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What's the Oldest Hardware You are Still Using?

Posted by Cliff on from the oldies-but-goodies dept.

ScottBob asks: "Seeing the recent post about the vintage computer festival got me thinking about old hardware I'm still using in my 'modern' computer. I have a 1 ghz Celeryonion machine, but when I bought the mobo I specifically looked for one with an ISA slot so I could still use my old Zoltrix modem I bought in '97 when V.90 was adopted (when it probably would have been cheaper to buy an ISA-less mobo and a PCI modem). I've also moved a '93 model floppy drive from machine to machine, and it still works. Usually, monitors and power supplies survive the ravage Moore's law has on hardware, but what other things does everybody else save when they cruft together a new machine? Anybody ever do things like disguise a 4 GHz P4 in an ancient 8086 machine box? While on the subject, is anybody still running old DOS programs in a DOS box on a Windows machine (e.g. a database) because your company is too poor/cheap to upgrade or doesn't want to bother with any free alternatives?"

6 of 1,705 comments (clear)

  1. Power Cord by onyxruby · · Score: 4, Funny

    Power Cord, leftover from 8086. Least valuable part then, most valuable part now. Still using it too.

  2. What's the oldest hardware I'm still using? by kawabago · · Score: 5, Funny

    My boyfriend!

    1. Re:What's the oldest hardware I'm still using? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Zing! Put some new batteries in that rabbit ... which is probably the second oldest piece of hardware ....

    2. Re:What's the oldest hardware I'm still using? by stevesliva · · Score: 5, Funny
      Hey baby, wanna upgrade?

      (Someone had to say it.)

      --
      Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
  3. COBOL???? by Atario · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hang on a sec...did you say you're taking COBOL? As in, taking a class on it? Learning it???

    RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!!!!

    --
    "A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
  4. Vintage? by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Vintage"? Next thing you know, we're going to go to keyboard-testing events, wash our hands in salt water and blow-dry them between testings, and start using weird adjectives.

    "Ah, yes. This eMachines knockoff displays a firmer character, with elements of plozz and fwimple, leading to an oaky finish."

    Eep.

    --grendel drago

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca