Your oldest actively used computer kit

Victor · 03-01-2013 3:55pm

D wrote: »

Kind of a cheat here:

486 SX with 16MB of RAM (upgraded from 8)
No idea how old it is, but when I was at my parent's place this Christmas I played some Tyrian and Blackthorne. It was sitting in the sitting room covered in a cloth.

The spec would date it to about 1993-4. We bought a 33MHz Pentium in 1994 with 8MB RAM.

Dale Parish · 03-01-2013 5:18pm

Dingatron wrote: »

At work we've still a few NT 4.0 industrial devices still working away and dating back to around 2000. They'll be replaced this year.

Sell them to meeeeee :pac:

Khannie · 03-01-2013 8:24pm

yoyo wrote: »

Only recently retired my trusty Q6600 which must be over 5 years since I got it at this stage, another fantastic chip/wasn't it one of the first quad core Intels?

It was in the first batch of quad cores they produced (along with the Q6700 iirc). I am still using mine and have no intention of upgrading it for some time yet. It can clock to 3GHz, though I have it running at stock as I have no need.

yoyo · 03-01-2013 8:37pm

Khannie wrote: »

It was in the first batch of quad cores they produced (along with the Q6700 iirc). I am still using mine and have no intention of upgrading it for some time yet. It can clock to 3GHz, though I have it running at stock as I have no need.

Wanted to go the SSD route so wanted a SATA3 chipset. Had to change board, CPU and RAM as a result

. Mine was the earlier of the batches, not as good an overclocker I remember. Don't worry though rebuilt the machine as I have spare PSUs lying around so I still use it for various data recovery/backing up etc. tasks if someone gives me a laptop or whatever in to be fixed. Dead right though it's still a beast although the i5 I have now is also a beast, considerably faster at encoding video

Nick

demanufactured · 03-01-2013 8:47pm

Nforce wrote: »

A few oldies still in use here..

Alienware Area-51m 766

Alienware Sentia 223

Both in as new condition despite being 9-10 years old

Dell Dimension 4550 desktop (upgraded cpu,ram,os and gpu) about 9 years old and chugging along
Sony Vaio VGC-M1 (8 years old upgraded cpu and ram and replaced the psu a few months ago!)

About 5 more desktops (latest being i7 2600k powered, with dual SSD's)
and a few notebooks/android tablets.

I probably know the people who built your alienware machines.....the missus worked there till they closed up.

Defiler Of The Coffin · 03-01-2013 10:28pm

Up to a few months ago we had a old Compaq Tower PC that dated from 2003. It had originally shipped with Windows 2000 and 512GB RAM I believe. CPU was a 3GHz P4. I upgraded the RAM to 2GB and installed Win XP. It wasn't much use in the end, the internet crawled on it and occasionally it would freeze. Was still in general use though, had the printer hooked up to it and there was always someone who needed something printed. It's been recently replaced with a refurbished Dell corporate machine, great little thing!

We have a Linksys WRT54GL which we use as an internet gateway. Not entirely sure when it was manufactured but I know that particular model dates from 2006. I have a couple of wireless access points and an Xbox connected to its LAN ports, it functions as the DHCP server for the entire house. I've been told that it's particularly sought after because of the ease of which DD-WRT can be installed on it. I have it installed myself and the wealth of functionality it gives you compared to the stock firmware has to be seen to be believed. Linksys should go the Buffalo route and ditch their own firmware in favour of it.

Dale Parish · 05-01-2013 8:58pm

Actually it turns out my Apple //c has an older datestamp than my IBM...

ED E · 06-01-2013 2:20am

Khannie wrote: »

It was in the first batch of quad cores they produced (along with the Q6700 iirc). I am still using mine and have no intention of upgrading it for some time yet. It can clock to 3GHz, though I have it running at stock as I have no need.

3? Most do 3.6 easy, 4 with a good board!

My main rig atm:

Amprodude · 06-01-2013 6:21am

I have a Dell optiplex pc dating back to 1996, still works but have it stored in a press. It had a intel pentium I processor 133mhz, 6GB harddrive. Cant remember how much RAM it had. It had windows 95 as its OS. Ancient piece of equipment at this stage.

I have a fujistu scaleo desktop that was bought back in september 2004. Its over 8 years old and still going and always on for hours nearly every day. It has a 2.66 ghz celeron D processor, 1 GB of ram which was upgraded in 2008 from 256MB, Intel GMA graphics and 30GB HDD. Its running on xp and still working fine. I use it to download crap and testing other stuff and programs i download like a virtual machine. Big difference to that and my two laptops i have which are both brand new and high spec.

The next oldest thing i have is a dell printer all in one bought in 2006 but has very little printing done so there should be another 10 years left in it. I have two external iomega hd drives one bought in Dec 2006 and the other in Dec 2007. My logitech speakers were bought in Jan 2007.

Everything else i have is post 2011

13spanner · 06-01-2013 6:29am

Our home computer is a Dell Dimension 2400, which replaced the Windows 95 that was there previously

Squeaky the Squirrel · 06-01-2013 5:48pm

Original Gameboy, I use it to play Tetris when I'm over at my friends pauls place doing the business.

melekalikimaka · 06-01-2013 5:55pm

Cyrix 6x86 PR-166-based system with 16Mb RAM, 1Gb hard drive and 14-inch monitor, just for command and conquer and cm2 97/98

0ph0rce0 · 06-01-2013 5:56pm

Typing on this as we speak

yoyo · 06-01-2013 5:57pm

13spanner wrote: »

Our home computer is a Dell Dimension 2400, which replaced the Windows 95 that was there previously

Father had one of those 2400s alright down in the holiday home. Remember playing Vice City on it

. One of the worst case designs ever where the USB ports hid under the flap, lost many USB keys in college forgetting about them when the flap stopped staying up.

Nick

10-10-20 · 06-01-2013 7:43pm

I think that I can whop you all with this beast...

My photo server is a Dell Precision 410 workstation, which was last powered on only 2 days ago.
Bought in 1998, running 2x 450MHz Pentium II, 440BX chipset, with 768MB of memory, running Windows 2000 (SP4). It came with 2x 9GB UW SCSI hard-drives, but is now fitted with 2x 1TB and 1x 500GB SATA drives on a PCI SATA controller. It also has a gigabit NIC and a USB-2.0 card installed.
It's perfect as a backup target. Oh - and it has been spay-painted metallic green!

The kids' laptop is nearly as bad, it's an Inspiron D600 from 2002, Pentium M 1.6GHz with 512MB of memory running Linux Mint (mainly for watching Peppa Pig and surfing)...

What do I win?

trout · 06-01-2013 7:50pm

I have been using the same IBM Model M "clicky" keyboard since 1988.

It's a little grubby now, but I cannot get the same speed/accuracy on any other keyboard.

I have some spare Model M keyboards from the early 90's ... just in case.

Defiler Of The Coffin · 06-01-2013 7:55pm

10-10-20 wrote: »

What do I win?

An Atari Jaguar

Capt'n Midnight · 06-01-2013 9:07pm

trout wrote: »

I have been using the same IBM Model M "clicky" keyboard since 1988.

*envy*

Jijsaw · 06-01-2013 9:14pm

My good old Windows 95, first computer my parents had and they gave it to me to use

Dale Parish · 06-01-2013 9:27pm

trout wrote: »

I have been using the same IBM Model M "clicky" keyboard since 1988.

It's a little grubby now, but I cannot get the same speed/accuracy on any other keyboard.

I have some spare Model M keyboards from the early 90's ... just in case.

Have one too but it's the U.S. edition :mad:

Snowbat · 07-01-2013 2:46am

I recently cleaned up my old Fujitsu FKB4700 clicky keyboard and put it back into use. It was from my first PC, a 386. It replaces a MS Natural keyboard (original model) that lasted for many years but is well past it's best.

The oldest computer in regular use here is a PIII 500 salvaged from my cousin's bin and now doing duty as our home server. I maxed out the RAM, added a SATA PCI card and a 1.5TB hard drive.

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 7
model name      : Pentium III (Katmai)
stepping        : 3
cpu MHz         : 501.152

Gumbi · 07-01-2013 4:06am

Using the speakers that came with the family's first desktop - Windows 95. Got it at least 14 years ago. What some might find funny (audiophiles, perhaps, blasphemous) is that I'm using them in a 7950, i5 based rig

So yeah, I take my sound seriously

Honestly, though, they seem to be fine and do the job perfectly well for me.

Tij da feen · 07-01-2013 9:54am

yoyo wrote: »

Father had one of those 2400s alright down in the holiday home. Remember playing Vice City on it . One of the worst case designs ever where the USB ports hid under the flap, lost many USB keys in college forgetting about them when the flap stopped staying up.

Nick

Is it bad that I still have to use them at college :P. I actually have forgotten a USB key in one of them, I can't even understand why they had them there. Also the front headphone jack is there too which meant that if the computer was on the ground the headphones wouldn't reach.

Oldest computer here is a G4 Mac upgraded to 2GB of RAM. Has a 500Mhz G4 processor and an ATI Rage 128 Pro. It's running Leopard as well. Got it in 00/01 I think. I have fond memories of playing Warcraft 3 on this.

yoyo · 07-01-2013 10:07am

Tij da feen wrote: »

Is it bad that I still have to use them at college :P. I actually have forgotten a USB key in one of them, I can't even understand why they had them there. Also the front headphone jack is there too which meant that if the computer was on the ground the headphones wouldn't reach.

Only out of college just over a year now and some labs still had those machines, the Optiplex variants. I'm guessing when Dell released the models USB Keys hadn't really taken off so it was mainly designed for cables. Even inserting cables was a pita though... Just bad design and usability, suppose all manufacturers screwed up majorly at some point. You would have to wonder though why those old P4 machines are still in use, being at least 9/10 years old. Now with Windows 7 at least many will be replaced with new machines to cater for Win 7 upgrades. I did some work out in another college one summer and we were scrapping all the optiplex ones for new machines

Nick

areyawell · 08-01-2013 3:42am

Have an old PC lying around there somewhere

Pentium 3 450 MHZ
64 MB Ram
Voodoo 3 3dfx 8MB RAM
40GB Hard drive

Was Bought new in 1999. May have a look at see what crap is on it. Hasn't been booted up in 8 or 9 years Id say. Remember playing Fifa 2000 on it

Lovely Bloke · 08-01-2013 8:56am

BostonB wrote: »

Can you not get the players on the WD TV Live box?

I didn't know they were available for it?

Morrisseeee · 08-01-2013 10:49am

Packard Bell (multi-media) PC, the one with the speakers attached to the monitor. Bought in 1994 or 5 I think, cost.......£1200 :eek:
/although it did come with a box of CDs and it states: "Worth £1000" !!

Spec: 120MHz processor, 4MB Ram(now 8MB), 1GB HD, Win95

Still working fine, it's located at my mother's house so I only power it up for the kids when we're visiting. There's a shed load of games and they only take up a few MBs, compared to today's games in GBs !

Some of which I copied across to a Win7 machine with no bother, one of them is a chess game (where you can 'see' the computer's thoughts, and as you can imagine there's a fair difference between the 2 machines).
I remember getting MS Office (at the time) and it took like 20 floppies to install it, still working fine tho. Another game I installed was the Grand Prix 2 (racing car) game, by Geoff Crammond, a great game that was unbelievably customizable.

It's in perfect nick aswell as it had little use, also it's an internet virgin :eek::pac:

johndoe99 · 08-01-2013 11:14am

My own PC died so i was using an old dingy laptop, then my neighbour was evicted. When the council were cleaning out the house i enquired about some garden fences they were tossing, they also said i could have anything else i wanted, save them the job of filling the skip, saw a pc box, noticed it had never been open:

Acer Aspire T671
160gb Sata
1GB DDR2
ATI Radeon Xpress 200
Pentium D

Been using it about 9 months now.

stevek93 · 26-01-2013 11:18pm

Oldest laptop I have is a Dell Latitude e6400 going 5 years which survived a spillage the other day by the way

I tell you the old Dells are built like a tank the poor laptop has been through the mill and back and still working 100% can't say this for the new Dells, collage got a new batch of Dells last year completely other rubbish! You have to mash the keys on the keyboard to get them to work. In another room in the collage we have a aging 8 year old batch of Dells still using the old CRTs monitors I tell you these are a dream to work on because of the keyboards, many people say it all about specs I disagree and say it is useability if I have to mash the computer to get it to work what good are the specs?

L.Jenkins · 27-01-2013 12:27am

Running a Fujitsu PC with XP with 512mb of ram. Still have a laptop with 3gb of ram running vista.

Your oldest actively used computer kit

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