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Anyone actually use their old computers?

H

Head of Vecna

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Jul 24, 2006
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Hey, sorry if this sounds n00bish but I am n00 to the site and vintage computing in general.

From what I've been able to gather about the interests of vintage computer enthusiasts, most of their hobby seems to revolve around collecting old machines. Just wondering...does anyone actually still use them practically? What are they good for these days?

Thanks,
Head of Vecna
 
I do! I have about 6 machines set up at the moment, all in the loft space of my house. All working, and all useable. Collecting is fun, but I only collect something I find interesting and will use.

Old computers aren't really useful these days, but that doesn't stop them from being fun.

This evening, backed up a ton of software on my BBC-B, and put a new hard drive in my 486, which required me to reinstall DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11. Next step is to connect it to my home network, but 33MHz is painful so I might just hold out until I can pick up my DX4-100 from storage.

I also ran my newly-acquired disk cleaning kit through my 5.25" floppy drives, which seems to have revived the FH drive from my "parts" XT :D
 
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I think that's an excellent question.

For day to day tasks like email, web surfing, etc. I do not use my old machines. However, I do program on them regularly. My project at the moment is to write and run a telnet BBS on an 8088 class machine. I also learn quite a bit by trying to squeeze the most performance that I can out of them and by extending their capabilities to do things unimagined 20 years ago.

I think there are too many collectors out there. I'd like to see more people actively using their hardware.
 
dongfeng said:
I also ran my newly-acquired disk cleaning kit through my 5.25" floppy drives, which seems to have revived the FH drive from my "parts" XT :D
Click to expand...

Where did you get that?
 
For actual 'work' type stuff, no, but I do play with various items from my collection on a daily basis. Today, so far, I have played with my Epson PX-8, a '486 laptop (my DOS workhorse), a '386-powered Pen-Based PC (my 'new toy'), and a Pentium 166MHz tablet. I collect 'em mainly because I do enjoy playing with 'em.

--T
 
My biggest fear is that computer collecting at one point will become so lucrative that newly rich people will envision it as a form of investment. In particular the uncommon and already rare items that fetch good money would become even more difficult to get ahold of. Up to this point, I think most or all of the pure collectors do it because they have a genuine interest, even if they don't actively use (or know how to use) all their items. Personally, I would probably not acquire more systems than I could regularly find some use for (or could learn how to use), but who knows what would happen with a bit more money and a bit more storage space..

I also program, play old games and perhaps does a bit of music on my old computers. Many systems can be retrofitted with modern networking, but to me it is more a novelty than practically useful vs using a newer computer. Office applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and registers might be useful if you have a strong connection on the vintage side (printers, disk drives, other software that can use the files). Otherwise it tends to be more a problem if you later want to move the data files to a modern computer.
 
Not to drop any namez, but the guy who bought 'ComputerHell' iz a bona-fide billionaire...(just last year, he sold hiz share of the 'Blue Rhino' LP gas company for a kewl 4 mil...cash)! I can't wait to meet him F2F...

--T
 
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I use my lisa quite a bit. I find it works great for homework: You don't have to fight with LisaWrite to get the formatting the way you want it, and there are no games to destract you. The spellchecker works good too!

-Jason
 
I haven't been using many of my machines lately, since I traded off or gave away most of it (to good homes) and acquired more things that need rapair or parts. When they work I'll use them for transferring data from unused floppy formats or whatnot, but I like to repair them, teach myself and move on. If I find anything rare I'll pick it up and see what I can do, but I'll most likely trade it off later. I've been in the process of repairing and upgrading my Atari computers and the one 486 tablet. It's been a while, life gets in the way, and lately I've been getting into atari game consoles (got a 2600 and a 7800 with power problems).

Nathan
 
And of course storage space. The buyer probably has a large mansion, but might not have planned for a computer graveyard, eh.. warehouse when the house was built/bought. :)
 
I got into this whole thing because I was a poor high school kid with no job, and wanted a computer. In the late 90's, not having a computer, or a car for that matter, really hindered my social life needless to say.......

So I started off with a 386 SX and a 486 DX-33 motherboard, and worked my way up from there. ALL of my computers have been legitamatley used for something, from just games (Macintosh, 286, XT), to actual internet and work (486 machines and up). What's really krazy, is I just rebuilt my 486 DX4 last night, and the thing is almost as usable as my Win2000 machine is, I even can get true-color graphics since I swapped the video card.

Basically put, if I don't have a use for it, it eventually gets dismantled or sold off, otherwise, I used the heck out of them.......

My main computer started off a full size AT 386 DX/20, over 6 years and 300-500 dollars and a heavy power-tool invovled case-mod later, I've managed to build a rather modern machine out of it. But I still have a heart for the old beasts.
 
I still use my "vintage" computer, because the software I have I prefer to what is available for my "current" computer. At the moment, I'm limited to using my vintage computer via an emulator (WinUAE, emulating a Amiga 4000/040) because my vintage computers disk drives are dead, but once I get replacements for both the hard disk and the floppy drive, I plan on networking it to the other computers and using it for graphics work.
 
I sure do use my old computers!

Why, right now, I'm using my TRS-80 Model 4 to count out time.

trs80model4-2.jpg


It's up to 558,216 right now! Make that 217...218...
 
Like Mad-Mike, my "vintage" computers don't stay vintage. Take my 1991 full sized Gateway 2000 tower. First it had the 386/25 in it, then replaced MB with 486DX/50, then cpu got replaced with a Pent 90, then motherboard got replaced with a MB with intel 440 chip set and Pent III/450. That motherboard recently replaced with ASUS and Pent III/1000. Same original power supply is still humming along, fan is on the noisy side even after cleaning. Anyway, it was doing file-sharing (backup) and print server duties until very recently running XP Pro. Got replaced with a modern Dell a few weeks ago because I was getting toooo much grief about the 17" CRT I was using. I do live in a single wide mobile home and there ain't a lot of room in this place.
 
I use most of my collection. Most of my collection (x86/Commodore/Amiga/Atari) is for retro gaming. My Macs are use for video capture, old mathematics and CAD applications to name a few. I also have a Dual Pentium Pro server that makes life easier moving the old disk images around. The 2 machines I use the least lately seem to be my Apple IIgs and my Tandy 1000HX, but things go through cycles.

With exception to my duplicates that I keep as spares and my Timex 2068 (can't find it) everything else is setup and ready to run thanks to a million surge strips, tables, and quite a few KVMs.
 
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