What's the oldest system or component you have?

[grrl]

Many members of this forum have written they are 'constant upgraders' or comments to a similar effect. I'm curious what the oldest system or piece of equipment people still have use for. I still use my Toshiba Satellite 205CDS on occasion (bought new in 97) and a friend is still using his 1994 Satellite with b&w screen, side-mount mouse and Win 3.1 for word processing and hooking into the school's e-mail system.

Everything on my home machine though is no older than 2 years.

 

[Don66]

my Microsoft natural keyboard.
Bought it for 35 when they were selling for 99
about 5 years old

 

[BCYL]

I still have a P75 machine at home... can't even remember which yr I got that...

I also still have a 4x Write CDR drive in my main machine... I think I bought it around 4 yrs ago... This is the oldest component in my main machine (since I just took out my 2x DVD drive which I bought 5 yrs ago)....

 

[Chu]

I still have an old 286-16mhz in my closet. I tried to take out the chip once to make a keychain, but discovered that it was soldered to the board :Q Hrmm . . . I also have a 5 1/2 disk drive from an 8086 in my closet, which still used the REALLY BIG form factor, and is about 2 inches high. One of my close friends has an original macintosh, which I guess would be even older then the above . . .


-Chu

 

[gpw11]

Are you ready for this? My roomate had this REALLY old comp. I'm not exactly sure how old, but it definitly was slower then a 286. Anyways, he figured he wouldn't need it anymore and smashed it. I'm now using the keyboard from it. I'm not exactly sure how old in is, but underneath it says "copyright IBM corp 1984"!!!! I kinda doubt that that is the actual age of the keyboard, but I'm gonna guess it's from the early 90's.

Other then that I was still using a 486 untill about 3 years ago. I've gone through a P133, PII333, and a Celeron 900mhz since then. Gonna be getting a 1800+ this summer . My dad still uses the 486 and loves it.

 

[manwithplan]

another vote for the 'in the closet' ibm 286! im still using the nic out of it tho!

Had an old IBM PS2-ish tower (The old skool ones built to withstand earthquakes etc and weighed a ton) for a while and a PS1 with the massively chunky on off switch that wou could actually clunk up and down, quality

 

[Wolfsraider]

oldest computer
a computer that was made before master slave settings were used is sitting under my desk and
a p-66 gave away the others last month lol

oldest part um various 2 and 4 mb ram modules 4x scsi with card and wires perm attached a cdrom that has a remote with all the buttons on the front made by creative ff rew etc...

all the upgrades and spare parts are used to make computers for those around my area that don't have computers lol

but i've been slack lately usually i give about three a month away for web surfing but have made a few for other things

my "room" looks like a spare parts of dinosaur computers lol and thats after clearing out 99% of the older ones

 

[Maetryx]

Maetryx here,

My IBM M2 keyboard on my main machine was made in 1994. I absolutely love it. It has a PS/2 connector, a really thin cable like a phone cord, and NO Windows keys. I've got another one just like it in reserve in case this one ever dies.

I just got a brand new KVM switch, which totally changed my outlook on life this weekend. I went through a TON of old parts and built a couple systems out of them.

#1) K6-2 550 on a FIC VA-503+ 1.2a AT (not ATX) mainboard. 500MB HDD. 36X ASUS CD-ROM. 96MB RAM. Cirrus Logic PCI video (?). VooDoo2. LinkSys 10/100 NIC. 33.6 modem. Newish keyboard. Older mouse. No monitor. It's not a bad system but the hard drive situation is pretty tight. There's like less than 100MB free after putting on Windows 98SE and a couple essentials.

#2) K6-2 400 on a P5SS (maybe manufactured by ECS) micro ATX mainboard in a jacked micro-mini ATX case. The plastic front piece is gone from the case. Built in sound and video. The video hijacks 4MB from the system RAM, which otherwise would be 64MB. The ISA slot has a vintage IN-2000 SCSI-1 card in it. I got this baby in 1993 I think. It's connected to a Rancho Technology single to differential SCSI converter board. Finally, the converter board is connected to a 1.5GB Micropolis SCSI-1 HDD that I am pretty sure was manufactured in 1987. Micropolis had a 7 year warranty back then, and I think I got the drive before the warranty expired. I may be wrong about the years. I know I got it in 1992 or 1993. It was used. It cost me $1100, which was less than $1/MB so it was a real steal. Anyway, the damn thing still works. It's got DOS 6.22 and WFW 3.11 still on it. Don't have a floppy or a CD-ROM in that jacked case yet. The HDD is a 5-1/4" FH form factor (Full Height) so it takes up BOTH of the available 5-1/4" drive bays.

So, yeah. That big-ass Micropolis HDD (I think it's model 1528) is my very oldest, still operational piece of hardware. But its not in my main system. It's in my fifth system.

 

[Yzzim]

Oldest component in main machine - Probably my Memorex 32X CD-ROM I bought brand new at Best Buy for $90 Q) about 4 years ago.

Oldest component in house - Oh lord, no idea. Can't even think of anything right now.

Oldest component sitting on desktop - A Cyrix 686MX Processor I'm trying to figure out how to drill through the ceramic to make it into a key chain.

 

[capodeloscapos]

THIS IS THE OLDEST!!!
I have a Commodore 64, which I bought in 1987, and it was my first computer. It works still fine and I have tons of games in cassettes, in order to play. I have a solid metal joystick, like the arcades one, and it´s really hard and heavy.
It was manufactured in my country, Argentina, so I don´t know if you heard about it.

 

[Musicman6425]

I just received a computer from my company for free. P4 1.8GHz. First thing I did was use my old IBM keyboard instead of the soft touch keyboard that they sent me. No windows key. Made before Microsoft controled the world!!! Got it for $3 at a garage same. Its just like a $3 hooker: it may not be pretty, but it gets the job done!!!

My ex-roommate hada old 2x-read in his system. It was such a pain to install Win95 on his system. Took so dang long. Wonder why? j/k

I just got rid of a laptop with a 386 in it. Black and white screeen. It would turn on once and never again for 2 weeks. Almost like clockwork.

Gave my nephew a system with a 486 and 5-1/4 drive in it.

<100MB Hard drive. Used as a paperweight.

14.4 modem

Pre-ISA (can't remember the actual term right now) cards.

I keep a box of old stuff I would get out of people old computers.

 

[Biggs]

Computer table, got it way back when I was still using an IBM XT in the early nineties!

 

[Derango]

Diamond 8Mb Voodoo 2. Oldest componenet in use: Tyan Trinity 400 motherboard.

 

[Nutz]

Oldest part in my current system: MS Natural Keyboard, 1.44MB floppy, Viewsonic PS 790. All are around 4 years old.
Old parts in use in misc servers/spare machines: ATI AIW Pro 4 MB, Quantum Bigfoot 12Gig HD (LARGE style)
Oldest part. Period.: Commador 64/128 sitting in a box somewhere. Was thinking about modding it into a case for a 1.4GHz T-bird.
Misc parts collecting dust: SB AWE64, Voodoo2 8 MB, mom's Compaq Presario from 1995 (486 DX-100 w/8MB RAM, 4x CDROM, 500 MB HD) the cache pooped out and its been sitting ever since. Was thinking about restoring it just for the hell of it.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

my oldest thing is my 386, with 2MB ram and 106MB hard drive. i actually ordered ram for it on fleabay, however the seller still isnt responding to my emails. once i get more ram for it (total will be 10MB), i'm gonna make it a dedicated IRC/netris/links machine.

 

[RanDum72]

Probably my floppy drive. I've had it since 1993.....

 

[BornStar]

I'm sitting next to my 85MHz SPARCstation 5. I'd like to be able to use it but I haven't yet figured out how to get an OS on it without a CD-ROM drive. Oh well, it still looks cool. That's definitely the oldest thing I own.

 

[Mem]

Hmmm probably my old Hi-Fi amp that I use with my Audigy,which I got in 1987,after this probably my old ATX case and floppy drive which are only 5 years old.

 

[Armitage]

486/66MHz serving as a FREESCO dial-up router. 3.5 AND 5.25 floppies
A couple more 486 in the closet. I picked them up through the classifieds for $20 each a few years back. It's how I learned linux networking & cluster programming.

Oldest hardware on premises ... I have an old 1200 baud external modem sitting aroundsomewhere!

 

[vss1980]

Oldest external component would be my keyboard - April 1993. Who needs these windows keys hey???
Oldest internal component would be my SCSI CD rewriter - Ricoh MP6200S (6x read, 2x re/write) - Summer 1997.

 

[Horsepower]

HP4c scanner bought sometime in 1997.

 

[TheCorm]

My Microphone, the only component left from my old Packard Bell. I have a 486DX PR100 processor in the loft with a teeny little heatsink.

 

[CraigRT]

my SMC 10mbit ethernet card for @home.

 

[Texmaster]

My case.

After that my Adaptec 29160 scsi card.

 

[ElFenix]

i've got a 1989 vintage powerbook 180 in my closet...


you know... old macs are good at auction... hmmm...