I think it's safe to say...

[ArchAngel]

... that the Pentium class processors (P54, P55C) can be considered legacy.

I see that pretty much all of the vintage computing sites stop their definitions of legacy processors at 486. Pentium debuted in 1994 if I can recall correctly. That's 10 years. I personally consider all Pentium processors right up to the 233 MMX to be legacy now.

Your thoughts? I'm just curious...

 

[NathanAllan]

My slot 1 PII computer is being thought of as Legacy here. I can´t find anyone to say it´s not an obsolete processor. So I agree. My laptop´s 75mhz is definitely thought of as legacy, and people are shocked to see me doing main'line work with it. Anyway, I agree, but I would wager that anything under some 333mhz, depending on architecture, would be thought of as legacy.

Nathan

 

[Tim Wellman]

I'd say, at least according to software and hardware manufacturers, and hip gamer kids, any pentium under 2 gig is legacy But seriously, at least the p60 and p75 are considered legacy (maybe even vintage) by the majority of computer uses... I mean, I have one of the short-lived AMD 586 processors, and it came out *after* the p60 and p75. The thing is, my Dos computer, a 486/33mhz IBM PS/1 operates much faster than my p4/2.2g running windows xp... amazing how several dozen megs of dll's can slow a computer down

And the word 'legacy' scares me... most people who call me to help fix their computers do so because they don't have a built in 3.5 inch floppy to boot their computers from... that legacy disk drive that Microsoft and other manufacturers have fought so hard to get rid of, is still a necessary item. And my old legacy Laserjet series ii prints text sharper, blacker, faster, than any inkjet printer (and just as good as any new laser printer) and it prints several thousand pages on a single cartridge (which are around the same price as inkjet cartridges now, when you buy from tigerdirect).

When I was working tech support for Dell, there were two pat statements... one was, 'Tell me what you did to mess up your computer...' and the other was, 'Your computer is over a year old, you really need to upgrade.'

Then again, there's no money to be made unless you can convince people that this year's product is better than last year's.

 

[carlsson]

What does 'legacy' really mean? From what I understand, the original meaning is something you inherit through a will or otherwise, not necessarily something generally old (or vintage, as we say here).

I realize in computer terms, 'legacy' stands for yesteryear's technology or something otherwise outdated that you somehow have to support against your will (!), so maybe it can be seen as what computer industry inherited from itself.

So, are Socket 7 or Slot 1 old enough? Yes, old enough not to barely have any commercial support - finding an unused CPU fan is as far as I get when looking for related products. Does these PC architectures have a nostalgic sound for me? No, they're far too recent and common.