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What do you actually do with your vintage computers?

>I am still thinking about doing a dial-up BBS just because I can.

Well, if you build a BBS, then I'll have to build something to dial into it :p
 
Sidebar: when it comes to rarer systems, do you advocate using them lots (assuming you have a reason to), or minimal use to preserve?
I asked this some months ago and as a result of a few responses and talking to an EE at work about capacitor life, my policy is now:

If the system has a hard disk, start it up about every 3 months to discourage the heads from sticking to the disks.

For all systems, run them once a year for at least 24 hours for the benefit of the electrolytic capacitors.​

With 12 systems originating from '83 to '97 I'm finding something goes wrong electronically about once every year or two, recently the 5V-output electrolytics in 2 of the mid-'90s machines. All systems are stored in a dry environment.

Not relevant to you, but since I'm in a 230 VAC country and all my systems can operate off 110 V, I use a stepdown transformer to ease the startup shock and somewhat limit power in case of a failure.
 
I have several systems in semi-regular use, both for fun and profit.

-IBM XT: Archiving and writing floppy images for my other vintage systems. Usually I'll end up browsing the forums with my shell account, and transferring files with FTP. There's a Panasonic dot-matrix printer hooked up to it, which I use to print text files and receipts when I don't want to waste my inkjet ink. It also sees use as a terminal for my Altair 8800, and for serial file transfer with ADT.

-Homebuilt 486: My main retro gaming rig and a tweener system for 3.5" and 5.25" FDDs. It runs a network share and a web server too.

-Toshiba T3100e and T3200SX: Programming in QBASIC, using as a terminal, and burning EPROMs.

I often get boxes of ISA cards from the recycler, so I use these systems to test them before listing them on ebay.
I've also bought an InterMedia system recently, which consists of X2 ISA cards and Windows 9x software to work with most floppy and tape formats. I'll soon be building another 486-PIII based system to work with this, and have it hooked up to 3", 3.5", 5.25", and 8" drives simultaneously, along with an assortment of SCSI tape drives. Maybe I'll get a data conversion contract and break even? Fingers crossed :)

Great answers guys! Thanks! Sidebar: when it comes to rarer systems, do you advocate using them lots (assuming you have a reason to), or minimal use to preserve? I often wonder how future vintage collectors will cope with 50, 100 year old machines with few or no spare parts available.

I think it depends more on the rarity of the compents than the entire system, for example, I wouldn't want to leave CRTs, disk motors, and machines with propietary ICs running too often (Amigas spring to mind), while on the other end, I wouldn't be too worried about running an Altair 8800 24/7, if you were to swap out the PSU for a more modern switch-mode supply. There's enough spares out there that it wouldn't suprise me if natural degradation would break all the remaining NOS ICs before they ran out.
Apart from that, I'd pretty much do what Paul suggests.
 
Over the years, my company has recycled many, many good workstations. It's their policy to scrap and not resell any equipment. I cringe at the sight of pallets of good Suns, HPs and SGIs going to the grinder and my cohorts have noticed. This has led to conversations about my hobby and I'm inevitably asked at some point that same “What do you actually do with your vintage computers?” question as if I really had to do something more than collecting to justify the hobby. When say “Not much.” they often shrug their shoulders or give me quizzical look as if to say “I don't understand.” At that point I ask “what do you do with your butterfly collection?” If they say I don't have one, I move on to “what do you do with your stamp collection?” and so on. Eventually they realize that collections are not always for useful or business purposes, but often for the nostalgia, relaxation or simple enjoyment that comes from doing something you find interesting or to drive the wife “crazy”. I don't even “use” them on a regular basis either, just when I'm in tinkering mood for a Solaris, Irix, NeXTSTEP or whatever fix. That said, like many of you I also enjoy the challenge of finding early personal computers (from the 70s and 80s) unix machines (80s and 90s) that I can restore to working order. If there is any unintentional good outcome, I would have to say that to some degree I contribute in a very small way to the preservation of part of our technological history. I find it fascinating when I attend one of the local retrocomputing get-togethers and learn about the machines in other people's collections. It's surprising how expert most collectors are about the details and history of their favourite computers. For some reason that I can't really qualify, I believe this knowledge/history to be important in some way. Maybe I'm wrong, who knows.
 
I use a vintage machine to track satellites in orbit, such as the Space Station.

I have a 486-DX50 laptop running MSDOS 5.0 and a program called STSPLUS.
The laptop has a 3Com PCMCIA network card and I use the mTCP HTget program
to download the most recent orbit data, in order to display the satellite's current position.

STSPLUS.jpg
 
I like playing MIDI files with my Roland equipment (and as the producer of the first MIF-IPC-A replica).
I enjoy playing games from my youth.
I find it relaxing to type away in MS-DOS at very high speed.
Windows 3.1(1) makes me smile.

Plus my collection (displayed under one of my office dining room tables) makes for a great conversation starter: I was a teenager in the 1990s so many of my friends / relatives have memories of MS-DOS as well (albeit not always positive).
 
I pull them out now and again to admire them and exercise them...to make sure they are all working and carry out repairs if necessary. I'm hoping to display them to the public at some stage, although people can see them on my website and Youtube channel.

I just love all the different designs and idiosyncrasies. They are slices of history you can experience first hand.

Tez
 
I use my IMSAI for repairing other S100 boards/systems, sometimes even as billable work! I have several other S100 boxes, but I find the IMSAI spends the most time on the workbench, almost always with the cover off. Of course, using the IMSAI means I'm usually using at least one old serial terminal -- had been the VT220 til the power switch broke.

Serial terminals are still relevant for my day work, I use them mostly as a fun/interesting/whatever alternative to minicom on my laptop. They're just as good at being 9600 bps consoles for embedded systems.

PDP-11 stuff has been more of a purely hobby project, though I've repaired/sold a few QBus boards. The PDP-11/73 is mostly being used for archiving old RX02 media (much faster with `dd` under 2.11BSD). Also for the fun/learning process of experimenting with early UNIX.

Old PC stuff is really two categories: playing old games (relatively infrequent nowadays) or doing actual billable work. There's an incredible amount of old PC-compatible systems still running industrial hardware and control systems. The work is sporadic and definitely not full-time for me, but it's there and worthwhile when it does come up. The work includes software and hardware, so it helps to have a handful of systems around for initial compatibility testing. I've avoided having so many "boring" beige box machines around by switching to a PICMG chassis and keeping a number of single-board computers on hand. I can run 386, 486, Pentium Classic - P4 in the same chassis now!

Even if there was never any billable work done on this old stuff, it's how I really learned and understood low-level computer design. That translates directly into embedded work, and even influences higher-level programming. Like digging into the source code for a library, understanding what's happening at a lower level helps me improve my higher level work.
 
I find enjoyment on repairing them, on a software and hardware level.

Then I mostly install games om them and play away.
 
Unfortunately, I generally only collect them. I like to occasionally open them up and admire them (I only collect laptops), and I like to know they work flawlessly just for the sake of knowing, but I almost never use them, except for one Windows 3.1 laptop I like to play the original Jezzball on - perfect hardware and everything and I love Jezzball.
 
Somewhere in the distant future I envision showing a 4th dimensional VR tuned youngin' where the first person was born after typing wolf3d into a command prompt. Until then it's just a periodic repair and cleaning operation.
 
I do nothing with my current pile of old computers. Absolutely nothing.

A few (or really most) I plan to fix up and sell. Like the Lisa. It's currently in many, many pieces. It has to be renewed.

Got a bunch of other IBM incompatibles. No sense in listing them (now).

I bought a Tandy 2000 on sort of clearance in 1987. Someone gave me the macro assembler, so I cast off attempting to learn assembly languagge. I threw it against the ever loving wall. Then I found a book on assembly language at the library (after buying at least 1 expensive tome which confused me even more), and it was what the doctor ordered. I played around with some programming, basic assembly language is very easy (if you have the right book/teacher). I had already repaired my 2000 twice, a little bit w/the help of a coworker the first time (smoked capacitor in the p/s. I had never read a schematic, or at least hadn't tried, and a guy named Ming pointed out which one the smoked one corresponded to on the schematic). The 2nd time I was playing chess and "Memory Parity Error" got displayed on the screen. I don't know if I was just lucky, but the chip I desoldered and replaced brought the machine back to life. One of the problems w/my Tandy 2000 was I was constantly taking it apart. It kind of lost it's structural integrity after a while (i.e turned into yogurt). I was bound to have problems. One time it was acting real slooooow, so someone told me to pull out the motherboard (a real pain w/that machine), pull all the socketed chips, leave them next to their sockets, and spray the whole thing down w/this cleaner from Radio Shack. I let it dry, reassembled and it sure was snappy. Then weeks later I started having the same problems. I tried the same solution, but I was probably a little sloppy that time, and, well I can't remember if it ever worked right again. Humidity was a serious issue in those days. Some people wouldn't even store their computers in non air conditioned environments. Ugh the old days.

Well needless to say buying a first computer was about learning stuff. My intent now is to offload a whole bunch of stuff and keep a few choice machines that I can enhance I guess. Learn what makes them incompatible. I also want to build an sbc or 2. Nothing like building your own computer. That's bound to be scary, but others of like knowledge and skill have done it, and I sure ain't going to be bested.

I fall into the tinkerer category. Anything is eligible for tinkering really, but generally it's something older (something you could live with if you blew it to kingdom come). Old puters are so oooooold though. You really can't do a lot in the way of productivity. The attempts and reviving/revamping the Atari ST stuff is very interesting though. There's only so far you can stretch a 50,000 year old OS. Just like chewy gum. Only stretches so far then snaps and fouls your attire.
 
Yep... just like old people. Useless. :rolleyes:

My ancient computers that are so pathetic that they can't run Windows, still do exactly the very same things they always did, in fact they do some new things too.

One could be very productive on an old computer when it was new. One can still.
 
I never said old people were useless, nor are old computers utterly useless. It just doesn't make sense to try and do too much on an old pc when I have half a dozen less then 5 year units lying around.
My first attempt and telecommunicating wasn't very successful. Someone gave me an accoustic modem that I connected to my Tandy 2000. I never heard that infernal buzzing sound you get when you connect to a bbs or the internet. Maybe those 2 items just weren't a match made in heaven. Needless to say I don't plan on web surfing w/a Tandy 2000 anytime soon.
You driving a model-T still kc9udx?
 
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