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First Vote! (Score:2)
Re:First Vote! (Score:2)
And your first computer loss. :P
Old computers don't die, they just get repurposed (Score:5, Interesting)
I've probably got a dozen old computers packed away that work, but are just waaay outdated. My last desktop that I built for myself is about 11 years old at this point, it's still chugging away as a file server and streaming video to my WDTV Live box. I can't bring myself to pitch a still working computer, even if it's so old as to be obsolete. I'll find some use for it, and will keep it running.
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Can relate to this.
I tend to build a new box every few years. Not so much out of necessity, but because it's my hobby and something I enjoy.. and as far as money goes compared to what you get, it's not that bad.
The problem is you end up with several boxes that are perfectly usable .. but you can only re-purpose so many (how many internal servers and media boxes does one need...). Can't sell them either. That pretty much leaves giving them away or letting them collect dust in the basement.
I feel like I need to get into some distributed programming or something just to make use of my extra hardware!
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Same here, but some computers just seriously die from a PSU blow up or something. :(
What's the oldest computer you have and what does it do now? I wished I could do the same like my Apple //c. :P
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
What's the oldest computer you have and what does it do now?
My oldest machine currently in service is a 14 year old Gateway 2000 E-3110 Pentium II, 300 MHz, 256MB RAM, 3 120GB IDE hard drives, stripped down version of Win-XP Pro with all un-needed services shut off.
I keep it in the basement running 24/7 with the monitor shut off. I use it as a NAS box, printer server for my home network, (serving an HP Laser-jet, and a Lexmark color ink-jet) and also as a "Magic Jack" server for my home phone service.
It still works great for those purposes, and I only have to reboot it about twice per year.
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Why XP? Why not use W2K SP4 or stripped down Linux or some other OS? XP is too slow on that old PC. I have a P2 450 Mhz machine, with 256 MB of RAM, for old Windows 9x and 2K SP4 for testing purposes and old softwares.
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Is XP, with W2K theme, still slower than W2K?
Office 2003 ran well? Wow. I used 2000 on a P2 before. It ran decently especially with its 2007 converter pack.
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
What's the oldest computer you have and what does it do now?
I have a working, 23 year old 8088 based machine with 384K of RAM.
It sits on a shelf. On occasion, I bring it out and fire it up for kicks. It is a portable (with a built-in monochrome LCD display), but there really isn't anything useful that can be done with it. It won't run Linux, has no network interface, and has a really outdated version of DOS burnt into ROM.
Sometimes old is just old. You do get to a point where the power consumed used by an old machine isn't worth the minuscule number of MIPS you'll get out of it. But it is still fun sometimes to pull such old systems out to show them off. So yeah -- sometimes old systems don't die, but they aren't worth repurposing.
Yaz
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Old computers do die if you take them out back and put a few ounces of flash powder in them.
As do you if you don't stand far enough back. I had to dodge a side panel once - damn high-quality Asus steel.
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
It used to be that older machines would be OK for tasks like DNS, squid cache, or file servers, but there comes a point where one can buy a $300 cheapie computer from Wal-Mart, install a hypervisor on it, and slice it up into some VMs which are far more powerful than the older machine. Another advantage is the bargain basement PC likely will use less energy than the 2-3 old Pentium 300s it replaces.
As for laptops, I've had one just get too old to be useful for much (a pentium 120 with 4 MB of RAM), and another laptop have fan bearings give out so it sounds like a jet engine taking off when plugged in. At least the HDD from the newer laptop was salvagable, and was useful as a place to copy backups.
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
I dunno. All my previous computers likely don't add to the computational power (or memory) of one of my recent ones.
A beowulf cluster of them would be quite useless.
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:3)
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:4, Insightful)
I try to re purpose every machine I can. Have 1 as a linux mail server and it only has a Cyrix 333MHz CPU.
The problem with older systems is that sometimes the cost of power consumption exceeds the value provided. You might be better off consolidating the functionality of several older systems into a single low-power, more reliable modern system.
Re:Old computers should die (Score:2)
with older systems is that sometimes the cost of power consumption exceeds the value
Absolutely right. My old AMD64 box sucks about £200 worth of electricity a year if it's on 24 * 7 - increasing at the market rate. My newer Intel quad processor machine idles nicely at about £150/year. There's no point keeping both running and since i get considerably more "bang" from the 4 processor machine than from the single processor the decision of which one to run is simple.
Re:Old computers should die (Score:2)
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Re:Old computers don't die, they just get repurpos (Score:2)
Youngster!
My first computer was a TI-55 programmable calculator. (1977) It had a whopping 50 step program capacity.
I can't find out what the processor clock speed was, but it supposedly had 30,000 transistors (!).
I mention clock speed because that's what made me think "not too long ago" when I saw your 150MHz.
The first "PC" I bought (actually an Apple) had a 25MHz 68040 processor.
Re:Static Electricity (Score:3)
Cursed, no. Poor learner, yes.
Where computers go to die... (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just nostalgic, but I find its much more fulfilling to upgrade one's computer and get as much life out of it as possible and then invest in a new system only when necessary. My goal when upgrading is to buy something with at least triple the performance while maintaining the same price point of the previous computer. Of course, prices have really come down, my old IBM cost $2300, while the Macbook pro that replaced it cost only $1200 (plus $300 apple care of course!).
A mouse (Score:2)
Never really lost one (Score:2)
Re:Never really lost one (Score:3)
Wow if you really have a 386DX66, don't lose it, it's one of a kind.
Re:Never really lost one (Score:2)
Re:Never really lost one (Score:2)
Re:Never really lost one (Score:2)
Unclear (Score:2)
If you have a computer made of obviously crap components (say a cheap Dell or Averatec laptop), and it dies after a couple of years - is that considered "old age"?
I've got a 10-year-old Dell desktop that's still running just fine... or was, last time I plugged it in maybe a year ago. I've also got a 2003 G4 Powerbook that's going strong - my mom uses it for presentations. Really the only computers I've had truly die on me were non-Apple laptops, and I'm guessing that's because I bought lower-end machines in those instances. Oh, and I guess I should count the home-built desktop from the early 1990s, where the motherboard gave out after a few years (I figure replacing the motherboard counts as getting a new computer).
Re:Unclear (Score:2)
Yes, that would be "old age" since "aging" isn't so much chronological time as much as it is degeneration of components primarily due to usage. Unless you live in a nuclear reactor, in which case the degeneration of components would be due to radiation damage.
If you liken it to biological systems, for any given class of organism there is DNA that will fail of "old age" after a time that would be considered absurdly young for other DNA.
Does "Ascension" count... (Score:3)
As "old age," or "some other cause? Hey, just asking.
Crappy QC and parts. (Score:2)
I still have a Tandy Model II that is flawless.
I have thrown away several PC's and laptops from the past 10 years simply because th e parts used in the past decade are utter garbage comparedto what was used in the 1980's and 1990's
Caps puking, defective boards, BGA is a bad idea for longevity, overheating parts because engineers today are morons, or the managers are morons. I'm thinking a combination of both.
Computers today will fail from a quality failure within 3 years. Yet I have stuff from the 386 days that I know will still work in 15 years.
Re:Crappy QC and parts. (Score:2)
I've got a computer from 2004 that's still going. It's had 2 new video cards but the AMD 64 3600 is still going strong. It all depends on buying quality components. 5 years ago I gave it to my housemate who bought a crappy Gainward video card for it, 13 months later the heat sink simply fell off. The original a leadtek card that came out of it is still going.
With a desktop it's hard for them to die in entirety when you can simply replace components as needed. Like anything, take care of it and it'll last forever.
Pry it from my cold dead fingers: (Score:2)
I still have a commodore 64. Two of them, actually.
I still have the original hard drive with Win 3.11 WFWG from my first PC (still works too.)
If I look around in the nooks and crannies, I might even have the chassis to it.
I still have my desktop from my first professional sysadmin job. A 486DX4-100, and all 5 of the OS's that it would boot still work. (If Brennan reads this, yes, spoonman still lives in its final form.)
I did, however, trash the Sun 4/690, 4/390, the AS400 and the SGI Crimson. Just too large to keep around and still have living space.
Old age is relative (Score:2)
Re:Old age is relative (Score:2)
Do you know of any places that still sell 5.25" cp/m floppies/software?
I'm feeling old age here... (Score:3)
Re:I'm feeling old age here... (Score:3)
I just realized that the first computer I worked on is older than my girlfriend (well, presuming that it still exists!).
We'd all probably appreciate you clearing up the ambiguity in that sentence.
Re:I'm feeling old age here... (Score:5, Funny)
I just realized that the first computer I worked on is older than my girlfriend (well, presuming that it still exists!).
We'd all probably appreciate you clearing up the ambiguity in that sentence.
What's ambiguous? He's posting on Slashdot, so it's obviously the girlfriend.
Re:I'm feeling old age here... (Score:3)
I just realized that the first computer I worked on is older than my girlfriend (well, presuming that it still exists!).
Same here! It's amazing that at 14 years old, it still works so well.
Re:I'm feeling old age here... (Score:2)
the computer or the girlfriend?
Continual regeneration (Score:2)
I've continually upgraded my PC since my first 386SX. As time and age killed parts they would be replaced with newer ones. At one point only the CD remained to keep continuity.
It is in essence immortal though with some amnesia.
Re:Continual regeneration (Score:2)
.
Re:Continual regeneration (Score:2)
Oh sweet a guitar case mod THANKS!
I wonder if I can make the strings work and play through the sound card....or maybe just a guitar hero case mod....
Re:Continual regeneration (Score:2)
Re:Continual regeneration (Score:2)
Actually it was a weird motherboard if my feeble brain (needs upgrades) is of any use it took either AT or ATX as it was intended and advertised as a repair part. It had PCI, 8 bit ISA, 16 bit ISA and I think some video slot like EISA or VLB. That board was amazingly stable for all the crap on it.
It would replace at least a dozen motherboards without a hitch and it was faster than many of it's peers. This was the period when 386/486/586 were still in use and 6x86 was on the rise. The board would work with Cyrix 6x86 chips that, if installed properly would work without over heating or other ills.
With a motherboard, processor, drill and standoffs I could fit that into most cases at the time. It was not cheap at all but I was advertising it as a high performance upgrade and catering to power users at the time. Part of the upgrade process was evaluating the power supply to see if it could cut it. As costs were an issue adding a power supply could kill a sale. Oddly enough people hated replacing the case which I never understood.
When the ATX mobo with AMD dual core died I did the most extensive upgrade since that era.
It's still the same PC, no really.
Wipe, Reload, Give away (Score:2)
Contrary to popular belief in the geek community, not everyone owns a computer. Whenever I have a computer (or sufficient components) past my own standard, I wipe the computer and give it to someone else. Sure it's 5 years out of its prime, but windows xp and a bunch of freeware can be a world of difference to someone who can't bring themselves to justify the expense.
Freecycle!
Re:Wipe, Reload, Give away (Score:2)
Contrary to popular belief in the geek community, not everyone owns a computer. Whenever I have a computer (or sufficient components) past my own standard, I wipe the computer and give it to someone else. Sure it's 5 years out of its prime, but windows xp and a bunch of freeware can be a world of difference to someone who can't bring themselves to justify the expense.
Freecycle!
Freecycling FTW.
I've given all my old gaming boxen to my housemates, family, friends, ect... 2-3 yrs old but it's more then powerful enough for their uses. I've just bought an new Asus laptop and the parents have put their hands up for my 2 yr old Lenovo. So wiping and re-imaging that is on my to do list.
As for actual causes of death, the only computer I've had in the last 8 years that's died was due to the mighty boot... I trod on a Benq laptop breaking the screen. apart from that it still works and eventually I'll get round to doing something with it.
Re:Wipe, Reload, Give away (Score:2)
I'd argue that if you include all analog, hardwired and digital computer systems including embedded ones, it's actually very hard to find anyone in the western world that hasn't got a computer.
um... (Score:2)
The mother board?
The CPU?
Everything in the case combined?
I've never had a computer get struck by lightening and the entire thing be melted to the point that nothing was salvagable. I haven't bought an entirely new comuter in about 15 years. Each time I have hardware failure (almost always the motherboard or GPU, which are both usually make by the same set of companies) I take what remains of the computer to build it's next incarnation. Usually it seems to be the motherboard that goes first. So, at that point I have to look at current CPU's and RAM. Sometimes because my CPU or RAMs specification is no longer made, I'm required to purchase both along with a new motherboard. I've never thrown out a CPU (Everyone I've ever owned is in my desk drawer right now as I refuse to throw out something so small that cost me $200+ and still works perfecting fine.) I also still have most of the RAM I've every purchased although I did throw out maybe 2 sticks that actually failed once.
The case I'm using right now is over 10 years old. It's a very nice Antec and has served me well. I've never had a reason to replace it. Hard drives come and go so often I stopped keeping track of all the manufactures I refused to buy from anymore because they all seem to be crap.
Same as George Washington's Axe (Score:2)
M$ says a PC is the motherboard (Score:2)
The hardest one to give up (Score:3)
I had an Apple Network Server that I got for $75 from a company that lost the AIX disks for it. I pimped the processor and RAM and stuffed the drive bays full of scsi goodness. I ran it until about 2005 when I switched to RAQ2 which was actually more powerful, had more hd space, and used less power. I used the ANS as a print stand until about a year ago when I needed more space and replaced it with a tool chest cabinet.
It saddens my that there is this tipping point where it becomes more wasteful because of power consumption to keep using old technology. It would be completely against tech companies' bottom lines, but the earth would love it if we could create an upgradable platform with a multi-decade usable lifespan while still being efficient.
Re:The hardest one to give up (Score:2)
Is hardware failure & obsolesecence, old age (Score:2)
Missing option - No change in marital status (Score:2)
I've lost more computers to not changing my marital status than anything else, i.e. get rid of the computers, or get a divorce.
Gone are a couple of microvaxes, rs/6000 (8 CPU - boy, could that heat a room), hp 900, multiple Sun systems (LX, 4 x SS20, plus external disks), a couple of Tadpole Solaris laptops, a DEC Alpha 1000, a DEC VAXStation 4000. Also a couple of full tower PCs (I don't think they make cases as large as those any more - I haven't seen any around).
I traded my lovely computer room for a wife and a couple of kids.
I still have my book on VAXclusters (bought in '93) on my shelf just in case I find myself with another couple of VAXes again.
Family... (Score:2)
Kept all but three... (Score:2)
I still possess almost all of my old computers, except three...
I sold my first Apple //e to a coworker of my mother, so I could buy my first PC compatible.
My first Macintosh, a PowerBook 1400cs was in my backpack, on my back when I got struck from behind by a Jeep, on a sidewalk. It partially worked, but the LCD screen was cracked and weird looking, while the hard drive had lots and lots of bad sectors, both of which degenerated over the next few months. Not a mark on the outside of the PowerBook, though, so I assume the case flexed a bit and absorbed some of the shock. It might've saved my life that way... I ended up face down on the pavement and couldn't stand up, so I had to crawl home from there (the Jeep driver just roared away...)
In India I had a low-end PC that I bought when I thought I'd only be there for a year or so. After a power failure the sound card in it never worked again. I ended up giving it to a coworker, a young guy from the slums who was working hard to move up in life and thought it'd take him a few years to save up to afford a computer, so even a slow, outdated machine was well appreciated. After I gave that to him, another coworker gave him a replacement sound card and another gave him some RAM.
Never give up (Score:2)
Re:Never give up (Score:2)
Ebay.
Now with that out of the way, my main home desktop is the result of an unbroken upgrade chain beginning with a retail Packard Bell in 1993. Still has the 5.25" floppy drive. Unfortunately, the motherboard lacks a floppy controller and the cable for that drive is long gone. The case dates to about 2002, and the mouse is probably the oldest active working component from around 2005. Prior to that, I'd used the same Logitech 3-button mouse for 11 years and only upgraded to get an optical mouse (also had to switch to USB for the upgrade that year).
I only lose old components (Score:2)
Any N* Horizon alive? or other S100 ?? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:2)
RIP (Score:2)
128k - Age
IIsi - Age
Duo 210 - Age
Centris 610 - Age
PPC 7300 - Age
PC Jalopy - Age
PC Laptop - Theft
PC - Age
PC - Age
PC - Age
I don't count work machines, as I've always been smart enough to use them as tools and nothing more.
Inherited (Score:2)
I usually have the current and last generation machines, then my parents inherit the 2nd and 3rd last generation. Sometimes their machines fail before I have a replacement, sometimes not. However, thanks to the crappy quality of the Shuttle SFFs I've lost two generations.
Extreme Longevity (Score:2)
My current system is over 8 years old.
At the time, you had to pay for Windows from the big dealers whether you wanted it on your PC or not. I decided to go to a local computer shop and have my own custom built with really good parts. LOL, part of me wishes I didn't as I can't justify getting a new system as the old one still works great.
I had to replace the DVD drive a few years, but that has been my only hardware failure.
I have between a 2 - 3 gig htz processor and I don't do video games so I have all of the power I need.
I imagine eventually there will be stuff I want to do and can't with a monocore CPU, but until then I am fine. $1000 for 8 years of use, not a bad deal.
Re:Extreme Longevity (Score:2)
Until December last year, my main system was a PIII-600 with 768 MB RAM on an seemingly undestroyable Asus P2B-S from 1999. Which means I used the same system for 11 years, only upgrading drives and video card. Although this system was "officially" outdated over half a decade ago, it did everything I needed (which doesn't include Flash and HD video or modern games, of course). People in Q3A I fragged called me a liar when I told them my specs. The old thing streamed my music, and even served the home cinema through a long cable to the beamer. About 4 TB total hdd space were connected to it. Now it sits idle in the corner, and is sad.
Re:Extreme Longevity (Score:2)
Good story.
I chuckled about the accusation of lying. Fanboys/geeks can be children sometimes. Before this box I had a PII ( Gateway....never again ) that had Windows 95/98 on one side and linux on another. I was able to play DVDs on the windows side, but not on the linux. When I tried troubleshooting that the linux group told me that PII wasn't powerful enough. They called me a liar when I told them that windows did it.
Re:Extreme Longevity (Score:2)
Yeah, that kind of behaviour is annyoing. BTW, I'm pretty sure your problem on the Linux side was a hardware issue, i.e. Windows being able to use some sort of video acceleration to play DVDs, and the Linux driver couldn't. Using XvMC on a Nvidia card my old PIII was at around 35% load with DVD material. Torrenting at the same time was no problem. ;-)
(Just for the record, I use Slackware.)
Re:Extreme Longevity (Score:2)
That was ancient history....around 2000. I think that was the prevailing theory at the time, windows used video acceleration. Things are a bit more balanced in the FOSS world today. Back then it was tenet of religious faith that FOSS *always* did things better. I can't remember what distro I used. I think SUSE. I've used Ubuntu since it came out, but I've gone through Red Hat, Suse, Knoppix, and Mephis ( knoppix knock off ). If/when my current box dies or becomes incapable of being upgraded to do what I want I think I may give an iMac a try.
That is up in the air as the stunts Apple has been pulling with locking down its hand held devices has turned me off.
How about boredom? (Score:2)
I've kept one desktop case for about 12 years now, and another for 4 years. But the components in each have changed completely at least 10 times (full CPU, motherboard, RAM, GPU swaps). It's funny when I tell friends I got a new computer and they take a look at the case and say "But it's the same one."
Laptops are a completely different story though. I've owned about 30 of them over the past 10 years. I never lost a laptop due to anything except getting bored with it and buying another one.
Comment removed (Score:2)
ESD (Score:2)
Lost one CPU in a system I assembled due to ESD (assumed). After a month or so the system just started crashing randomly. Turned out the CPU was the culprit (an early P4). Been assembling PCs since the early 90's, I've had a lot of DOA equipment but just that one premature death. I have had some HD issues, but I always caught them before I lost data (knock on wood).
Um, I did have one regrettable moment though. I had a noisy, non-essential, fan in a computer once and I took the side of the case off in an attempt to disconnect it (computer still running). I could not disconnect it (cannot recall why) and instead of doing something rational I got pissed, grabbed the cutters and cut through the fan's wires. You don't need a high school diploma to imagine what happened next. It shorted the PSU, the CPU reset and my on-board audio never worked again. I breathed a sigh of relief, threw in a sound blaster card I had lying around and all was back to normal. I have considered anger-management counseling.
Lack of space and storage purge (Score:2)
My oldest machines are an Amiga 3000 and a logic analayzer hosted on an 8Mhz XT. They have both been stuck in storage for the last 10 years due to the extreme limitations of my housing arrangements. I hope they still boot.
I've tossed out newer machines and components that did not have a nich that wasn't better served by more modern gear. But the Amiga is special and, surprizingly, replacing the logic analyzer with equivlient modern gear would be expensive. I shudder to think the 96 channel, 100Mhz logic analyzer must have cost when it was new sometime in the early 80's.
Vodka (Score:2)
Organ Donorship? (Score:2)
Good machines never die... they just turn into something else.
Missing option (Score:2)
Still have and sometimes play with my Apple II (Score:2)
Still have my Apple II and a string of old computers. I recreated my 486 box from 1993 recently. Lots of old hardware around and backups since 1992. Still like to play some of the old games like Rescue Raiders and Wing Commander.
I recycled and used my first PC case (XT clone) and had everything from a 4.77MHz 8088 to a 166MHz Pentium in it. Had to go to a new case for the next machine because to motherboard would not fit. I retro'd the machine back to it's 1993 configuration (100MHz 486, 560Meg HD).
Re:Driving the Alaska Highway (Score:2)
2 or 3 of my machines have succumbed to power surges after lightning strikes. Just realised thast I still have no surge protection for anything.
Re:Driving the Alaska Highway (Score:2)
Haha that sucks. I have surge protection for everything on my home network, including the DSL line. Only 3 UPSes needed: One for the networking equipment and server and two for desktop PCs on the network.
I lose computers to old age. My home server was using a P3 board until about two years ago. It only had one good RAM slot for many years but then it died entirely. It would take multiple attempts to POST after losing power sometimes leading up to the total failure. But at least after the upgrade it had enough processing power to serve as a HTPC.
I had lots of computers from the age of bad caps die young.
I had an old 486 laptop that worked until it got put in a box and exposed to moisture. Duct-taped up, screen broken off, battery missing, it looked ultra-ghetto but still worked. A couple of years ago I tried to get the data off and the HDD didn't spin up, still POSTed fine though.
Re:Driving the Alaska Highway (Score:2)
A long time ago, I purchased a surge protector for a customer that was losing modems like flies on a remote site. "Just plug it this way and put this green and yellow cable to earth", were my instructions. Further modem losses made unavoidable to pay a visit to the remote site. He did put the green and yellow cable to earth... between the table and the floor.
Well, considering that the guy was a biologist, I called it a honest mistake, gave some further explanations, and never heard back about fried modems on that site.
On a slightly more on-topic note, I lost most computers to upgrades. I know I'm not supposed to complain about lack of options, but...
Re:Driving the Alaska Highway (Score:2)
On a slightly more on-topic note, I lost most computers to upgrades.
That would fall under "old age".
Re:Driving the Alaska Highway (Score:3)
Check out Greyhole. [greyhole.net] It is storage pooling on a group of drives only if you loose one of the drives in the pool the data on the others is intact. It uses Samba as the back end so it allows for interesting configurations such as per-share redundancy. That way you could have your star trek share's data reside on one drive but really important stuff be duplicated to 2 or more drives. It's a little annoying to get set up but works great once it is up and running.
Re:Driving the Alaska Highway (Score:3)
Wow that was interesting.
Re:hard drives (Score:2)
Is it just me, or do modern hard drives fail way more frequently than they used to?
Depends how far you want to go back, I suppose.
In the 1980s, it seemed like you basically had to *plan* on having your hard drive crash at some point. I remember the first time it happened to me, too. We had all our research data backed up... as printed material. I spent several months typing all those numbers back in after replacing the hard drive.
Re:hard drives (Score:2)
Nope, modern drives are way more reliable for me, no failures on any drives bought since 2003. I have almost all WD drives in my computers, except for a couple of old Hitachi 2.5"s in the home server, and IIRC one of the external backup drives is a Seagate (I bought that one used 3 years ago and it still works, and it was in constant use for a year before it became an external backup). The last drive I had that failed was a Maxtor.
Re:hard drives (Score:3)
There's a lot of variables, for one thing these days I've got access to UPSes, but that being said, I didn't have a single HDD go dead during the 90s. The first one I had go bad was a Maxtor in 2002.
Probably not fair as I only had like 4 or so up until that point and I've had at least double that since.
But, ultimately the reliability is almost certainly going down, just look at how the warranty periods have been dropping lately.
Re:hard drives (Score:2)
Re:hard drives (Score:2)
I've a box of hard drives where the read heads have unmistakably committed suicide. One dates from the 1990s and the number increases sharply as you move closer to the present. I can't be certain that this is a function of hard drives becoming worse or old age creeping in on me, but it does tell me that there's some sort of issue.
Re:20 years and kicking (Score:3)
hp 9000-730, we already celebrated 20th birthday.
I've got an Amstrad CPC 646 [wikipedia.org] here that still works. It's totally useless now, but I attribute my interest in computers to this machine. I blew the dust off of it a year ago, considered selling it or throwing it out, but discovered my old collection of tapes. It was a trip down nostalgia lane, and at the end of the day I stored it back in the attic. It should be around 25 years old or so.
The other machine that just won't die is an XT on which I wrote my very first C code. That one's coming close to 20 years too. I don't think I've got a floppy left in the house but that old clunker still has a working hard drive (all 20 MB of it). Anything beyond that point simply never lasted that long. I got a 486-DX2 which died after 4 years, and the pentiums always seemed to give out at around 3 years. I do have to credit the Pentium I used while I was in college for being the most sturdy computer I ever had, surviving the living conditions in my dorm as long as it did. That machine got me through college only to die 3 days after I graduated.
Other than that, the best CRT I had was also the cheapest. I picked it up in an electronic "hypermarket", it weighed a ton and I transported it back to my dorm by bike. It's a miracle I got it home in one piece to be honest, but I was young and far too relaxed about such matters at the time. It's nearing the respectable age of 13 or 14 years and I still use it regularly when I'm doing computer repairs. The cheapo LCD I picked up after that one had dead pixels within the first month, and the larger LCD I bought after that has the habit of not showing a few columns of pixels until it's been on for a few minutes. Both still work, but not quite as perfect as the CRT.
It would appear that indeed they don't make 'em like they used to.
Re:20 years and kicking (Score:2)
Ha! Way back in the day (1980s), the lab I worked at ran an HP 1000! Thing is, the maintenance contracts with HP were hella expensive - even whittled down, it was still something like $600 a month. Once PCs reached the 286 stage they were fast enough to do what we needed, so my coworker and I talked our boss into buying one to see if we could convert all our old Fortran software and machine control code over - it took several months (and having to learn MS Assembler), but making the switch ended up saving a lot of money.
I miss those old days, though. 20MB hard drives the size of an oven, mag tapes you had to thread by hand (and which didn't use a standardized format, so you might have to write new software just to read someone's tape). Being a computer guy back then seemed like being part of a secret society, in a way.
Re:20 years and kicking (Score:3)
Are secret handshakes involved, or does that happen only in the presence of a modem?
Re:20 years and kicking (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of Old Age: Linux distro (Score:2)
Are you stupid!? Of course there is! It's only a matter of which one.
You could even get a decent GUI going on that P2 using DSL, Slitaz, Puppy Linux, or maybe even Debian LXDE. Debian w/ CLI only would work and isn't a PITA like those other distros.
On the 486, it's going to be harder to find something these days that will run on that. Try these:
http://www.ipt.ntnu.no/~knutb/linux486/linux486.html [ipt.ntnu.no]
Re:Speaking of Old Age: Linux distro (Score:3)
Re:old computers are more robust! (Score:2)
I lost an Atari 130XE when a fat cat stepped on the keyboard T_T The screen glitched out and it never booted up properly after that.
Re:old computers are more robust! (Score:2)
I lost a Commodore PET. The keyboard was damaged after too many games of Space Invaders, the screen had suffered burn-in and eventually the power-on self-test failed due to circuitry issues (well, to be fair, the machine had been run for several years continuously and they weren't exactly designed for that kind of abuse).
Other computers have been retired over the years - my saddest moment was retiring a BBC Micro, those things were brilliant for their time and it would be hard to imagine what a modern computer would look like if they were as excessive in I/O compared to standard systems as the BBC was to its rivals. However, it could be reasonably be argued that none of them have been so utterly and totally driven into the ground and beyond. In part, this is because modern computers evolve too fast - a computer need not be that old to be useless in the eyes of modern software, making total obliteration less likely.
Re:I wear out laptop keyboards (Score:2)