What is the oldest computer you still have in service?

[hoorah]

Not sure which one is the oldest vs the slowest, but I have a Dell Inspiron 530 (Core2Duo E8500) as my mother's desktop. Its got 8GB of DDR2 (piled all that together when DDR2 2GB sticks were plentiful) which was overkill at the time, but figured it would last her a long time without having to disrupt her by giving her a new system and transferring all of her files. 160GB SATA spinning hard drive. She doesn't complain about it. She says its faster than her computers at work.

I've got quite a few Q6600 and E8x00 machines as HTPCs around my house and my mothers house running WMC with basic OTA tuner cards. Anything older than Core2duo I toss.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Well, since someone here posted their Sinclair ZX Spectrum, it gives me a nice opening for my post.

Oldest running machine in my household has to be a Toshiba 420 CDT laptop.
Same model Kevin Mitnick used to carry before he was arrested.
It has Windows 98 (upgraded from the original Win95!) on a 100 MHz Pentium, with 16 GB of RAM. HDD size is about 1.2 GB, and has a 11-inch 800x600 screen

Used exclusively as a ZX Spectrum emulator, runs the games like a champ

 

[ArisVer]

Oldest working computer is a core duo @ 2.67GHZ. It runs on Linux Mint Cinnamon.
My daily driver is a computer of the same era with a Xeon E5450 at 3GHz with Windows 10.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Hmmm probably my core2quad server with 8GB of ram. It started off as my "main" and only server when I lived with my parents, eventually got moved to a rackmount case and put in my home server room when I bought my house. Over time most things got migrated off of it and lot of stuff got virtualized to my newer VM server when I built it. Right now it just does email and spam filtering. Email is a pain to setup so I just have not bothered to migrate it to a VM yet. According to dates on system files the install is from 2008. I don't recall if that is the original installation or if I reinstalled a new OS at that time. It's running Fedora Core 9. Uptime is like 1,300 days or so last I checked.

Come to think of it, when I do retire that server it will make a nice NAS, just need to install a more up to date OS as there was issues with that kernal with high IO when it used to be my file server. It has 10 drive bays.

 

[B-Riz]

WinXP file server with a Q6600, 2 gig o DDR2, and an AsRock 775Dual-VSTA. Board was ordered / installed in Dec of 2006. Went from E6300 new to used E6600 then used Q6600.

 

[Chaotic42]

Lenovo x220i laptop from 2010 or so. Still has the best keyboard out of any laptop I've ever used.

 

[ultimatebob]

In theory, I have an old Core 2 Duo 6420 based system with 2 GB of RAM hooked up. It can barely run YouTube videos now, though, so I rarely use it.

If it's not a Core i7 or Ryzen based system with an SSD, it's a waste of my time now

 

[JimKiler]

My secondary PC originally built in 2009 (from selling my Althon dual core 939 socket for more than the price of the original CPU, mobo and RAM of this build) and which i still occasionally play Diablo 3 or Torchlight 2 on has

• AMD Phenom 9750B Quad Core 2.4GHz (upgraded from a AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 a couple years ago)
• GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-US2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX
  
• 4GB (4x 2GB) PC2-6400 Corsair XMS2 Memory Kit 1.8v 5-5-5-18 800MHz DDR2
  
• Crucial m4 128GB (refurbished and an upgrade)
  
• CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS
  
• HP ZR2740W 27" LED IPS Monitor (1440p)

My fastest machine is still an Intel 4790K that i have never overclocked.

 

[JPB]

This motherboard, with a Athlon XP 2700+

 

[Shmee]

An some nforce 4 (I think) board with an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ s939. 2GB DDR 400, a 128GB crucial M4 with Win 7, and a 290 Tri X on a riser, as the case won't fit it lol. Occasionally use it for mining.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This motherboard, with a Athlon XP 2700+

I have fond memories of the Athlon XP days. My first self built machine was an Athlon 2000+. I don't really recall all the upgrades after that but I followed that line of chips for a very long time. I think a 2700+ was one of them. Maybe a 3200+? I don't recall for sure. I ran windows 2000 for most of those too, best OS MS ever made.

Now I find hardware is so fast that there is less of a need to upgrade, which is not a bad thing, but I kind of miss the feeling of powering up a new machine for the first time and having my socks blown off from the huge performance boost. Ahhh fun times. I think now I just take it all for granted so it feels less fun. That and having worked in IT kinda takes the fun factor out I guess.

 

[zzuupp]

Age on Atari 800? Think mid-1980s in general.

It's from 1983.

 

[whm1974]

It's from 1983.

I used to use the 800XL when I was a kid.

 

[paperfist]

Commodore 64

 

[Genx87]

Dell R510 sitting in my rack. Acts as my SAN. Circa 2011.

 

[nismotigerwvu]

Depends on how that "you" is defined. Down in the research lab I regularly use a liquid scintillation counter that's rocking an 8 mhz 286 because I'm the only person on campus with any DOS experience. In terms of my own research duties, there's a fluorometer in my lab on Windows 2000 (and connects by GPIB!). When it comes to computers that are ACTUALLY used as general purpose machines, it would be the Phenom II 955 based rig I built in 2009 when I started grad school (only just migrated from my primary rig at home to my office machine at the lab last year when I built my current 1800X based system).

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I know a computer repair shop owner whose workshop and business is across the street from our university here -- my "Alma Mater." He has a warehouse filled with old artifacts -- museum pieces in the chronicle of computing for the last 30 or 40 years.

I can't keep up with you guys and your Ataris. I gave away my Sinclair 1000 and ZX-81 by 1985.

My oldest working system is a Gateway E475-M executive laptop C2D T8300 released around 2007. It runs Windows 10 like a champ! [That's almost 11 years! I should start shopping slowly for a decent current-gen laptop. Any ideas?]

 

[SKORPI0]

This motherboard, with a Athlon XP 2700+

Gigabyte GA-7VAXP. My Sept 2001 built with a Athlon XP2500+ assembled a few days after 9/11. It should boot up no problem, kept in my garage, probably with Windows 7.

 

[JPB]

Gigabyte GA-7VAXP. My Sept 2001 built with a Athlon XP2500+ assembled a few days after 9/11. It should boot up no problem, kept in my garage, probably with Windows 7.

I also still have these two boards as well.

 

[Markfw]

I have a generic 8088 (I think it is) with I think 16 meg of ram. I have not turned it on in a while, since there was an original C&C version that ran in windows.

Circa 1987

 

[ultimatebob]

I have a generic 8088 (I think it is) with I think 16 meg of ram. I have not turned it on in a while, since there was an original C&C version that ran in windows.

Circa 1987

Something with an 8088 processor would probably not have more than 1 MB of memory. That's the most memory that processor could handle. That processor came out in 1979, and would have been obsolete by 1987.

People usually didn't have 16 MB of RAM in their computers until the 486 era.

Command and Conquer came out in 1995, so odds are that you were running that on a Pentium processor.

 

[Markfw]

Something with an 8088 processor would probably not have more than 1 MB of memory. That's the most memory that processor could handle. That processor came out in 1979, and would have been obsolete by 1987.

People usually didn't have 16 MB of RAM in their computers until the 486 era.

Command and Conquer came out in 1995, so odds are that you were running that on a Pentium processor.

I wouldn't argue that... But the computer is way older than the game. But you are right, it does see the ram, so probably newer than 8088. Maybe I will go fire it up tomorrow and see.

 

[whm1974]

Out of curiosity, what is the oldest computer model running whichever OS that can still access the modern internet?

 

[ultimatebob]

Out of curiosity, what is the oldest computer model running whichever OS that can still access the modern internet?

Someone did a web browser for the Commodore 64, right? I doubt that it could do the "modern" internet, though. It seems that you need at least a Core i3 processor and 4 GB of RAM to render many of those new HTML5 sites with background animations.

 

[whm1974]

Someone did a web browser for the Commodore 64, right? I doubt that it could do the "modern" internet, though. It seems that you need at least a Core i3 processor and 4 GB of RAM to render many of those new HTML5 sites with background animations.

I think you can do that with a Raspberry Pi which has much lower specs, and price. However I'm thinking that modern high speed internet would overwhelm 1980's 8 and 16 bit systems anyway.