So who here uses the oldest...

[HermitJohn]

computer on a daily basis. People are continually talking of upgrading to this or that or getting the latest wifi gadget.

But who uses the oldest computer on a day to day basis? I am sure there are still some pentium2 and pentium3 out there with win98/ME. Any pentium1 with win95 or BeOS? Or even some old 486 with win3.1 users? Or simular era old computers converted to linux?

I mention to people that even dos or 3.1 is still usable for email and word processing and they look at me like I'd grown a third ear out of the middle of my forehead. Most people dont really NEED the power of a modern system for such basic daily tasks.

The only reason I gave up an old AST laptop with 100mhz processor and like 40mb ram and win95 was cause the screen faded to point it wasnt viewable. Still did basic stuff just fine and surfed ok with lightweight modern browser like Kmeleon. It had some weird hardware not supported well with any other operating system so was stuck with win95.

Then again the old hardware in working condition is probably more rare than much more modern stuff pulled out of a dumpster. People are now abandoning pentium4 single core processor computers that are still plenty fast to do most modern activities. Crazy.

[FarmboyBill]

Windows XP

[mommymushbrain]

I have a Windows XP Emachine that has an 800mHz processor and 256 RAM. Something like that... LOL

[Harry Chickpea]

I only took the 95 machine off to make room for this one last year. FWIW, the 16 bit soundcard with dedicated midi samples in the hardware STILL beats what comes out of most soundcards. A lot of my development files are still on the 98SE machine, along with invoicing software and other stuff. I gave up being an early adopter years ago.

Personal computers are no longer about personal computing anyway. They are about trying to be television.

[Sumer]

I'm in the process right now at work converting things from our old computer to our new one. Windows 95 to XP. I use it every day but that's at work.

[City Bound]

What bugs me about any computer is the time it takes to load pages and preform tasks. I guess that is the RAM, right? Anyway, old computers are good for simple things, but I do not want to wait half a minute for an e-mail to open.

I have windows 7, and intel pentium.

Better computers are getting cheaper now. I bought this laptop for $500, and i consider that a decent price.

[Pony]

We have the same sluggish issues as City Bound. We've already added as much memory as we can, and the processor isn't slow per se, but it surely drags along - feels like being stuck in rush hour traffic.

That's the main computer. I use a lappy someone gave to us (Dell Inspiron). Not bad, really, and it does what I need it to do. Still, I like the solid feel of the old Frankenstein dinosaur. It's where I do my word processing.

[MO_cows]

We have an old Unix machine at work from 1996, still does the job. It still loads up some things faster than the pc's. We have migrated most stuff off of it but it will still host one data set for the foreseeable future. Hard wired network, it is old school but it works.

[donewithcity]

Although my desktop box is a new 64 bit win 7 machine with gigs of ram, I just downgraded my dell 1.5 ghz Pentium lap top from Vista to XP , and it is now really fast, like it should have been brand new.
There are several other boxes here, but the oldest is a Pentium II 400 Mhz with 500 mg of RAM loaded with RedHat Linux Server 7. No GUI just command prompt but it runs circles around everything else here. I used it for years running Apache hosting websites from home, along with mail server, DNS, the whole enchilada, and it still boots right up and hums along. I just use it for a local test server anymore. When you add all the graphics and mouse clicks to the operating system it starts to eat up resources fast. Of course learning Unix administration is not for the average hobbyist, but I found it very rewarding.

[NickieL]

Wow. Them some dinosaurs lol. Dh builds all the computers here, so they are never "out of date" lol

[springvalley]

Do smoke signals count ? HeHe > Thanks Marc

[fordy]

.................Current pooter is about 7 years old , uses XP home and is very reliable . I spose the hard drive will crater soon enough cause it has over 31,000 operational hours on it ! , fordy

[Jerngen]

My emachines desktop was bought in July of 2001 and still works fine for simple things (emails, web browsing).
My emachines laptop is 3 years old and doesn't go much faster then my old desktop.

[HermitJohn]

Originally Posted by City Bound

What bugs me about any computer is the time it takes to load pages and preform tasks. I guess that is the RAM, right? Anyway, old computers are good for simple things, but I do not want to wait half a minute for an e-mail to open.

I have windows 7, and intel pentium.

Better computers are getting cheaper now. I bought this laptop for $500, and i consider that a decent price.

Trying to use modern mega bloat software on old computers is probably the problem. Modern software has ram requirements just like the operating system. Even if you have a lightweight operating system that can run on the machine, doesnt mean your software of choice will work if there isnt enough ram.

Few years ago a laptop entered my possession for short time. It had maybe a 500mhz processor, but only minimum ~30 to 40mb ram. Well Puppy Linux booted ok, but it just wasnt enough ram for Firefox or Seamonkey to even start. Opera would start, took long time to fully load but once it did, it would surf. However you couldnt have more than couple windows open. I remember now, that computer had bad cmos battery, so settings wouldnt hold in bios, had to be reset each and every time. I replaced battery with new proper one, then it wouldnt boot at all, so it goes. Never figured out why.


As to slow, I am still on dialup, thats a huge bottle neck. Once at library, with some ancient laptop I had with me, all at once popped up a little box and there was tv weather forcast going full speed. Surprised heck out of me. I was fumbling trying to shut off sound so I didnt get kicked out of library... I didnt even know that computer was capable of playing video, never tried using it for that. On dialup, such streaming video would never have had chance to load before I was already going to another website.

Oh my current laptop, I just recently got off ebay 2.0ghz (pentium M, think they call the processor) with somewhere like 1gb ram? Paid $40 shipped and looks like new. Overkill specs for Puppy Linux, but works well and I really wanted usb 2.0 ports and ability to boot from usb via bios without workaround boot disks. It was cheap cause it was off brand Asus/Nspire and missing its hard drive and hard drive caddy. I just use Puppy booted from an 8gb usb flash key. Didnt even have to change bios settings, it just automagically found it and booted it. Thats plenty space for kind of things I use it for. Even has a dvd burner.

[donewithcity]

Somewhere around here I have a linux router on a floppy. It will run on a 486 with 32 MB of RAM and no hard drive. Plugged into a cheap switch it functions as well as a commercial cisco. see http://www.fredshack.com/docs/floppyroutersfw.html

[6e]

My desktop is older than dirt. We've had it for years and years and we use it every day. It can't even run Windows any more. Just flat too old and too slow, so we run Fedora on it. That, it runs fine. I suspect someday I'll have to build a new one, but for now, this ones chugging along. I have Windows 7 on my laptops though.

[lonelyfarmgirl]

I just upgraded to a new system this past summer. Until then, it was a Dell Millenium Edition with windows xp. My Dell 1998 with windows 95 still works fine, but it cant support alot of the internet happenings anymore. We do have a couple old green screens in the closet. They turn on and have a cursor, but I forget what to do with them.

[Seeker]

I use a notepad. But it's pretty old, it is yellow, and the monitor has blue lines that go across it, horizontally.

Sort of a pain, but it actually helps me when I use the stylus with it. The blue lines allow me to precisely align the stylus.

The stylus is yellow as well, and is a Number 2 stylus.

[Backfourty,MI.]

I don't know all the computor lingo like megabites, etc. but mine is an old desktop kind with Windows XP. I bought it new in 2005 so it's only 6 years old almost 7 this coming febuary. I guess that's old if your talking electronics but it works good for me & does everything I need so that's good for me.

I have seen those new flat screens, they don't take up much space on the desk. Also the one's with the touch screens, I seen those when they came out & I think those are really cool.

[Mavors]

I used to use my old windows 3.11 daily that I bought in '95, but did finally upgrade to XP Pro 7 or 8 years ago.

Is it bad I still kinda miss 3.11 and it's simplicity? I figure XP should last me a minimum of 10 years. If I can get 15 to 20 even better.

Mav