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Keepiru writes "Where do old computers go? No one knows for sure, but I suspect half of them are hiding in the closets of slashdot users. " Interesting
problem. Comments that many people might buy new (and throw away
their old) computers come Y2k bugs, and talks about the PCs 18
month life span. Course those 18 month old boxes are still
bitchin' linux desktops, but they just don't have the same sparkle
as that dual xeon box either.
What the UofM Engineering Department did is a great example of where old hardware goes, and how it's still useful.
It's easy to run Windows 1.0 even on a modern computer. Just remember to use setver, because older versions of Windows need to think they're using MS-DOS 3.20 or so.
Try something like this:
SETVER WIN100.BIN 3.20
It runs on my machine under DOSEmu, and it'll also run under a DOS box in Windows. Incidentally, the file format for write was essentially the same back then...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It's been an option forever, even LILO can use a serial console, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't change any BIOS settings from a serial console, if the computer dies and it refuses to boot, I can't use a serial console to see "CMOS Checksum Failure" and press F1 to continue. That's what they're really lacking; a good and solid boot-prom. If I had a choice, I'd take a real computer over a PC any day.
Yeah, that's what I'm doing now. The reason I need console access is that I'm spoiled by the SPARC's and the VAXen.
I'm running a 150 (clocked to 180) With 96MB RAM that used to be a p75, and it runs great. My Laptop is a 266MMX with 64MB RAM, and I HARDLY consider it obsolete.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
er, linuxconf *does* run under a gui in RedHat, called 'control-panel'.
Just as easy to use as any NT interface I've ever tried!
For nostalgic purposes, I'd love to get one, but they're hard to find. Not even sure what I'd do with one, I just want to have it. :-)
D
----
Perhaps for a sysadmin. We're talking about a home network here. I personally have no experience with ipmasq, ipchains, port forwarding, or any of the other fun stuff. Therefore, I highly doubt I can set them up in 10-20 seconds.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
There's a flea market held over here at MIT every thrid Sunday of the month. Lots of hardware ranging from microwave trancievers, to ocilliscopes, to sun machines, VAXen, to Pentium 3s. It's really cool. There's tons of stuff from like the 70s and all kinds of weird hardware junk. Like, really weird stuff. Lots of stuff is given out for free by the vendors who don't feel like bringing it home. I've gotten 9 free monitors in the past three months. It's a cool place. Check out the MIT site for more info.
# wrote sig.txt, 23 lines, 31337 chars
I have two 486'es here, err, no wait, thats three... four 486'es. They're great work-horses for stuff you just need to get running and then forget about. I'm using one 486dx-33 with 8MB RAM as a workstation, it works like a charm. Remember that computers don't get any slower; only your perception of how fast they were changes with time. In reality, with the Linux kernel, I can do more on my 486 workstation than I could on the same computer running Windows a few years back.
The only real problem with PC computers are their inability to use a serial console, and that's a big drawback, but one has to live with what one gets.
I thought the whole point of PnP was to keep you from having to specify io and irq addresses for hardware? Does the Linux ISAPnP implementation not have this basic feature?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The 286 has a full multitasking protected mode.
:). To get your 286 out of protected mode you triple-fault it, which causes the processor to reset.
It's just 16bit. It works fine. The 286 can take up to (IIRC) 16megs of RAM (tho few MB's will take it).
IBM originally came out with OS/2 for the 286.
Interestingly, Intel never provided a way to switch out of 286 protected mode -- they figured you'd boot in real mode, switch to protected as the OS loads, and never look back (they forgot they had M$ to contend with
Here's what i've done with my old boxen. Take the old box and install linux or your favorite *nix and then put a modem and a network card in it. Make it dial your isp and act as a router for your network you can learn all about this here IP Chains. It's cool, and fun and gives you a real excuse to have a network closet at home. and make sure to get an external modem and hang it up next to the hub so you have cool blinking lights
I have an 'old' Pentium 133, and a 286. Experiment with them. Use them for terminals. Install different operating systems on them. I got my ZIP-drive working on the 286, which is great when the only other removable storage on there is 5+1/4" floppies...
Past that, cluster them, and ultimately see if they can be sold, junked or recycled.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It also requires at least 400 mhz or so...
And notepad has a 32 kb limit...
Maybe because:
:)
(a) You aren't the editor.
(b) There aren't any "bitchin' DOS desktops". (I like DOS, but desktop is associated with GUI... Maybe if you ran GEOS on it.
(c) A 486 makes a lousy Windows '98 desktop.
(d) A lot of people on Slashdot like and use Linux. (in case you haven't noticed.)
(e) Try some advocacy. Maybe if you've done it, mention that you can run minix on a 286 or FreeBSD on a 486, and tell us how it runs.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
mmm.. I couldn't get it to run in Win95, sadly. Too bad it wasn't networkable. I spent many a late night emulating this in SoftWindows on my 25Mhz Quadra.
"Please don't sigh like that, maam"
Set up a network and make this the network router. Give it two network cards. Put Linux/FreeBSD on the machine, run NATD and SAMBA. Hook this computer up to the net via modem/cable modem/DSL/ISDN, and hook the rest of the network to the other card. Now, instead of fighting over who gets to use the Internet (only one phone line), everyone can share the connection, and the server will even autodial when necessary. Also, you can set up shared directories with Samba, so that it doesn't matter which computer you are using - you can get your files on any of them. If you use Windows, you may have a little more trouble getting the thing to be a printer server (although I'm sure it is possible - what do the experts say?). But it is cake to set up one of the Windows computers to be the printer server in that case.
And of course, the biggest advantage is that you get a Linux/FreeBSD box to play around with!
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
ELKS runs on 286es or lower, but it isn't production. I don't know about the *BSD's (I doubt it) but minix also runs on old x86 machines. In fact, that's where Linux originally started, essentially bootstrapped from minix.
:)
However, I'll tell you now: feel free to try it out, but it is by no means production-level stuff. It will boot, and it will run, but it doesn't run very well. I haven't tried it lately though. But minix on an 8088 absolutely sucks!
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
We're talking about 18-month old computers here. They make "bitchin' win95 desktops" as well. I have sitting in front of me a 19-month old Pentium II 266 with 96 megs of RAM, a voodoo2, and 14.8 gigs of hard drive space. It runs Win95 quite nicely, so obviously you don't need Linux to get your 18-month old hardware to run.
Perhaps your 72-month old hardware, but that's a different story.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Which games does it not run? I'm sure SPACEWAR would be a little fast. :)
:)
You could try using BOCHS to emulate a slow x86, it does a good job of that. DOSEMU runs a lot of stuff too, and there are DOS programs that simulate having a slower computer. Also, there are free interpreters for the old INFOCOM data files, and now there's something like that for some of the old Sierra games.
However, none of these are really good substitutes for just having an older computer lying around.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
That's a good point. My computer is 18 months old, and it's nowhere near that nice. In fact, I'll probably end up buying a computer like that in another 6 months or more, and it'll be about the same, although probably with a faster processor.
;)
However, in 6 months, shouldn't you be running Windows 2000?
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Off and on I try to find a working 8086 machine so I can bring up the copy of Microsoft Windows 1.0 I got with my IBM PS/2 Model 25 which died so many years ago. (It came on three 720k 3.5" floppies.)
:-)
Win1.0 crashes on startup on a 286 and 386 (haven't tried 486 or DOSEmu.)
Thought it would be a hoot to post some pictures of Win 1.0 for those folks who haven't experienced it first hand.
It sucked way back then, too (gasp!).
Give your old hardware to charity!
I've spent several happy afternoons taking a pile of "obsolete" hardware and software (anyone remember WP 4.2?) and turning it into useful workstations for a local charity.
Won't run them at all or they just run too fast to be playable? I ran into this when I tried to play commanche on a pentiumII and it was just too fast.
:-) )
If this is the problem you can try moslo to slow your computer down to make the game playable. It works. (then you can give your older machine to me
I think they just couldn't resist saying the words Y2K. My old tandy understood the year 2000. Generally there are no post 1980 computers that didn't understand 2000.
Some, even today have have the date reintered, but hopfully that isn't to difficult to do. Anyhow about computer garbage I don't know why people throw away their entire computers instead of just upgrading them. Though I do have to wonder about the motherboard fairy. I should have about 5 old motherboards in my closet. And not one of them is there anymore. they just simply dissapear
I meant, that the computers need to have the date reentered. Or umm nevermind
My "crappy, old, outdated" PC (a 233MMX w/64 MB of RAM) gets lots of use. It does everything I need it to do (programming w/XEmacs/gcc, writing papers with LaTeX, surfing the web, burning CDs, IRC, email, etc.). I feel no need to upgrade it at all, I only got it because it was a cheap, good deal. It replaced my Pentium 75 w/32 MB of RAM.
I find that real "power users" (like most Linux and FreeBSD users) usually have what others would consider "old" machines.
That being said, there's nothing wrong with having a shiny new fast machine if you so desire. But with relatively efficient OSes like Linux and FreeBSD, even a "lowly" Pentium 75 is enough for a lot of tasks. Some people think a Pentium 400 w/64 MB of RAM is the minimum for email (with programs like Micro$oft LookOut) but even a 386 does a fine job with pine or mutt.
Oh, well, let them keep buying their expensive machines. That just makes Celerons and PIII's even cheaper. Maybe I'll buy one of those one day.
I'm sure they are. Yep, it says it right here in your file, "Has violent fantasies."
And here's the receipt from your insurance company, for when they bought information about your manual reflexes. If they were below average, you'll see a reference to that in the next bill (but naturally, there will be no mention of it if you are above average).
Oh, and that time that you tried to grab the rocket launcher, but someone else already had it, and you screamed "Damn lag!!!" Big Brother's Black-Box-on-your-LAN knows that there wasn't really any lag. This is mentioned in the psychological part of your file, but in a different section than the "violent fantasies" part.
Oh, and that time that you telnetted to one of your other machines (instead of walking over there) and typed 'ls' and one of the files listed was big_boobies.gif -- that's in your file too. Tsk, tsk. Oh my, this section of the file is awefully thick...
Sorry, just letting my imagination run wild. :-) A sniffer in every home...
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d
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Where to old computers go?
Silicon heaven. Duh.