What is your oldest piece of computer-related tech still in regular use?

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  • Have these OSes in parallels 14.

  • @Jack Sunders said:

    @nick99nack said:
    Yeah. My Dell Latitude D630 from 2007 (now running Windows 2000) still works fine for most tasks. I even watched a 1080p YouTube video on it this morning.

    I'm typing this message from a Dell Inspiron 6000: 1.6GHz Pentium M, 2GB RAM, Windows XP. It's less useful than the D630 but I keep it in the bedroom for browsing forums at night before I go to bed. It's fast enough for that. It's kind of funny. I have a Dell Latitude netbook from 2011 (I get lots of Dell PCs for free or cheap) and this Pentium M from 2005 is faster than the Atom CPU in the netbook.

    Dont you think thats a bit un-safe, going to the internet on win xp? Besides, what browser on the Dell are you using because IE 6 is garbage at this point.

    Nope. If anything Windows 2000 is more unsafe... but I have a number of security measures in place, including network-level ad blocking plus uBlock Origin on the machines that support it. I've not had a virus since 2005 or 2006. The browser is Mypal browser, which is a fork of Pale Moon, compiled for Windows XP. I use it on the Windows 2000 machines as well.

  • Haha yeah, not trying to boast something nobody cares for but I have you beat with my D600. Did upgrade the processor to a Pentium M 780, and performed the clock generator mod to bring it to 533mhz fsb. This allowed the cpu to run at its proper 2.26ghz, rather than being underclocked to 1.7.

    As a "how low can you go" I installed Win8.1 with no modifications. But having only 1gb of ram was not ideal. I wanted to try Win10 just to see if it'd work, but it stalls on the Windows logo. Probably if I bump ram to 2gb it would work.

    Afterwards I just put 2000 on it and let it be. Considering 2000 was what this one was shipped with anyways.

  • Nice! The only modification I did to the Inspiron 6000 was upgrade the RAM to 2GB, the max it could take. I should see if I can upgrade it someday. I bet with a CPU upgrade, it could run Windows 7 fairly smoothly.

  • edited December 2019

    My IBM PC 300GL type 6564-S8U from 1999. Now that I've added a DVD-RW drive, broke it free from the shackles of the S3 Savage4 (replaced with a GeForce FX5700 LE), and added a matching IBM G54 CRT, it has become a considerably more enjoyable machine to use.

    I've yet to do further upgrades, but it can take up to 1 GB of PC100/133 (can be ECC or not) and apparently a PowerLeap adapter to bring it up from Katmai to Coppermine/Tualatin. Now that roytam1 has released MMX/CMOV Serpent 52, it could still do fine on the web with 2000 or 2003 (since they're both usually faster than XP).

    But its likely fate is to keep running 95 OSR 2.1 for the rest of eternity. With the Savage4 installed, installing the USB supplement killed the OS. :angry:

  • edited December 2019

    @nick99nack
    I think if you have one with an ATI X300 you could probably run Aero on it and get decent performance.
    I'd recommend putting a 780 in there if you can find one for a decent price and not from China.

    What I like about mine is Dell made a utility to change the BIOS splash which is quite unique.

    But yeah, the biggest reason I left 8.1 was because of frequent, unpredictable, and unrecoverable hangs. Even occurred prior to the clock mod I actually did it hoping for an improvement.

  • I have several old computers, so here's a list:

    -Early 2006 iMac, 20" screen, 2GB of RAM, Core Duo, Mac OS X 10.6.8

    -iBook G4, 512MB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.11

    -Power Mac G4 MDD, Debian 8.11

    -Random Gateway laptop, Windows Codename Longhorn 6.0.4093

    -Dell Latitude d800, 1GB RAM, Windows 7

    -Random Dell tower, Windows XP (no network)

  • My Graphics Card, and PC from 2010, Graphics Card is ATI Radeon HD4650, i still use it, it does some games that i want very well, though hoping for upgrade, and pc from 2010 is athlon x2 240, that my grandpa and me sometimes uses

  • well currently the oldest piece i use is Samsung SyncMaster 753s

  • I use a Dell monitor that (i think) is old because it does not have the new dell logo (on the front) and it has a resolution of 1280x1024.

  • @Jack Sunders said:

    @nick99nack said:
    Yeah. My Dell Latitude D630 from 2007 (now running Windows 2000) still works fine for most tasks. I even watched a 1080p YouTube video on it this morning.

    I'm typing this message from a Dell Inspiron 6000: 1.6GHz Pentium M, 2GB RAM, Windows XP. It's less useful than the D630 but I keep it in the bedroom for browsing forums at night before I go to bed. It's fast enough for that. It's kind of funny. I have a Dell Latitude netbook from 2011 (I get lots of Dell PCs for free or cheap) and this Pentium M from 2005 is faster than the Atom CPU in the netbook.

    Dont you think thats a bit un-safe, going to the internet on win xp? Besides, what browser on the Dell are you using because IE 6 is garbage at this point.

    Um ya Google Chrome still can be used on Windows XP but it don't have no updates. (P.S i am good at english but i like typing like dis). But still it is not safe.

  • @jackjones101567 said:
    Um ya Google Chrome still can be used on Windows XP but it don't have no updates. (P.S i am good at english but i like typing like dis). But still it is not safe.

    I use an updated fork of Firefox for most things and an updated fork of Chrome for Facebook.

  • 2004 vintage HP notebook /w 1.25 Gigs of RAM and a 1.4 GHz Celeron (PIII type core) and it is kept off the internet. I use it for legacy gaming and word processing. For that I use WordStar and JoeStar.

  • A 2008 HP laptop with a c2d and 4gb of ram. Currently used as basic nas (120gb)

  • A Toshiba portege 3110ct (y2k, PIII) that is running NetBSD and serves web pages on an ipv6 network.

  • Funny that anyone slams using XP on the net. The OS is old enough that the really pernicious stuff doesn't bother with it. XP can be reasonably secured for internet usage if you have it behind a dedicated hardware firewall (DMZ or good router - preferably both), a decent firewall to provide port stealthing, blocking and program access, an up to date AV program (still a few available that provide definition updates for XP), and having a decent browser that's up-to-date. All of these things are available for anyone wishing to go get them.

    In my case, I run a double router setup that gives 2 layer hardware firewall, almost any software firewall that will install on XP provides stealthing, blocking and program access (I usually run a later version of SyGate on XP and TinyWall on Vista), Avast! and AVG both provide virus def. updates for XP (ClamWin/Clam Sentinel would work as well) and for full HTML 5 browser I run MyPal browser. This setup is clean on both my old XP computers and they have remained that way for many years, same for my old Vista laptop. Just saying "it's old so it's not safe" doesn't accomplish anything - knowing what you're about does. This IS NOT to say that you can't get a virus/trojan/malware - enough "promiscuous" browsing behaviors on the operator's part can infect ANY computer.

  • edited September 2020
    Here's some of the things I have. (Images aren't mine, just used to show the computer)

    Compaq LTE5250 (Windows 95)


    Dell Latitude CPi PPL (Which had working sound until I reinstalled Windows 98 and now no sound drivers work)


    Dell OptiPlex GX110 (My Windows 98 box I'm always talking about)


    A Terapin Mine (A very obscure portable linux computer/mp3 player)


    I did own a GRiD 1660 Laptop but it died on me many years ago :disappointed:


    I also have a box FULL of various IBM100 ISA Cards I have NO use for (Unless I can find a IBM100 on the cheap)
  • I think that would be my Compaq Presario, my only computer with a floppy drive and my SONY VAIO, which has Office XP for some reason (I would have expected it to have Office 2000, 2003 or just not have Office).
  • I have a old intelevision i used to have from the 70's but i think now its a tablet PC from 2004
  • Hmm let me go over what I've got again.

    Pretty much the oldest computer-related thing is my T3100SX. But it is not in regular use.
    Next off is the T6600 luggable. More of a novelty and that bohemoth is used even less.

    I recently got my hands on a lovely Lasergraphics LFR MK3 film recorder.
    Which can image at 8K resolution vs my Polaroid HR6000's 4K. But the Polaroid can image 3.25x4.25 sheet film which is where it still is used regularly for.
    Hard to say which one is older. Both about late 90's.
    I regularly use film recorders for assorted film experiments. Simply because the result is exactly the same every time and predictable. Vs bringing out the F90x (noisy, heavy) or the F5 (tank) and taking pictures.
    But funnily enough the 2005ish D2x outweighs both of them, despite being digital and lacking the intricate film mechanisms.
  • I'm fiddling around making an old machine. My motherboard is an Asus P5-99VM that runs all socket 7's. Even though Asus claims it only runs up to a K6-3 450, I have the legendary and almost impossible to find, K6-3+ 550 in it, and working (I've got a K6-2+ 570 elsewhere). Naturally its one ISA slot has to have a Soundblaster AWE 64 gold card. For OS, I use partition magic to boot to any of four OS's - Windows 95 to ME. However I'm really frustrated because I can't seem to get the USB to work on the Windows 95 partition because even though I use the suitable version, it won't load the 7001 driver or bridge from PCI to usb. I've done everything short of deals with the devil but to no avail.

    I've got a couple other boards of interest but they don't work - probably bios dead. I have a dual 486 (Neptune chipset... I wouldn't even believe such a thing even existed if I didn't actually have it - and the manual), and a more likely but still rare Tyan Tomcat dual Pentium board that supports 233's.

    I'm certainly not trying to brag. More like screaming for help. I'd love to have a clue as to how to get these things running and up to their optimum. Running old machines is like driving a model T or other old car.
  • edited January 2021
    For me, my 2003/2004 IBM ThinkPad T41, with a Pentium M/1.7 GHz, 1.5 GB of RAM, a 52.5 (advertised as 60) GB hard drive and an ATI Mobility Radeon 9000. I've actually changed operating systems on it many times since I got it 5 months ago. Right now it's running SUSE 9.1.
  • I have a Dell L1000 P3 and a Gateway P4 (don't remember model) still around, with original HDDs, plus another Gateway laptop from 2008. This one the HDD is half dead 😊 but I use it as a DLNA music player. Nice to see all you people still enjoy this old computers.
  • I have a 17" Dell flatscreen monitor from 2002 hooked up for developing legacy websites; I like to make a VM window fullscreen on it and preview the sites from there. I'd love to replace it with a CRT though. I'm willing to put down the money for a display converter cable.
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