-2124 COLOR dot matrix printer for my business/classroom needs, but I always liked newer tech. As a side note, the computer was put out to pasture long ago, but I still use that damn printer 19 years later. It still works, but it is getting harder to find motherboards with the printer port integrated.

 

[Ferzerp]

I lost 3 or 4 modems as a youth to lightning, but never anything more.

 

[StinkyPinky]

At work we just got rid of some mid-90's Mac desktops. No idea what they are but they cost about $10k in 1995 apparently. They were still in use until 2011.

 

[3chordcharlie]

I still have this Panasonic KX-P2123 in storage.
My first colored 24-pin dot-matrix. Those were noisy printer. I wonder if they have drivers for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7.

Umm... Perhaps you didn't notice, but it says right on the front that it is "Quiet".

I had that exact model.

 

[mikeymikec]

I just replaced a cmos battery on a Canon computer with a 486 DX-66 cpu running Windows 3.1.

It has to be 20 years old.

The woman uses it every day as a word processor.

That's got to be a record. I don't think I have even worked on a Windows 98 computer for at least 5 years.

That's pretty cool. Were you dreading what you might find inside the PC? I think the oldest customers' computer I'm aware of is an Athlon 600MHz upgraded to XP some years ago. The other one I can think of is a P3 1GHz running Win98.

I had a guy ring me about a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_series_80 a couple of weeks ago. I directed him towards some enthusiast forums I found and said that I might try to help him if all else fails. I thanked the heavens when he said that he didn't *need* the computer for anything, he just wanted to get it up and running (dodgy tape drive IIRC). I can't imagine what hardware I would find inside there.

Since people are 'bragging' about the old hardware they've got - Amiga 500 in a box in the loft (I had to remove the half meg expansion because the clock battery leaked all over it), an Amiga 1200 / 040 with 32 or 64MB RAM and an 850MB HD, and 2x Dell Latitude C400 P3 1.2GHz (the second has a P3 1.33GHz)

I tend to do my Amiga gaming via emulation these days. The A1200 I think might have an iffy capacitor somewhere and I wasn't able to remove the board shielding the last time I tried.