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What do you use your old PC for?

JNZ

Experienced Member
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
167
Location
Utah
Gaming? Computing? Just setting up the hardware and having it sit there to be cool? What generation computer is your cutoff for being more than a neat piece of history to tinker with? I'm curious and often ask myself what I want out of old computers I set up. Mostly it's to enjoy the process of researching and setting them up, then having them look cool as they run.

486s actually seem quite useful to me for real computer. I recently set up something close, a 133 MHz Pentium, put a network card in it and a CompactFlash hard drive, and ran Windows 3.11. I was surprised that I was able to do normal computing tasks, like light web browsing, a very usable remote terminal, and lots of gaming.
 
I presume you mean AT clones. In that case, I use them for things that can't reasonably be done on older, non-AT clone machines. When they stop being able to do these things, I "recycle" them. I never own them long enough for them to become valuable. Even my genuine 5150s and 5160s found their way into the trash. Nobody would take them if I paid them to.
 
My old PC? I guess I live in a different world. There's no such thing here. I've never bought a "new PC" so there is no "old PC".

Either it's vintage/collectable, or it's parts. When the CPU gets old(ish) I buy a new CPU. When the MB gets old(ish) then I get a new MB. Same for all other parts. I've got a few extra parts boxes for making other computers, but I've used the same ones for my daily drivers for years.
 
Currently most of mine are sat on the floor unused and have been for a while now, The interest i once had is disappearing as i get older.
 
I hardly think you can do light web browsing in Windows 3.1. The old browsers just don't cut it. There is just too
much going on with modern web pages.
 
Oh I forgot.. I have one to bootstrap a 6800 based minicomputer. The bootstrap loader (tape emulator) runs in MSDOS and doesn't play well with Windows. I'd use something else with a PC-on-a-card but it's a harsh environment and the AT clone is expendable.
 
I mostly use mine to read and write 5.25" DSDD disks, and to serve up disk images to my Atari 800XL and Commodore 128D.
 
My old PC? I guess I live in a different world. There's no such thing here. I've never bought a "new PC" so there is no "old PC".

Either it's vintage/collectable, or it's parts. When the CPU gets old(ish) I buy a new CPU. When the MB gets old(ish) then I get a new MB. Same for all other parts. I've got a few extra parts boxes for making other computers, but I've used the same ones for my daily drivers for years.


What do you currently use, and what sorts of tasks can it handle?
 
I hardly think you can do light web browsing in Windows 3.1. The old browsers just don't cut it. There is just too
much going on with modern web pages.

It's not usable for many websites, but I was fully able to do Google searches to solve problems while on the box. I actually disable Javascript for much of the web anyway on my normal machine, and it's not terribly different from that. Except when something doesn't work, you're out of luck.
 
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On topic, I like to repair/build then set them up with how someone might've used them when new, then go do something else.
Occasionally I'll use them for gaming, but in all honesty being spoiled with modern stuff, there isn't a huge number of games that I enjoy for more than 20 minutes.

I recently built up a 486DX4/100 running Windows 3.1 however which is kind of neat - I put Netscape Navigator Gold 3.0, and as you mentioned disabling JavaScript is critical there, and am able to stumble around. Also installed a handheld scanner + card, the original software, and Adobe Photoshop 4.0 - have been doing a bit of scanning. SB16 for audio, 1MB video card for 800x600 256 colours, just kind of fun living the 1994 experience.

But other than reliving that experience, I have no real use for it.
 
I mostly just goof around with old hardware for fun. I do find some 'practical' use for old machines:

486 : Gaming. DOSBox runs everything this thing does 100% well, I sometimes question why I keep this one around. I did recently find a bunch of old floppies at my parents' house, and used the 486 to read them and FTP to a modern machine.

k6-2 (yeah, not old enough of a machine for most of you) : Gaming in Win98. Also runs old Ubuntu, and I sometimes VPN and ssh into work with it, if my modern pc is in use for something else. There isn't quite a good enough emulator for this yet; PCem is starting to get very close. This one is probably my most nostalgic machine, in that it is built in the case of the 286 I used as a kid.
 
I use my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus for MS-DOS and some windows gaming (Windows 95C and DOS 6.22) from the IBM PC Speaker to General MIDI/EXtended General MIDI. Has an Intel i486 DX4-100 OverDrive, 36MB RAM, a 2GB CF Card, 52x CD-ROM drive, Sound Blaster 16 CT2740 + DB50XG, dual floppy drive, Conner tape drive, 2400 baud modem, 3Com EtherLink III network card (will install a boot ROM with the XT-IDE BIOS for higher HDD support), keropi's Music Quest MPU-401 clone card (MT-32), Lo-Tech Tandy 3-voice Compatible Sound Card (for games that support it), Gravis Analog Pro joystick, IBM Model M keyboard, Precision Instruments 3-button mouse, iLive 2.1 Channel speakers, and a flat panel monitor (will use a CRT).
 
I use my 286 to operate my Central Point Transcopy card for reading in copy protected disks. Also usually use it for writing 360k disks as my other system here has a 1.2mb drive.
 
What do you currently use, and what sorts of tasks can it handle?

Nothing fancy and getting quite out of date, CPU was released 2011 - that's 7 years ago now. I generally buy when things have been out for a couple of years, so this one is less than 5 years old to me. Anyway, the specific computer is:

Intel Core I5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandy Bridge, 6MB Intel Smart Cache, 95Watt TDP) 4 cores, 4 threads
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATA
RAM: 16GB DDR3
Video card: Radeon HD 6450 2GB (fanless).
All that is in a box with a decent PSU and some other amenities.

This is not a remarkably capable machine, but for desktop use it's pretty good. I can compile most programs in a few minutes, though I don't do that very much these days since FreeBSD got their package system up to snuff. I can certainly have 500 tabs in my Firefox browser and normally have some other browsers running at the same time. I don't run VMs very often but it seems like running a couple of images such as Tails (Linux) and Windows10, doesn't slow things down. If I was to really use the Win10 image for real work things might be different, but I don't. I do take the view that if a computer slows down with more work on it, then it should be upgraded (if one can afford to do so). I don't have a lot of patience for slow or buggy stuff. The computer works for me and not the other way around.

Now when it comes to my vintage mentality, that's another story. I love a two floppy system. That just rocks!
 
I've got clients to support on old PC hardware, so some of it is kept around for that. I use my IBM 5160 PC/XT mostly for programming XT-IDE EEPROMs and testing XT-IDEs, nowadays -- so it seems anyway :p I've got an industrial PICMG chassis for disk imaging/utility box (it talks to the ISA-based EPROM programmer I use), it currently has a P3 single-board computer card in it but I've got a whole range of CPU boards.

Amy's got an IBM PS/ValuePoint 486 set up for DOS games.
 
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