Old Personal Computers

[Camelopard]

As a follow on from the Vista thread, what is the oldest working Personal Computer still doing it's job that you know of?

My neighbour is a Surveyor and still uses his Tandy 1000 which he bought second hand in 1986! It has a 5 1/4 inch internal floppy drive and an external hard drive.
He uses it to run his plotter and sees no point in changing.

[Crypt]

Hrmm, I had a Commodore 128 up and running a year ago, fun to tinker with. Twin Kingdom Valley!

[tinchote]

As a follow on from the Vista thread, what is the oldest working Personal Computer still doing it's job that you know of?

My neighbour is a Surveyor and still uses his Tandy 1000 which he bought second hand in 1986! It has a 5 1/4 inch internal floppy drive and an external hard drive.
He uses it to run his plotter and sees no point in changing.

Man, it will be hard to beat that. My dad had a Tandy 2000, but I cannot even remember what we did with it. I think we threw it to the garbage when we moved in 01.

[jso1985]

my high school still had 6 Tandy 1000 computers running when I left in 2003, maybe they still have them!

[Camelopard]

my high school still had 6 Tandy 1000 computers running when I left in 2003, maybe they still have them!

What do they use them for?

As an aside we had a severe hail storm earlier this year and my neighbours office was flooded, water came in through the roof, the Tandy was saturated, he waited till it dried out and started it up without problems!

[BDunnell]

What do they use them for?

As an aside we had a severe hail storm earlier this year and my neighbours office was flooded, water came in through the roof, the Tandy was saturated, he waited till it dried out and started it up without problems!

That's remarkable and wonderful. I certainly don't know anyone with a computer aged 20-plus. Still, what's the point changing if you're happy with what you have?

[jso1985]

What do they use them for?


to "learn" how to use computers and software, of course generally you use the newer ones but if you show up late to the class, most of the time there's only 6 computers left for use ;)

[Eki]

Old personal computers sounds rude. You should say senior citizenal computers.

[Hondo]

Some people never throw anything away and some, like the guy with the plotter, still have a use for the older equipment. You get out in industry and you'll find a lot of old Modicon and AutoMate DCS and PLC systems still chugging along, doing their job. Even when I had my 286 and 386 machines, I still fired up and used my Commodore 64. You could dump coffee in the Commodore and let it dry out too. Plus, you could reconfigure the keyboard just by pulling out 2 keys and switching their positions. Great little joke to play on somebody that thought they were a hotshot typist.

[wedge]

I still have my old 486 which survived the millennium bug. Windows 3.1 still brings back good memories and I still run it for Grand Prix 2, Papyus' NASCAR & Indycar Racing every other year.

[BeansBeansBeans]

I bought my PC in 2004, and when I recently took it in for repair the techy guys in the shop looked at me as if I'd just rode in on a Penny Farthing.

I make my living selling software, but I know hardly anything about computers. I'm a bit like that bloke in I'm Alan Partridge who sells kitchens but can't cook.

[LotusElise]

Mine dates from 2002 but has had a few added bits since then.
When I used to work in IT, I had to draw up a support proposal for a certain well-known UK nuclear power station. They were still using DEC Alpha servers that had been discontinued since 1979, so were probably older than that. I couldn't find anyone willing to take them on a support contract.

[Camelopard]

Mine dates from 2002 but has had a few added bits since then.
When I used to work in IT, I had to draw up a support proposal for a certain well-known UK nuclear power station. They were still using DEC Alpha servers that had been discontinued since 1979, so were probably older than that. I couldn't find anyone willing to take them on a support contract.

That doesn't sound good!

[dime3]

I still have my old 486 which survived the millennium bug.
Ha! I threw out the monitor for my old 386 just last week!

I miss the good old days of DOS ;(

[Mark]

I'm about to throw out my Dads old PC in preparation for my new PC arriving. Granted it's not particularly old, Pentium 1 733mhz, Windows ME, CRT monitor. When we got it, it was amazingly superfast. Particularly as it was an insurance claim to replace a 386SX 33Mhz :p

[LotusElise]

That doesn't sound good!

I was quite worried too.

[CarlMetro]

One of the design engineers where I used to work had an Ollivetti 386. He had written a calculations programme for it when it was new and couldn't be bothered to try and find a new alternative, especially as his old programme worked so well.

[Hazell B]

The computer I'm posting from is on Windows '97 (or is it '98? I can't remember what it says on the opening page thingy :rolleyes: ) and I bought it in 1998 I think.

Keep saying I'll invest in a new one as it's about on it's last legs, but never get around to it. Last time somebody took it away to clear out virus stuff he said it had over 450 nasties lurking in the workings - so it obviously has zero antivirus and I don't exactly help by not downloading them for free very often :mark:

Do I win a five pound voucher towards a new update? :)

[schmenke]

I just chucked an old 286 machine a couple of weeks ago. I was running Windows Millenium on it and not much else :p : . It took close to 10 minutes to boot :mark:

[Mark]

The computer I'm posting from is on Windows '97 (or is it '98? I can't remember what it says on the opening page thingy :rolleyes: ) and I bought it in 1998 I think.

Keep saying I'll invest in a new one as it's about on it's last legs, but never get around to it. Last time somebody took it away to clear out virus stuff he said it had over 450 nasties lurking in the workings - so it obviously has zero antivirus and I don't exactly help by not downloading them for free very often :mark:

Do I win a five pound voucher towards a new update? :)

It's simple really, does it work? does it do all the things you want it to do? If so then there is no need to buy a new one just for the sake of it.

[Mark]

I just chucked an old 286 machine a couple of weeks ago. I was running Windows Millenium on it and not much else :p : . It took close to 10 minutes to boot :mark:

A 286 running Windows ME, impossible?!

[Daniel]

A 286 running Windows ME, impossible?!
I should think so.

http://kb.iu.edu/data/aixv.html

*does nerdy laugh*

[anncath]

Old personal computers sounds rude. You should say senior citizenal computers.

That´s right! My Granny (nearly 85 years young) has got an "scc" from the 80s. She´s working with "doss" writing her biography.

[schmenke]

A 286 running Windows ME, impossible?!

Well I thought it was a 286 :mark: I could be wrong. It was dead-slow anyways :p :

[Hondo]

Ha! I threw out the monitor for my old 386 just last week!

I miss the good old days of DOS ;(

I know what you mean. Sometimes I really miss my old 286 AT and especially DOS. At least with DOS, you knew what was going on, who was doing what, and best of all, to delete something with DOS, you had to really know what you were doing. With Windows, any idiot can destroy anything. Bummer.

[Mark]

No recycle bin with dos.
del *.* was always fun.

[Daniel]

format c: whoops! Didn't mean to!

[Crypt]

Old computers I've had;

Commodore 64
Commodore 128
Amiga 1500
Mac Classic SE
Mac Performa 475
Mac Performa 631
Power Mac 8500
Power Mac G3 Blue and White
Homebuilt x86 Windows Gaming machine (has evolved over the years)
Homebuilt Linux Server

[Hondo]

Not too long ago, I saw an ad in a newspaper for a FORTRAN programmer and they were willing to pay up $150.00 an hour for the programmers services. You reckon somebody is still trying to squeeze that last bit of life out of their old mainframe set up? Is FORTRAN still being used?