Old computers

[Mashika]

Around 2004 or so, my mom got a new Mac Mini, and i was given a hand me down Power Mac, a Quick Silver 2002 mac, that was my first computer, it was so cool to have "my own", it lasted until around 2008 when i got a white macbook laptop. which died in a year or s later lol, the Power Mac i still have around and restored a few days ago. Reason was that a friend got a computer similar to what he had growing up in UK, in the 80's :)

I had to restore my old mac, just to get that same feeling of nostalgy xi xi

I find old computers extremely cool and fascinating, makes me wish i had been around to use them daily

My old mac can't access the current internet, most sites are saying "are you time traveling from the past? We dont support your SSL version anymore. Go away!" Lol


https://projectavalon.net/forum4/attachment.php?attachmentid=46224&d=1614586615

Anyways, here are a couple picks he sent me of his new/old computer

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/attachment.php?attachmentid=46223&d=1614581418


https://projectavalon.net/forum4/attachment.php?attachmentid=46222&d=1614581418

"Mashi moo" lmao sorry, that's a nick name very very few people use, like 2 persons lol :blushing::blushing::blushing:

Do you have old computers around? Do you still use them?

I remember some guy saying on youtube video "old pcs can't be used today anymore" and a friend said "sure you can, they do the same stuff as 40 years ago, you mean you just can't go on the net or watch HD movies!"

Lol

[Journeyman]

I used to live in a lovely old house in what was becoming an affluent area of Sydney. The house was split into little flats and there was a very eclectic group of us living there, retired musicians, a natureopath, hairdresser, 'masseur', etc. There were also some geeky types, programmers, me I guess :)

Once a week the residents of the area left out their trash for collection. One of our residents went around and collected discarded pcs, they were old and outdated even then, perhaps three eight sixes, much happier with text than windows even. He stuck a Linux distro on each and gave them to his fellow residents then strung wires up and gave the whole house free internet, all with hardware that was being thrown out because it couldn't run the latest operating system, otherwise it was perfectly fine to connect people.

If you have older machines, consider putting a Linux distro on them and you may find it gives them a new lease of life. It's easy enough to do, lots of hep available online and without the bloat ware of modern operating systems that slow machine you despair of could be perfectly fine for years to come.

[gord]

I have an 8088 made by DTK buried in the basement somewhere. 20M hard drive, 5.25 floppy, 640K ram boosted from 512K with 18 single bit chips, amber mono monitor, hercules graphics card, 1200 baud modem. I really need to clean out some junk.

[TomKat]

I have an 8088 made by DTK buried in the basement somewhere. 20M hard drive, 5.25 floppy, 640K ram boosted from 512K with 18 single bit chips, amber mono monitor, hercules graphics card, 1200 baud modem. I really need to clean out some junk.

Wish I still had mine. But alas, I have no place to put it. My oldest computer is an old "netbook" that can run win7. I use it to record stuff from internet radio.

[Open Minded Dude]

I miss Windows 95.

[Sue (Ayt)]

My son still has our old Commodore 64 stashed.

[DeDukshyn]

My first computer was one of these old boys .... Radioshack version of a late model TRS-80. It didn't come with a monitor - you had to connect it to your TV. I gave it to my son a few years ago. It probably still works but its more of just a collectors item.

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimacoconut.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F08%2FTRS-80_MC-10_Microcomputer.jpg&f=1&nofb=1



After that My parents bought a Sanyo 8086 - with high end graphics - 64 colours at 800x600 and up to 1024x768 at 16 colours. It featured a 40mb hard drive, 128k of RAM, and had a two speed processor 4.77khz and 8khz. I couldn't find any online images, but its actually out in the shed still. Maybe I should stuff some new guts into as a retro style case mod for a new computer ...

For comparison, my current computer has 2,000,000mb hard drive, 16,000,000k of RAM and a 4,000,000khz speed processor, lol.

[Michi]

I don't have any old machine lying around but I grew up amidst the computer evolution.
A few years ago I succeeded to install and run Windows 3.11 inside a virtual machine (Virtualbox) and it worked - and hell - how fast it loads on a modern hardware! :Party:

[Ernie Nemeth]

My first computer was the Apple IIC. 128k memory, 64K ram. No idea of the clock speed. Came in a suitcase with power cord, no screen, and applesoft program tutorial. There were no programs back then for it. Had to learn to program. It was fun.

Just remembered it came with a floppy disk drive and one game disk. A treasure hunting maze. We had so much fun playing that game. I took it everywhere and all were amazed.

It cost $2000!

[Nasu]

I've got a friend, a developer friend, who created his own online religion. It didn't get very far, his aims were vague and its purpose obscure, something about the tax right-offs. Anyway a funny part that your post reminded me of was his insistence that each member of his "cyber cult" only own computing tech created before the year 2000. They could borrow new tech but not own it. Similar to the Amish allowing technology up to 1880's but not after. Who knows, give a cult of developers enough old computers and time....x... N

[chrifri]

I miss Windows 95.

Because of the anti virus software that was not able to keep any virus away from Windows?

Sorry for the comment, but all the Bill G. stuff is some kind of red flag to me. In the very early 90ies there was an Internet program called "Netscape" (if I remember correctly). Netscape was considerably superior to the Bill G. solution, but unfortunately the Bill G. group had more financial power and, as usual, with that power they were able to get rid of a competitor that was considerably superior to the Bill G. solution. In my humble opinion, a pity without doubt

[TomKat]

I miss Windows 95.

I was not a fan of Win95. Much preferred Win98se, which was the stable release everyone used until WinXP took over. I probably still have a copy of win98se somewhere, on floppy. I lost interest in Windows finally when 8.0 came out, switched to Linux.

[Open Minded Dude]

My comment was meant a little sarcastic. Yes it sucked mostly and Microsoft/Gates in general does and did too. Although still there is some degree of nostalgia feeling expressed for Win95 indeed because it was my first computer that had this OS. Just like you remember your first kiss, first bike, first car, first beer, first bought music album, well, first ... anything.

[Open Minded Dude]

hqi2Jy0UMiA
:dance3:

[Journeyman]

I miss Windows 95.

I was not a fan of Win95. Much preferred Win98se, which was the stable release everyone used until WinXP took over. I probably still have a copy of win98se somewhere, on floppy. I lost interest in Windows finally when 8.0 came out, switched to Linux.

You'll be unsurprised to learn that Microsods continued the controversial 'Manichean' approach to operating system releases:

Win 3.1 Good!
Win 95 Bad :(
Win 98 Good!
Win ME Very Bad!
Win XP Good!
Win Vista Yikes
Win 7 Good
Win 8 Bad
Win 10 Tolerable

[TomKat]

I miss Windows 95.

I was not a fan of Win95. Much preferred Win98se, which was the stable release everyone used until WinXP took over. I probably still have a copy of win98se somewhere, on floppy. I lost interest in Windows finally when 8.0 came out, switched to Linux.

You'll be unsurprised to learn that Microsods continued the controversial 'Manichean' approach to operating system releases:

Win 3.1 Good!
Win 95 Bad :(
Win 98 Good!
Win ME Very Bad!
Win XP Good!
Win Vista Yikes
Win 7 Good
Win 8 Bad
Win 10 Tolerable

I once heard there were 2 teams at Mickeysoft. One made the "bad" OSes, and the other made the bad OSes "good."
You forgot WinNT and Win2000. I think they were both kind of OK, as they were specifically targetting Corporate computers.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Win 3.1 Good!
Win 95 Bad :(
Win 98 Good!
Win ME Very Bad!
Win XP Good!
Win Vista Yikes
Win 7 Good
Win 8 Bad
Win 10 Tolerable

You missed one (or two technically), and that was Windows 2000 (very different from ME), which was based on Windows NT. Ran a couple of boxes on Win2k at the time and they were very solid. Win3.1 was indeed good, but a pain to load - all those damn floppies. I liked 95 though, it was pretty stable and compact - certainly compared to today's operating systems. The first iteration of 98 was very buggy, constantly prone to hanging, crashing, and those dreaded blue screens. SE was much better. Ran that until XP came along.

My favourite windows edition is/was 7. Simply the coup de grace version of windows. By contrast, Windows 10 is far from tolerable. To be blunt, it is hideous, but that's just me.

My first computer was the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum). A contemporary of the Amstrad, and Commodore 64. It was an 8-bit machine that came with a whopping 48K of memory. Oh the nostalgia... Somewhat of a cult item today if you're lucky enough to still own one.

https://demin.ws/images/blog/sinclair-zx-spectrum/IMG_0808.JPG

[Ernie Nemeth]

I still run windows 7. No longer run updates, if they even exist.

[Operator]

Believe it or not I've built my own first computer creating my own circuit boards soldering all the separate components on it etc.
I still have it somewhere ... it's a Z80 8-bit system with 64K ram. It starts from a 3.5 inch bootfloppy (if I still have it).

There are 2 of these computers, I've built one together with a friend. We called them HOMAC (Home Made Computer).
I've written my own BIOS so that we could run CP/M eventually ...

Can you imagine having the BIOS, Operating system and application programs all in 64K of RAM ?
And it worked ! It was wonderfull to see e.g. a calculator program work on my unique computer
without having written the application program.

That's how we had to do it to own a computer 40 years ago ... :happythumbsup:

[TomKat]

I still run windows 7. No longer run updates, if they even exist.

Yes, my win7 netbook just updated on me yesterday. Even though it's officially a dead OS.

[s7e6e]

Love old movies, old computers, old music, old cars. Still love to play with my Pentium 75MHz, 32MB Ram, 1.2GB Caviar, Sound Blaster Awe 64. Even planning on upgrading it with a LAN card and getting him out and about on some FTP sites, BBSs and IRC channels. I'm still after a decent looking 15-17" SONY CRT monitor from around 1995-2000 but for now, my 2001 SONY TFT will have to do.

[gs_powered]

First machine we had as kids was a Timex Sinclair, basically a ZX Spectrum Clone which we mostly used to load games on tape an play with...

On the PC side, my firts machine was a Commodore Personal Computer, with a 16MHz CPU (with the turbo on), 2Mb of RAM :) and a Hardisk with 42Mb. The OS was MS-DOS 6 and we had Win 3.1 installed.
Funny thing I sometimes remember was a software to enable sounds on the windows interface. Something that now is anoyingly standard, back then we had to install a program called Icon-HearIt and choose startup and closing sounds, and set default sounds for when clicking on particular icons... good times...
There was also a software called Icon-SeeIt which gave animations to some icons but that was very heavy and slowed my machine :D

[dim]

win 10 tolerable ? which planet are you from ? worse nightmare ever

thread hijack, sorry

[Journeyman]

win 10 tolerable ? which planet are you from ? worse nightmare ever

thread hijack, sorry

Oh you must be from the hyphenated kit-kat timeline? Yes, I heard it was way worse there. Think yourself lucky you weren't using Windows 98 in the Looney Toons universe, all those folk went blind. :(

[DeDukshyn]

I still run windows 7. No longer run updates, if they even exist.

Yes, my win7 netbook just updated on me yesterday. Even though it's officially a dead OS.

Despite MS saying they wouldn't release any updates years ago ... they still release updates for major security issues since half the world is still on Win7.

I also find Windows10 tolerable ... its a bit more like MacOS, and a bit too intrusive, but if you know what you are doing it is fairly customizable and controllable to your liking, but then again, I'm probably more technical than most people.

[Mashika]

I remember using windows xp on primary school, but not much really, and then windows 7 on middle school, on very slow pcs,

On high school had a macbook laptop i was allowed to take to class so i used it as much as possible unless there was some app that could not run on it (windows only)

And after that i started using linux but still using my mac for everything, i only use windows for work if really required, my main pc is linux mint and a macbook pro for personal use

I dont know why windows 10 is bad compared to windows 7, maybe is a thing of having more exposure to each version? As far as i can see and feel it, i think win 10 ok :S

Now I'll have to look how to run virtualbox and old windows versions :)

Also found virtual PC for Mac OS 9, may have to try it as well

[Craig]

I have an 8088 made by DTK buried in the basement somewhere. 20M hard drive, 5.25 floppy, 640K ram boosted from 512K with 18 single bit chips, amber mono monitor, hercules graphics card, 1200 baud modem. I really need to clean out some junk.

Wow, my first machine was almost exact of this, except i had an 80MB hard drive externally wired in that lived in an old shoe box for protection, it had 2 * 5.25 drives and I once stayed up all night backing it up to floppy for it to die at the end - it started my journey into IT that i can't no longer escape from

[DaveToo]

I've got a bunch of old computers.

Probably my favorites are circa the early 90's.
They're the HP 95LX and 200LX Palmtop PC's based on the 80186 CPU.

As the name would suggest, they easily fit in the palm of your hand.
They can run any DOS app you could throw at them and can even connect to the internet.

They have more power than all the computers that (cough), guided the rockets to the moon in the late 60's and early 70's.

[TomKat]

I have an 8088 made by DTK buried in the basement somewhere. 20M hard drive, 5.25 floppy, 640K ram boosted from 512K with 18 single bit chips, amber mono monitor, hercules graphics card, 1200 baud modem. I really need to clean out some junk.

I had an 8088 with a Seagate ST238 (ST225 20mb formatted to 30mb with RLL encoding). It was a scam. Overheated and crashed all the time.

[Strat]

I wish I had my old PC's because I like older equipment (gaming systems, amplifiers, VCRs, turntables, 8-track player, etc etc) and also it would be so much easier to play my childhood favorite games. I bought Gothic from Steam recently and it won't even load. Troubleshooting is a nightmare, I found a patch but much of the support I find is German or Russian so I can't understand what to do. I'm sure I can get it to work but I don't like troubleshooting PC's.

I would buy an older one but I just don't have the room. I have way too much electronics as it is with Raspberri Pi's and several monitors, keyboards etc.

Oh and I'm also on Linux, I use Mint. **** Windows. I remember the 3.1 days, I fell in love with PCs but I have more or less lost that love. I plan on building a new PC soon and I'll have a dual boot. Windows will be used solely because there's a few games I want to play. Outside of gaming I'll stick to Linux, it's much better.

[TomKat]

Oh and I'm also on Linux, I use Mint. **** Windows. I remember the 3.1 days, I fell in love with PCs but I have more or less lost that love. I plan on building a new PC soon and I'll have a dual boot. Windows will be used solely because there's a few games I want to play. Outside of gaming I'll stick to Linux, it's much better.

I went crazy and made a Hackintosh out of a Dell laptop. Then, using the Clover boot loader of the Hackintosh, I added a Windows and a Linux partition, for a triple boot. I mostly just use Linux, but there are some programs that want Windows. Mac, not so much except for Disk Utility which has come in handy on USB sticks that Gparted messed up.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Here's a fun blast from the past for 80's computer nerds (like me). What I especially admire in this sequence is the clean, no nonsense broadcast style. I'd forgotten about Fred Harris. What a class act he was as a presenter; such a breath of fresh air from the camp, bombastic, talentless 20-somethings that dominate our screens today.

----
Micro Live's Fred Harris considers how daunting computers can be to novice users. He chats to psychologist Professor David Canter, who notes how finding your way around a computer system can be frustrating and unintuitive. Professor Canter visits the Barbican Centre, which proves an excellent metaphor for navigating the endless corridors of unfriendly operating systems.

With the Apple Macintosh proving that computers can be user friendly, Ian McNaught-Davis delves into the sexy but largely unheralded world of GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces). He stages a titanic battle of the GUIs - in the red corner, Paul Bailey of Digital Research demonstrates GEM, while in the blue corner, Microsoft's David Fraser shows off Windows.

Clip taken from Micro Live, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 12 November, 1986.
1986: GEM versus WINDOWS - BATTLE of the GUIs | Micro Live | Retro Tech | BBC Archive
Q2PNLsvDxqw