Does anyone use new computers?

[Yzzerdd]

O.k. I was sitting at my desk, surfing the net on my iMac, and was looking at my internet(if dial-up is internet) compatable vintage computers. And it hit me. Does anyone here use their old computer as their primary internet source?
Or an I the only one still using new computers in conjunction with old ones?

By the way, if I can find a PI/PII system compatable with Ethernet, I will purchase it.(In related news, I do have a PIII Compaq Deskpro, that needs a new hard drive, that I am going to put a 1.2Mb floppy drive in,next week)

If a majority of the people here do not use new computers, count on seeing all 3 of them on eBay

[SwedaGuy]

By the way, if I can find a PI/PII system compatable with Ethernet, I will purchase it.(In related news, I do have a PIII Compaq Deskpro, that needs a new hard drive, that I am going to put a 1.2Mb floppy drive in,next week)



Unless I'm missing something, I will assume PI/PII refers to Pentium 1/Pentium 2 processors.

If that's the case, it may shock you to know that ethernet networks have been around MUCH longer than Pentium anything. Installing a network card in an early pentium-based machine is about as difficult as making a frozen pizza.

I've got Ethernet cards (mostly 3COM etherlink series) in everything going back to an XT. It's all about what you want the machine to do when its connected.

For example, I can send email with the XT, but I can't surf web pages...

But, getting back to more of your topic... I use one Win 2000 machine, because so many websites today are so complicated and so memory and processor intense that they require more than what a 486 or low-end pentium can handle. But, there was a day when we could browse HTML (before all the extensions came about) on our 486SX25 running OS/2 Warp 3.

I also maintain the WIN machine to have some compatibility with customers. As an example, I keep Open Office, so if someone emails me a Word or Excel document, I can read it without complicated conversions. For myself however, anything I do of publication quality is produced on WordPerfect DOS V5.1, and simple things like correspondence, memos, fax covers, etc. are done using Office Vision/400 on the AS/400.

My primary workstation at the office is a CompuAdd 486DX100 with Warp 3, and my primary workstation at home is an IBM thinkpad X20 with Warp 4.

All of our businesses (we have Hair, Tanning & Foodservice establishments in addition to our computer business) run either off the AS/400 directly or off OS/2 networks with some DOS stations. I assure you, we've been able to do without the whole WIN thing for quite some time...

[Unknown_K]

My main machine is a Xp1500+ 512MB system running Windows 2000, it is 6 years old and the newest one I have.

My newest Mac is a Powermac 8500 with a G3-400 CPU upgrade and 700+MB of RAM, that would be a late 90's machine.

My oldest x86 PC is a Tandy 1000HX 8088, oldest Mac is probably my IIfx, and the oldest computer I own is a Timex 2068 purchased new in 1983.

Outside of 3d gaming, modern webpages, and DVD playback in software you can get by just fine with an old "relic". I use the old machines for what they were good at, and same for newer machines.

[dongfeng]

My everyday computer I built in 2003. It's was a Pentium 4 2.8GHz, 160GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, 256MB graphics card and DVD/CDRW combo drive.

In the four years I've had it, I have upped the RAM to 2GB (I had it suplus, so it seemed a shame to waste it!) and added an 80GB drive as a primary (also a surplus leftover). Oh, and a DVD-RW too.

It is still more than good enough for what I need, so I still don't see any major upgrades in the near future.

I travel quite a lot, so I also have a Sony VAIO laptop, Centrino 1.4GHz / 512MB / 60GB. Two batteries so I get good run time. I bought that secondhand. Before that I had a Compaq Armada M300, 600MHz, I absolutely LOVED that notebook, it was tiny and really strong for 600MHz.

I recently bought a cheap secondhand iBook G4, but after using Windows based programs for so long I am not sure if I can use it to replace the VAIO.

[chuckcmagee]

Hey! Fix that typo - Pent 4 no doubt.

Yep, I have a new Dell E1705 I don't ever use. My main computers are a 2003 Compaq Presario 2.4G 512K laptop and a Gateway 600YGR (2003 again, a good year).

[dongfeng]

Sorry, yup that was a typo! It is a Pentium 4.

Thinking about it, my P4, Vaio laptop and iBook are all from 2003. A good vintage indeed :D

[JDT]

My main machine that I built in late 2003 is a P4 S478 3.0 Prescott w/ 1gb DDR400 (256x4). ASUS IC7-MAX III (kind of a cross between a server board and a gamer board). AGP nVidia 7800 GS OC 256mb. Audigy 2 ZS Pro sound. 2x 80GB Seagate SATA drives in a RAID 0 (using onboard raid controller. 250gb WD Sata data drive. Internal flash card reader, slimline CDROM & a DVD +/- RW. XP Pro. I use it for everything from reading the news to gaming to... surfing forums ;)

I also have various stages of old computers that I mainly use for "era-gaming"
Like my 233mmx w/ 128MB of PC133 a 10gb hdd, 8x AGP 8mb ATI All in wonder pro, 2x 12mb voodoo 2s. DIamond MX-300 sound card. PCI 10/100 NIC

i486 DX4-100, 2mb Mach32 VLB video, VLB floppy/ide multi-I/O card, ISA Sound Blaster 16, ISA 10mbit NIC, 10gb hdd

my work in progress is for nostalgic purposes, my IBM 5150 =) D8088 / C8087, all 8-bit cards (obviously) SCSI 1GB hdd, 2x half height 360k floppies. sound blaster, Paradise VGA card, sixpakplus, need to find the right solution to get this puppy running on the network.

[Mike Chambers]

well, right now i'm using an old AMD K6/2 @ 350 Mhz running Damn Small Linux from RAM to post this. :)

but i have tons of other machines i get on the net from. my two main computers are a 3.4 Ghz Pentium 4 w/ 2 GB of RAM and also a 2.4 Ghz Athlon 64 3700+ with 1.25 GB of RAM.

i have a lot of older pentiums (and two pentium 3's, one 650 overclocked to 910 and the other is an 866, which still do pretty much anything quickly except modern gaming)

i also have a 486, a 386, two 286's, and two XT clones. (plus an osborne 1 but thats not exactly internet capable)

i actually use the XT's online for IRC chatting still.

[Unknown_K]

I used to get on IRC on the old PCs and Macs but too many people post links to websites and videos that those machines have problems with so I use newer machines for that now too.

[Mad-Mike]

Well, I have my 1 GHz Pentium III w/ 512K and Win 2000 hidden stealthly in an early 386 chassis, which I'm typing on...

I started off with a ZEOS International 486 in a clone AT chassis with a 486 DX/33, AOL 3.0, a 56K Modem run through a uni-directional parallel port (8250), running DOS 5 and Windows 3.1.

Then I replaced that with an IBM PC-330 100DX4 with 8MB of RAM, which was later upgraded to 32 and then 64MB of EDO RAM, I started off using Windows 3.1, later upgraded to Windows 98 SE. That computer is long gone now.

I surfed Yahoo once on a Zenith SuperSport 286 using NetTamer on the built-in 2400 baud modem, the darned thing took 15 minutes to load the page, but it loaded it none-the-less.

IBM PS/2 Model 30 286 was the first 286 I put on the web, same setup, 56K, DOS 6, and NetTamer.

I have a GEM 286 next to me that I use for LeetIRC, though it sometimes surfs around using Arachne, some days it's faster than others though.

Tried to put my XT on once, it kept crashing, so I've decided to put it off till I can get the right hardware and so fourth to get it to work happily without crashing or locking up.

My current 486 is Internet Ready, it has Windows 95 and 3.1, I have little or no trouble surfing with it, except for the one little problem with banner ads that use a LOT of fancy code, it'll process it, but it does get grouchy about it.

As far as the newest machine, it's an Everex StepNote NC1500 with a VIA C7M CPU and Wifi.

[rmay635703]

My fastest machine (that I almost never use) is an Athlon Laptop 200mhz bus XP2000+ machine.

My workhorse is an old Slot A Athlon 750mhz T-bird

My 2nd workhorse is a PII 350mhz box.

My only decent laptop that I use most of the time for wireless is a whopping 133mhz. Compaq LTE no less.

I still play with my XTs and ATs but usually only use them for games.

[Micom 2000]

As usual I'm on the trailing edge. The machine I'm using to post this is an IBM 300 LP at 500mz and I have what to me is a whopping 128M Rom. I only recently bought it and am a bit disappointed by it's speed. I use Win 98SE because it seems to do most of what I want, and I have it on CD.

I am agog when I see some of the systems most on the forum are using. I truly find myself an anachromism since I still remember how thrilled I was with the abilities of my PS2 386DX 8580 to enter the I-net stream without having to go thru a freenet.

I still hold to the old-school thing that unless you are doing graphic design or playing the newest "boring" "kill-all" games you need neither the speed nor RAM so taken for granted by the newest generation of sloppy programmers. The majority of common users could do their word-processors, organizers, or email, with XTs.

Sure the streaming sound and videos are more demanding, but a download can give, on replay, better sound and video,
>unless you have the newest sytem<
than most of the demands of the new wave of programmers who are so enraptured by xxx amounts of available memory and speed. They are simply the schills of the marketers who most computer nerds supposedly detest and claim to be the reason the industry hasn't achieved what the early visionaries expected.

Not meaning to seem like a Luddite, but BS does baffle brains, and the removal of systems from their users, so you are afraid to remove unknown DLLs or applications, no longer able to perk your automobile, baffled by your TV or video players, is part of a design to leave you at the mercy of large corporations, who would rather you simply left it to them, toss out the device and buy their latest model. The old repair shop which restored old equipment or devices is a fading memory and disposable society reigns. Replacing discrete components in electronics is now unheard of and even replacing modules is fast fading. Landfills abound.

While I am excited by the many advances in scientific knowledge, it seems like so much of it is simply "dickory, dickory, dock". Flammery.

Lawrence

[Druid6900]

Well, just so happens that I'm working with a couple of people to set up a repair shop that not only fixes (and sells) modern equipment, but will repair and sell Vintage equipment as well.

Like I said, when I started fixing this stuff (and I mean troubleshooting and replacing components, not boards) it was NEW equipment.

So, soon, there may be one MORE place that fixes stuff from "the good old days" so that it might live to be enjoyed again.