My oldest pc is a Compaq Presario 4504, using 32mb ram, and pentium 200mhz cpu. I have windows 98 on it currently but I'm planning on just converting in back to a Dos based system. When it runs for a extended period of time it does get toasty inside the compaq's where known for being heat boxes as there is not much ventilation.
My oldest pc is a Compaq Presario 4504, using 32mb ram, and pentium 200mhz cpu. I have windows 98 on it currently but I'm planning on just converting in back to a Dos based system. When it runs for a extended period of time it does get toasty inside the compaq's where known for being heat boxes as there is not much ventilation.
I have a custom built computer that is also known to be a heatbox. It's nice when winter comes and the windows let all the cold in; All I have to do is have my computer powered and playing some game then a few minutes later it will start warming up my room.
A generic rig I assembled sometime in late 2002. I added / removed a few parts here and there. This is how it sits now:
Motherboard ECS K7SEM
Integrated AMD 1400+ (Duron like)
512mb RAM (2 x PC133 Markvision and Kingston)
40 gb 7200 Maxtor HDD (Primary IDE Master)
40 gb 7200 Seagate HDD (Primary IDE Slave)
24x Lite-ON CDRW (Secondary IDE Master)
LiteON DVD (Secondary IDE Slave)
3.5" NEC Floppy drive
NVidia Quadro Pro 2 AGP 4x 32MB
Sound Blaster Live 5.1
AverTV PCI TV Card
Peripherals:
Canon N640Px Scanner
Gravis Gamepad Pro
Software:
Windows 98 SE
Office 97
Omnipage Pro
IrfanView 2.85
IMGBurn
Need For Speed 2, 3 and 4
Sonic Heroes
Sonic CD
RoadRash
Fifa 98
etc, etc, etc
It is hooked it up to the network, mainly to ftp into my NAS. A few websites load (kinda) on IE6 and Firefox 2, definitely not the same web as some 12 years ago.
It currently runs Windows 98 SE. It's not really gloriously old, in fact it's incredibly faster than anything I ever had running Windows 98, but I suppose that's only a good thing, as I'm not the patient kid who didn't know any better. The size is a huge advantage, finding room for regular tower would be difficult but this, this fits anywhere.
I paid one packet of coffee (500 grams) for it. Came with Microsoft keyboard and mouse and a 17" Philips flatscreen monitor. I added more and faster memory and threw in the GF4 from old junkpiles. I still have a GF2 and good sticks of SDRAM around, waiting for something more properly old.
My oldest running currently is my HP Pavilion xt923. Here are the specs (might not be fully accurate, haven't touched the thing in awhile):
800MHz Celeron Processor
384MB of RAM (PC100)
80GB IDE HDD
Some very shitty onboard graphics, probably Intel
It was upgraded to XP from ME at one point in its life, though I think it would of been better if they slapped a copy of 2000 on it instead. One of these days, I am going to get around to either finding a use for it or getting rid of it, no use to me just sitting around.
I've got some custom PC by a company called ICC from 1993
CPU: UMC Green CPU 486 @ 33MHz
Memory: 4x 1MB 30-pin SIMM RAM
Storage: 356MB NEC HDD
1.44MB diskette drive
Video: VGA Trident chipset ISA card - 1MB VRAM
Sound: PC speaker
This is all 100% original, never modified and it still works great! It's better for running 2D games then any of the 3D ones or really anything newer then 1995. It even struggles to run Doom at a playable frame rate with all the graphics turned down and the smallest screen size. The CPU isn't really powerful at all, it even makes the 33MHz Intel 486 look like a rocket in comparison.
It currently runs Windows 95OSR2.5, The hardware is from 1999-era, It runs older games nicely (although the only one I tried was Speed Haste (3D Racing game from 1995)), It should run games from 2000 and earlier.
My oldest PC is a custom build from 2003, so it doesn't really count much but I thought it would be worth mentioning.
The specs are:
EPoX EP-8K9A7I
AMD Athlon XP 1.2 GHz
512mb DDR Ram 333MHz
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000
56k V.92 Modem
CD-RW 52x24x52 Drive IDE
DVD-ROM Drive IDE
80GB IDE HDD
3.5" Floppy
9 USB Ports!
Windows XP Professional SP3 (Currently Broken)
It runs pretty well but is not too good at multitasking with it's 1.2 GHz Processor.
I don't really know why Windows won't work, one day it said WINSTA.DLL is corrupt when shutting down and now it just BSODs at every type of boot you try (Safe Mode, etc). I tried repairing the installation but it still won't work. I have a feeling that there is either a severe virus or the HDD is going because I have lost programs and have broken shortcuts. I have rescued everything important using LiveXP and USB Sticks so it doesn't matter too much.
Anyway I know that it's nothing on what some of you have got, and it's fairly high-spec but I thought it was worth mentioning.
One last note is the case, it's beige and has a really nice green plastic wave thing on the front. I have not idea what make or model it is but it is stamped 2002 on the QC Stamps. I was wondering if anyone knew what it was.
Here is a rubbish drawing, if you know what it is then PM me so as not to clutter the thread:
That case looks similar to a cheap white box my mom bought around late 2003. The layout of the front panel was different, but it had the same overall green wave on white design, which used to be my oldest computer running circa 2012 before the power supply failed and took the motherboard with it.
As for the make of your case, looking at the overall design of the case and the blank square, I am going to guess the case was made by Asus. Don't know anything else about the case because as stitch said, this was a very generic case for its time.
Being a new kid in town, I'll join in and post my oldest working system:
IBM ThinkPad 385ED, circa 1997
CPU: Intel Pentium MMX, 166 MHz
RAM: 48 MB
Drives: 4x CD-ROM, Floppy, 2 GB hard disk
Ports: serial, parallel, SVGA, PS/2 mouse, twin PCMCIA slots
Audio: PC speaker and stereo headphone with hardware volume control, stereo line-in, Crystal Semiconductors CS4236 FM synthesizer
Video: NeoMagic NM2093
OS: Windows 98 Second Edition
Overall, it's a nice computer, and I get a fair bit of use out of it. The ThinkPad is great for those occasions where my 64-bit Lenovo laptop refuses to run 16- and 32-bit programs, and for when VirtualBox runs things way too fast even when emulating Windows 98.
...And for when I'm too lazy to fire up VirtualBox in the first place.
Oh well, I thought it might be interesting, but in a PM I was given a link that suggests it might be an "ATX Super 2000 CSX600 Color Series Case" with a code of CSX240. Thanks for the replies anyway.
My oldest is a 1984 Commodore 64, oldest PC is my Toshiba Satellite T1910 B/W 486SX/33 8MB RAM 160MB HD running my homebrew Linux (idles in 1.3MB RAM).
HP Pavilion 4450
400MHz Intel Celeron
Windows 98SE with Plus! installed
16GB Hard Disk
DVD-RW Drive (Couldn't get a brand name to show up, so I'm guessing it's just a plain old DVD drive)
ATI Rage Pro 8MB
128MB RAM
Sound Blaster PCI128
It broke a couple years back, but I managed to get it working
I bought this machine nearly ten years ago from my neighbor, it served as a server for a few years before being forced into early retirement by an Opteron-machine.
A Toshiba T5100 in full working condition. It's an incredible machine, from 1987.
It has an Intel 386 processor, and 2 Mb RAM.
The original hard drive was 40 Mb, but the former owner changed it for a 200 Mb. What an improvement, haha!
He send me the first 40 Mb one with the computer, as well as original DOS floppies, the Toshiba transport bag and the user manual (a heavy hardcover book, which looks more like a little dictionary than an actual user manual).
The only issue are these two lines on the display, one of dead pixels, the other of stuck ones. But for a nearby 30 years old thing, it's okay, I don't really care...!
The CMOS battery is dead. But I intend to change it some day. I'm curious to open this awesome machine anyway.
This is my first post after "lurking" for a while so I thought it might be fitting to post in this and the wallpapers thread first.
Dell Latitude C600
Intel Pentium III-1000
384MB PC100 SDRAM
40GB IDE 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar hard drive (not original)
ATI Radeon M3 graphics, Can't remember if 8MB or 16MB VRAM
Win2k RTM (Having gotten around to setting it up and loading all the unofficial updates yet)
Dell Inspiron 2650
Intel Celeron (don't know if PIII or P4 Based) 1.5
512MB PC-Something (I got this machine a few days ago with a broken screen so there was very little testing I could do, but I ordered a new screen on ebay) DDR RAM
20GB Fujitsu IDE Hard Drive
No Operating System (the guy who gave it to me hadn't wiped it yet so I took it upon myself to run DBAN)
Don't know which is older, I'm guessing the C600 because it has a "designed for Win98/NT4/2000" sticker, but it might be a later model since it has an XP COA on the bottom
FIC AM37 with Modified BIOS
AMD Athlon 2000+
Thermake Volcano 6Cu
1GB DDR 2700
AGP eVGA GeForce 6200 w/ 256MB ram
Western Digital 160GB PATA
HP dvd740 optical drive
250watt Antec power supply
Random Compaq gunmetal gray and black case.
I had an IBM PCXT 4.77MHz 8088 with 640k and twin 360k drives. I did rig a 720k drive to the 360k controller that worked. Got it using the internet by having it ping but I guess either the floppy seek time or the CPU was too slow to do anything. Funny to see a NIC from 2000 work in an 8-bit slow.
I'm sure noone can top that when it comes to x86 based.
I topped that!
IBM PC 5150 with 64KB of RAM, a 5.25 inch double sided drive, 3.5 inch drive, and two Seagate ST 251MLC2 drives. Running MS-DOS 3.0 with Windows 2.11, some generic VGA card, a multifunction card, 4 serial ports, an AdLib, and some weird modem card that doesn't get me very far to the internet. This system is in storage, just wanted to point it out.
My oldest RUNNING system that I still use is a Pentium-75 Compaq Deskpro with a 2GB hard disk, 128MB of RAM, and Windows XP Home edition. It's a print server and re-routes file requests to my second oldest system, some weird dual-slot Pentium II machine with 2 Pentium II 400MHz, 512MB of RAM, and 14 separate SCSI, ATA, and RLL (MFM) hard disk drives. Running Windows 2000 Advanced Server to host files over a 100MBp/s connection to other computers.
NEC VERSA 2650CDT laptop
1997 manufacture
Pentium MMX 150Mhz chip
~1.28GB HDD
32MB-RAM
1MB Video
CD-ROM
Floppy drive
Working battery! (~45 min of light comp use? Not sure though)
Upgraded to Win 98 SE from Win 95
Office 2000 Premium
Only got it a few days ago, awesome computer to use. Been using it as my main productivity machine!!
Machine with no internet access = most productive I've been in years!!
Also love the retro feels. I'm loving MS software circa late 90s. Old school Windows, old school office, old school VB 6.0, I find them so much more intuitive and fun to use!
Runs well, but I think I'm going to max out the RAM to 80MB.
Damn I'm jealous. I keep my eye out and the oldest laptop I could find was a PIII. People think that just because they're not worth money means they must be garbage.
Damn I'm jealous. I keep my eye out and the oldest laptop I could find was a PIII. People think that just because they're not worth money means they must be garbage.
Quite to the contrary - many contemporary laptops are garbage because of the ridiculously low prices now. The whole industry has moved sharply toward 'throw-away' logic - if one part breaks, throw it all out and buy a new unit.
This thing was over US $3000 new in 1997, so you know it was built for serious business for an extended period of time. Hard drive and battery are both easily removable with clips at the front of the machine.
A look at the preinstalled software confirms this. Programs installed and files on HDD relate to Radiological Physics for a hospital. I feel like I have a responsibility to preserve the programs / files, so I won't reformat until I can back them up on ext HDD when I get my PCMCIA card with USB 2.0. Maybe the hospital wants them back, might be some confidential information on there...
Comments
I have a custom built computer that is also known to be a heatbox. It's nice when winter comes and the windows let all the cold in; All I have to do is have my computer powered and playing some game then a few minutes later it will start warming up my room.
Motherboard ECS K7SEM
Integrated AMD 1400+ (Duron like)
512mb RAM (2 x PC133 Markvision and Kingston)
40 gb 7200 Maxtor HDD (Primary IDE Master)
40 gb 7200 Seagate HDD (Primary IDE Slave)
24x Lite-ON CDRW (Secondary IDE Master)
LiteON DVD (Secondary IDE Slave)
3.5" NEC Floppy drive
NVidia Quadro Pro 2 AGP 4x 32MB
Sound Blaster Live 5.1
AverTV PCI TV Card
Peripherals:
Canon N640Px Scanner
Gravis Gamepad Pro
Software:
Windows 98 SE
Office 97
Omnipage Pro
IrfanView 2.85
IMGBurn
Need For Speed 2, 3 and 4
Sonic Heroes
Sonic CD
RoadRash
Fifa 98
etc, etc, etc
It is hooked it up to the network, mainly to ftp into my NAS. A few websites load (kinda) on IE6 and Firefox 2, definitely not the same web as some 12 years ago.
Shuttle Inc generic motherboard
Intel Celeron 330 2.66GHz
1024Mb DDR 333MHz (2 x 512Mb)
80Gb 7200rpm Sata HDD
Nvidia GeForce4 MX 440
It currently runs Windows 98 SE. It's not really gloriously old, in fact it's incredibly faster than anything I ever had running Windows 98, but I suppose that's only a good thing, as I'm not the patient kid who didn't know any better. The size is a huge advantage, finding room for regular tower would be difficult but this, this fits anywhere.
I paid one packet of coffee (500 grams) for it. Came with Microsoft keyboard and mouse and a 17" Philips flatscreen monitor. I added more and faster memory and threw in the GF4 from old junkpiles. I still have a GF2 and good sticks of SDRAM around, waiting for something more properly old.
800MHz Celeron Processor
384MB of RAM (PC100)
80GB IDE HDD
Some very shitty onboard graphics, probably Intel
It was upgraded to XP from ME at one point in its life, though I think it would of been better if they slapped a copy of 2000 on it instead. One of these days, I am going to get around to either finding a use for it or getting rid of it, no use to me just sitting around.
Memory: 64MB DIMM/SDRAM - 100MHz
HDD: Seagate, capacity: 2111MB
3.5" floppy disk drive.
Creative iNFRA 48X CD Drive.
Sound card: Creative Vibra128
VGA Card: S3 Trio3D/2X AGP - 8MB Video memory
It's a custom-built PC, built in late 1999 and still works great. No single issue.
CPU: UMC Green CPU 486 @ 33MHz
Memory: 4x 1MB 30-pin SIMM RAM
Storage: 356MB NEC HDD
1.44MB diskette drive
Video: VGA Trident chipset ISA card - 1MB VRAM
Sound: PC speaker
This is all 100% original, never modified and it still works great! It's better for running 2D games then any of the 3D ones or really anything newer then 1995. It even struggles to run Doom at a playable frame rate with all the graphics turned down and the smallest screen size. The CPU isn't really powerful at all, it even makes the 33MHz Intel 486 look like a rocket in comparison.
CPU: 433 MHz Intel Celeron (Pentium II)
Memory: 256MB (2x 128MB) PC-100 DIMM SDRAM
Hard Drive: 6.4GB 4200RPM Quantum Fireball
Floppy: 3.5-inch 1.44MB Floppy Drive
CD1: NEC 48x CD-ROM Drive
CD2: Teac 24x CD-RW Drive
Video Card: Integrated nVidia Riva TNT - 8MB VRAM
Sound Card: ISA Sound Blaster AWE64
It currently runs Windows 95OSR2.5, The hardware is from 1999-era, It runs older games nicely (although the only one I tried was Speed Haste (3D Racing game from 1995)), It should run games from 2000 and earlier.
The specs are:
EPoX EP-8K9A7I
AMD Athlon XP 1.2 GHz
512mb DDR Ram 333MHz
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000
56k V.92 Modem
CD-RW 52x24x52 Drive IDE
DVD-ROM Drive IDE
80GB IDE HDD
3.5" Floppy
9 USB Ports!
Windows XP Professional SP3 (Currently Broken)
It runs pretty well but is not too good at multitasking with it's 1.2 GHz Processor.
I don't really know why Windows won't work, one day it said WINSTA.DLL is corrupt when shutting down and now it just BSODs at every type of boot you try (Safe Mode, etc). I tried repairing the installation but it still won't work. I have a feeling that there is either a severe virus or the HDD is going because I have lost programs and have broken shortcuts. I have rescued everything important using LiveXP and USB Sticks so it doesn't matter too much.
Anyway I know that it's nothing on what some of you have got, and it's fairly high-spec but I thought it was worth mentioning.
One last note is the case, it's beige and has a really nice green plastic wave thing on the front. I have not idea what make or model it is but it is stamped 2002 on the QC Stamps. I was wondering if anyone knew what it was.
Here is a rubbish drawing, if you know what it is then PM me so as not to clutter the thread:
Thanks in advanced.
As for the make of your case, looking at the overall design of the case and the blank square, I am going to guess the case was made by Asus. Don't know anything else about the case because as stitch said, this was a very generic case for its time.
IBM ThinkPad 385ED, circa 1997
CPU: Intel Pentium MMX, 166 MHz
RAM: 48 MB
Drives: 4x CD-ROM, Floppy, 2 GB hard disk
Ports: serial, parallel, SVGA, PS/2 mouse, twin PCMCIA slots
Audio: PC speaker and stereo headphone with hardware volume control, stereo line-in, Crystal Semiconductors CS4236 FM synthesizer
Video: NeoMagic NM2093
OS: Windows 98 Second Edition
Overall, it's a nice computer, and I get a fair bit of use out of it. The ThinkPad is great for those occasions where my 64-bit Lenovo laptop refuses to run 16- and 32-bit programs, and for when VirtualBox runs things way too fast even when emulating Windows 98.
...And for when I'm too lazy to fire up VirtualBox in the first place.
400MHz Intel Celeron
Windows 98SE with Plus! installed
16GB Hard Disk
DVD-RW Drive (Couldn't get a brand name to show up, so I'm guessing it's just a plain old DVD drive)
ATI Rage Pro 8MB
128MB RAM
Sound Blaster PCI128
It broke a couple years back, but I managed to get it working
AMD Sempron 2600+ 1.8GHz
1Gb (4x256Mb) DDR
ATI Radeon 9200
120Gb Samsung HDD
TEAC CD-RW Drive
I bought this machine nearly ten years ago from my neighbor, it served as a server for a few years before being forced into early retirement by an Opteron-machine.
It has an Intel 386 processor, and 2 Mb RAM.
The original hard drive was 40 Mb, but the former owner changed it for a 200 Mb. What an improvement, haha!
He send me the first 40 Mb one with the computer, as well as original DOS floppies, the Toshiba transport bag and the user manual (a heavy hardcover book, which looks more like a little dictionary than an actual user manual).
The only issue are these two lines on the display, one of dead pixels, the other of stuck ones. But for a nearby 30 years old thing, it's okay, I don't really care...!
The CMOS battery is dead. But I intend to change it some day. I'm curious to open this awesome machine anyway.
Dell Latitude C600
Intel Pentium III-1000
384MB PC100 SDRAM
40GB IDE 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar hard drive (not original)
ATI Radeon M3 graphics, Can't remember if 8MB or 16MB VRAM
Win2k RTM (Having gotten around to setting it up and loading all the unofficial updates yet)
Dell Inspiron 2650
Intel Celeron (don't know if PIII or P4 Based) 1.5
512MB PC-Something (I got this machine a few days ago with a broken screen so there was very little testing I could do, but I ordered a new screen on ebay) DDR RAM
20GB Fujitsu IDE Hard Drive
No Operating System (the guy who gave it to me hadn't wiped it yet so I took it upon myself to run DBAN)
Don't know which is older, I'm guessing the C600 because it has a "designed for Win98/NT4/2000" sticker, but it might be a later model since it has an XP COA on the bottom
AMD Athlon 2000+
Thermake Volcano 6Cu
1GB DDR 2700
AGP eVGA GeForce 6200 w/ 256MB ram
Western Digital 160GB PATA
HP dvd740 optical drive
250watt Antec power supply
Random Compaq gunmetal gray and black case.
Intel Pentium 166 MMX
256MB RAM (Original 48mb)
9GB Seagate Medalist Pro 9140 (Original 2gb Fujistu)
Windows 98SE Plus!
SiS S3 ViRGE -DX/GX PCI
Original Slot Loading Goldstar CD-ROM
Added second Samsung CD-ROM
Crystal SoundFusion CS4281
130w Non-ATX PSU
I topped that!
IBM PC 5150 with 64KB of RAM, a 5.25 inch double sided drive, 3.5 inch drive, and two Seagate ST 251MLC2 drives. Running MS-DOS 3.0 with Windows 2.11, some generic VGA card, a multifunction card, 4 serial ports, an AdLib, and some weird modem card that doesn't get me very far to the internet. This system is in storage, just wanted to point it out.
My oldest RUNNING system that I still use is a Pentium-75 Compaq Deskpro with a 2GB hard disk, 128MB of RAM, and Windows XP Home edition. It's a print server and re-routes file requests to my second oldest system, some weird dual-slot Pentium II machine with 2 Pentium II 400MHz, 512MB of RAM, and 14 separate SCSI, ATA, and RLL (MFM) hard disk drives. Running Windows 2000 Advanced Server to host files over a 100MBp/s connection to other computers.
Dell latitude c610
1.2ghz Pentium 3
512MB Ram
40gb HDD
DVD-ROM drive (aftermarket)
ATI Mobility Radeon 16mb VRAM
Windows XP Professional SP3 (Planning to update it to Win7 RTM)
Are you saying I'm OP? I'm not OP, I'm just the first poster on this page.
Anyways, I have an older machine now:
Hewlett-Packard Pavilion N3270
Advanced Micro Devices K6-2 3D 475MHz
256MB SDRAM
No HDD (Runs off a LiveCD of Ubuntu 4.10)
Trident Cyberblade i7 GPU
You literally just defined the term "OP"
OP == Original Poster
I meant on this page, the OP is alexzarach
1997 manufacture
Pentium MMX 150Mhz chip
~1.28GB HDD
32MB-RAM
1MB Video
CD-ROM
Floppy drive
Working battery! (~45 min of light comp use? Not sure though)
Upgraded to Win 98 SE from Win 95
Office 2000 Premium
Only got it a few days ago, awesome computer to use. Been using it as my main productivity machine!!
Machine with no internet access = most productive I've been in years!!
Also love the retro feels. I'm loving MS software circa late 90s. Old school Windows, old school office, old school VB 6.0, I find them so much more intuitive and fun to use!
Runs well, but I think I'm going to max out the RAM to 80MB.
Quite to the contrary - many contemporary laptops are garbage because of the ridiculously low prices now. The whole industry has moved sharply toward 'throw-away' logic - if one part breaks, throw it all out and buy a new unit.
This thing was over US $3000 new in 1997, so you know it was built for serious business for an extended period of time. Hard drive and battery are both easily removable with clips at the front of the machine.
A look at the preinstalled software confirms this. Programs installed and files on HDD relate to Radiological Physics for a hospital. I feel like I have a responsibility to preserve the programs / files, so I won't reformat until I can back them up on ext HDD when I get my PCMCIA card with USB 2.0. Maybe the hospital wants them back, might be some confidential information on there...