My computer is older than YOUR computer!

[Carol Haynes]

Don't know if this is available outside the UK but how about an antique computer quiz:

http://news.bbc.co.u...magazine/7671677.stm

I scored 6/10

[Jimdoria]

BASIC on the Atari 2600 was a great way to prepare for modern computing. Spend hours tweaking an underpowered program using a fiddly interface, then lose all your work when you turn off the power.  Just like when Windows crashes today!

They designed a real programming system for the 2600 once that would have turned it into a bona fide home PC. It plugged into the cartridge slot and added a chicklet-style keyboard as well as BASIC. It never saw the light of day, though. Perhaps they feared it would pirate Atari 400 sales.

I too have a 130XE in the attic, but haven't plugged it in in years. I'm hoping the floppy still works and that the disks are still readable so that my college ouevre will not be lost to history.

The oldest working/still useful PC I have is a Gateway Handbook 486. It's a notebook PC slightly larger than a paperback book, with one of the best small-size keyboards ever invented. (Oh, you thought the eee book was a new idea?  ) I've actually got 2 of them - one runs Win 95 and the other runs DOS/GEOS. If only the dead batteries weren't so expensive to replace, I'd probably still be using these.

[icekin]

Check out the specs: 80KB of RAM expandable to 200 KB (ZOMG!), 32KB of ROM and...

-Lashiec (October 14, 2008, 12:18 PM)

But 64KB of RAM is more than enough for anybody...

My oldest machine is a 286, but it got tossed a few years ago, along with a perfectly functional and working 486. The oldest machine I still own is a Athlon XP 1500 which I assembled myself and runs Win XP. But my friend has a 486 with 16MB ram that she plans to throw away. Too bad I live in a small flat and don't have the storage space to collect antique junk.

[wreckedcarzz]

BASIC on the Atari 2600 was a great way to prepare for modern computing. Spend hours tweaking an underpowered program using a fiddly interface, then lose all your work when you turn off the power.  Just like when Windows crashes today!

-Jimdoria (October 15, 2008, 11:24 AM)

Best analogy ever

</comic book guy voice>

[sazzen]

If you live in Santa Cruz, CA, that has GOT to be my old computer. Across the room is its successor, a Packard Bell Multimedia M415 that was purchased in 1995. Until August of 2004, it was my only computer. Until September 1st of this year, it was still used daily. I can't bring myself to dismantle it.  I confess, I loved Windows95. I was comfortable with it, didn't mind trying every tweak I came across and didn't mind digging around in the registry. If something went awry, I just dug out the Windows95 disk and reinstalled over everything. No problem. If I needed help I phoned Microsoft and a real person walked me through the solution. The phone calls were free -- for a year.  Best of all and the reason I can't let go of it, was the software. If I need to do really serious work, I can always walk over to the corner and fire up WordPerfect 6.1 or Excel 97.

[Darwin]

sazzen - which computer system are you referring to?! Also, what replaced the PB Multimedia M415 in daily use? Enquiring minds want to know... 

[Deozaan]

</comic book guy voice>

-wreckedcarzz (October 19, 2008, 01:42 AM)

What exactly does a comic book voice sound like?

[jgpaiva]

deozaan: I figured he was referring to this guy: Comic Book Guy^w.

[Darwin]

Just answering my own question: I'm pretty sure sazzen was referring to wreckedcarrz original post/computer 

[wreckedcarzz]

deozaan: I figured he was referring to this guy: Comic Book Guy^w.

-jgpaiva (October 21, 2008, 04:27 AM)

Correct.

If you live in Santa Cruz, CA, that has GOT to be my old computer. Across the room is its successor, a Packard Bell Multimedia M415 that was purchased in 1995. Until August of 2004, it was my only computer. Until September 1st of this year, it was still used daily. I can't bring myself to dismantle it.  I confess, I loved Windows95. I was comfortable with it, didn't mind trying every tweak I came across and didn't mind digging around in the registry. If something went awry, I just dug out the Windows95 disk and reinstalled over everything. No problem. If I needed help I phoned Microsoft and a real person walked me through the solution. The phone calls were free -- for a year.  Best of all and the reason I can't let go of it, was the software. If I need to do really serious work, I can always walk over to the corner and fire up WordPerfect 6.1 or Excel 97.

-sazzen (October 19, 2008, 09:33 AM)

Hehe, I'm a ways to the east (Glendale, AZ) - I love Windows 95 (A, never tried the B version) - we had a Compaq with 95a on it, my first computer, when I was about 3 - we got rid of it before we moved, when I was about to turn 7. Loved that machine. Screwed everything up all the time (dad reformatted constantly). But thats how I learned probobally 50%+ of what I know now about Windows. There was this one time where I went through and ran a disk checking program to see what files/folders were taking up the most space, and whan I found out "Program Files" was the culprit, I concluded that because I know shortcut files are ~1kb and EXE files are big, I should make shortcuts to all the EXEs and delete the EXEs!

A shortcut filled desktop and empty Program Files later, I know not to do that

[Armando]

My father still has his Sinclair ZX81. Pretty old if you ask me. I still remember him learning how to code in C, basic, back then (1982?), when we were living in West Africa.  Great design.    Smaller than a lot of modern laptops, but with a 3.25 MHz CPU, and and 1 KB of RAM -- although I thing we had 64 at the time...

[40hz]

Does anybody have one of these? I got mine as a Christmas present way back when I was a kid. It's called a Digicomp and it was sold by a terrific company (now long defunct) called Edmund Scientific.

It's not really a computer per sce. It's actually a set of mechanical flip-flops that could be programmed and initialized in various ways using little plastic programming lugs (they were one-inch pieces of drinking straw) such that some rudimentary logic circuits could be set up and played with. The most interesting part of it was the "clock" which consisted of your hand pushing a plastic plate back and forth to create the "clock cycles" that drove your "logic circuits."

One of the most intellectually satisfying things that ever happened to me was when I was able to set it up as a count-up register device - and more importantly, understood why it worked! That experience was what initially got me hooked on the whole "computer thing."

Here's what it looks like:



There's a great article on this clever little device:

http://www.eetasia.c...9495_NT_8a9f370a.HTM

I wonder if they still make toys like this anymore?

[40hz]

BTW: Very good link on Classic Computing over at the Retro Thing website, Check it out:

http://www.retrothin...m/classic_computing/

 

[SchoolDaGeek]

Hey I can put together a 486-dx in a hearbeat and don't try me!  I still have all my Windows for workgroups 3.11 disks and I was running AOL and found a girlfriend in 1996!  ha ha.  no joke.

[mouser]

40hz, that looks really cool, never seen one of those before.

I did have a few of these when i was growing up which are extremely cool, and still available:


See: http://www.sciencekits.com/electron.html