Question What "vintage" computers are you still using today?

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givechanceachance

givechanceachance

New member
With planned obsolescence an every year computer replacement reality, what older systems have you kept in your workflow?

For me both near new to ancient 20+ year/old tech still finds a home in my dwellings, and for specific purposes.

1. 2009 era Xeon core workstation is my main go to for all sorts of odd jobs. I do everything from DV / VHS & Audio captures as well as video editing running latest #!++ Debian with a licensed copy of Davinci Resolve Studio. With the right budget GPU (Nvidia 1060ti) it renders the timeline in almost real time with 1080 footage.
2. 2001 Dell laptop runs a private radio station in my building. I use an old version of Debian with WnidowMaker (NeXTStep WM clone) and use the BUTT software to broadcast to a private web link. 1gb of memory (maxed.)
3. I also have a 2005 era Dell laptop running Windows XP that caters to specific hardware that's software supported with XP/2000 NT only. I also run gram.exe (Spectrogram) for FFT read out on a research project.
4. Old 2004 era Panasonic Toughbook I use for robo-faxing (public matters) to Congress. Only robofaxing I did outside of Congress was to inform companies that have grants for a NFP I was helping, to solicit for outside funding.
5. My newish laptop is a US assembled 2012 era Getac with every old and new I/O imaginable: PCMCiA; Express; Modem; Serial; Firewire 400; USB 2.0 and 3.0; HDMI; VGA; SD reader; Hard Switch Wireless kill; and some more....also have a second hard drive in the unit that I can swap with a 2nd battery or optical drive.

I also operate a community initiative in my town in Chicago where I refurb old laptops that won't run latest Windows 11 etc with Linux Lite or PopOS depending on the need to give back to my community and at the same time breaking the "Linux is for experts only" mentality. There are folks very desperate for laptops for either work or school and I am happy to be able to provide the refurb and exchange.

IMG_20221216_182102_940.jpg
Robo-faxing is incomplete without the cat.
 
SteinwayTransitCorp

SteinwayTransitCorp

Active member
givechanceachance

givechanceachance

New member
Just waiting for the landfills to pile up on what could have otherwise been viable computers gone to e-waste. Others could find their workflow using a Linux distro and still be completely up to date.
 
Laura Knotek

Laura Knotek

Member
The other option is to build your desktop or get a pre-built that is not from an OEM. That way components can be swapped out.
 
durendal

durendal

Member
My hardware usually dies out first before software becomes inoperable. And I just realized that 2002 was already 20 years ago. And here when vintage was mentioned, I was thinking about the 386, 486 machines that predates the first pentium processors. God I'm old!
 
givechanceachance

givechanceachance

New member
Friend's father buys a new laptop the other day and complains to his son how sluggish it is. That was relayed to me this evening.

What is wrong with this picture? Doing stuff on a 80486 in its heyday is today experienced with today's computers with severe latency in system response from user input.

I think this unspoken modern day "conspiracy" has become normalized. People are now expected to put up with this sluggishness and may I add: forced updates. You start your business day by turning on a machine with three hours of updates (yes I know you can schedule that stuff but most small businesses it just doesn't work in their workflow.)

I've called tech support call centers where the operator tells me to wait for their screen to appear before they can query anything. It is nuts that modern day business has to accept this everyday reality.

We are living this illusion where sluggishness is matched with Moore's law, all to force users to update then upgrade --- a vicious cycle of planned obsolescence that sees no end until it is the end of us.

QNX on the other hand: would love to see that enter mainstream operating system option.
 
SteinwayTransitCorp

SteinwayTransitCorp

Active member
durendal said:
My hardware usually dies out first before software becomes inoperable. And I just realized that 2002 was already 20 years ago. And here when vintage was mentioned, I was thinking about the 386, 486 machines that predates the first pentium processors. God I'm old!
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Not old, experienced….lmao. I was just thinking that as I played The Seventh Guest on my Compaq, the box is older than my grandchildren……now that’s feeling old!
 
SteinwayTransitCorp

SteinwayTransitCorp

Active member
givechanceachance said:
Friend's father buys a new laptop the other day and complains to his son how sluggish it is. That was relayed to me this evening.

What is wrong with this picture? Doing stuff on a 80486 in its heyday is today experienced with today's computers with severe latency in system response from user input.

I think this unspoken modern day "conspiracy" has become normalized. People are now expected to put up with this sluggishness and may I add: forced updates. You start your business day by turning on a machine with three hours of updates (yes I know you can schedule that stuff but most small businesses it just doesn't work in their workflow.)

I've called tech support call centers where the operator tells me to wait for their screen to appear before they can query anything. It is nuts that modern day business has to accept this everyday reality.

We are living this illusion where sluggishness is matched with Moore's law, all to force users to update then upgrade --- a vicious cycle of planned obsolescence that sees no end until it is the end of us.

QNX on the other hand: would love to see that enter mainstream operating system option.
Click to expand...
Your speaking to the choir, most technologically I feel tested on the public. Then repaired as the public calls in and complains. We have become R&D
 
spARTacus

spARTacus

Active member
givechanceachance said:
...I think this unspoken modern day "conspiracy" has become normalized. People are now expected to put up with this sluggishness and may I add: forced updates. You start your business day by turning on a machine with three hours of updates (yes I know you can schedule that stuff but most small businesses it just doesn't work in their workflow.)...We are living this illusion where sluggishness is matched with Moore's law, all to force users to update then upgrade --- a vicious cycle of planned obsolescence that sees no end until it is the end of us...
Click to expand...
It's real in my opinion, some of that stuff you mentioned. Maybe not malicious planned for but rather than also just a result of our demands and expectations.

In relation to the original question, I've still got a Windows98 box that runs. I don't leave it up on the network, but do play around with it once and a while. Also some Vista era laptops I periodically play around with and have also tried other things on them like LineageOS (this holiday, might try to add some retro arcade launchers - see the Arcade1Up thread). Still also have a working Commodore64. Had to splice feed the power brick from the separate disk drive internal power supply. I don't regularly use it, but it still works (and all the floppies still haven't yet degenerated either).
 
givechanceachance

givechanceachance

New member
spARTacus said:
It's real in my opinion, some of that stuff you mentioned. Maybe not malicious planned for but rather than also just a result of our demands and expectations.

In relation to the original question, I've still got a Windows98 box that runs. I don't leave it up on the network, but do play around with it once and a while. Also some Vista era laptops I periodically play around with and have also tried other things on them like LineageOS (this holiday, might try to add some retro arcade launchers - see the Arcade1Up thread). Still also have a working Commodore64. Had to splice feed the power brick from the separate disk drive internal power supply. I don't regularly use it, but it still works (and all the floppies still haven't yet degenerated either).
Click to expand...
Lovely!

And "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a mantra echoed in this article: https://weare.guru/this-commodore-64-has-helped-run-a-mechanics-for-over-25-years/
 
Paul Reichert

Paul Reichert

Member
conite said:
I made a Visual Basic program about 20 years ago for my payroll, and still require an XP box for it.
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Those are still around? Pity I missed out; the accounting at work was on a DOS 1992 software package and was incredibly fast. But needed an XP to run; our tech said he couldn't get any more for us and so we had to upgrade to the Windows version, slower and not 100% keyboard based. Using a mouse slows up the flow. There were some good things about DOS.
 
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