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Oldest rig that's still running, or still CAN run

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K15

Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2005
Just wondering who here has the oldest "working" computer (by working, there are no hardware failures, or none that would make the computer useless).
Asking mostly due to curiosity's sake, and wondering if the rig I just built will last until 2016.
Oldest running computer we have is a Pentium 166, 32MB RAM, Win 95, 6x CD-ROM, 2MB video card (or maybe 1MB, it's a PCI card, as far as I know), 1.2GB WD hard drive. The hardware was put in that case in 1996. In 10 years of off/on as well as 24/7 use, that drive STILL runs like it did when it was new. It's not even that loud.
I uninstalled all unnecesary things, so after boot, there is 1 or 2 processes running and the memory is about 90-95% free :)
It has an old ethernet card and it connects to the internet just fine. I think I put IE 5 on it. It can do basic stuff very nicely. Browsing the web is about as quick as it is on my rig. Though it can't do anything that I would find useful (any media work would be useless, a 1.2GB drive is TINY). Though I could always put a newer drive in it (16.6MB/s IDE haha :cool:
My aunt is using the computer now (daily, like I said, it's on 24/7 I think).
I hope she keeps it until something fails (most likely the HDD). The PSU already failed in 1999 or so. It's weird to browse the web and stuff on such an old computer.
 
_slh_ said:
Ive got a zx81 thats still working. Doesnt get much older than that.


Haha, I had to look that up. Never seen/heard of them. Then again, they were out 7 years before I was born :cool:
I have to suffer using my 5 year old rig, P3 600mhz @ 690mhz. 512MB ram. It wouldn't be THAT bad, but I have to use a Seagate U Series 5 drive :bang head
HD Tach tells me it has 19.7ms access, giving it a 14ms seek! :shrug:
 
I have one of the older IBM PS / Notes with windows 3.1 lol great for playing chips challenge

It's the one with out the rubber node on the keyboard for moving the mouse
 
Took a Panasonic Desktop Personal Work Station appart about 2 years ago that was working no problems,

Proprietary OS, which was upgraded in January of 1981, Which it told you at every boot.

640K Hard drive, stock, dual 5-1/4" floppies. don't remember many other details, oh Mono crome Green 13" Monitor. I'm sure it would still be working had I needed the space, but I could not install anything on it, and Tetris was more fun on my Nintendo.
 
Thats the one. Its got a massive 1k of RAM, but Ive got the 16k expanison for that. Although, as was always the case with the zx81, unless you plug it in then secure it with tape or something, the slightest knock to the table its sitting on will cause it to crash. Still have the tape deck and games as well. I still have a 48k spectrum in the loft as well, in full working order. The one with the rubber keyboard.
 
My parents have a 486dx (I think 50MHz) that still runs. Of course, It hasn't been ran in a while, but I plugged her up about 2 months ago, and it started right up.

My oldest computer is my P2 400MHz that I'm using right now. It's not really old, but it's lasted me longer than I ever thought it would (got it back in 1998).
 
I have a pentium II 233 on active duty as a traffic shaper/firewall. Works like a champ although its guts have been upgraded to a more modern 128 MiB CF card with a parallel ata adapter :) I reckon it nearly cut the boot time in half! Too bad it never needs to be rebooted.
 
we have a p pro 180 dually sitting around..... I works mostly, although I've gutted some of the components out, so I'd have to fix that. My parents used it with windows 98 (on a dually..... smack!) for quite a whil until it just got too slow.
 
aeiou said:
we have a p pro 180 dually sitting around..... I works mostly, although I've gutted some of the components out, so I'd have to fix that. My parents used it with windows 98 (on a dually..... smack!) for quite awhile until it just got too slow.
That's what I had to do with my PPro200. I couldn't afford to pay the extra $600 for a second processor and $100 more for NT4. So I ended up with one processor and 95b for over $3k and that lasted for over 5 years. Then upgraded to 98lite for awhile. I eventually got a second processor and VRM module for $50. Finally I got an original w2kpro gold edition holograph disk with the legit key for $70 from a guy I met online. However the first SMP OS that computer ever ran on was Knoppix Linux live CD.
 
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