Yeah, I have been given 2 old computers from my dad's work. One was a P2 with no O/S and a dead PSU, and the other one a 400Mhz Celeron 'kept giving them problems'. I rebuilt the P2 and put a new HDD and PSU then sold it to my freind. It turned out that the Celeron that 'kept giving them problems' had been formatted to FAT16 and then had XP installed. XP on a 2gb FAT16 partition in a 400MHz Celeron with 128Mb of ram... jeez I wonder where the problem was? Put in a 15Gb HDD, bumped up the ram to 256Mb and freshly installed XP it is now the family computer, it probbably should run Win 98 instead but it seems to be coping with XP fine for now. I have also picked up a few old computers before mainly 486's and P1's but they are always in working condition and are fun to play oround with. Mattwizz3 : ) Sempron 2600+ OC 2.2GHz 1024Mb DDR400 2x80Gb 7200Rpm 8Mb nVIDIA FX5500 128Mb Damn Microsoft...

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I disagree Bryan. It took me about thirty seconds to read your post as apposed to the fifteen seconds it should have taken if the spelling was correct. What is fifteen seconds you may ask, but imagine you had to read a 30 page document full of technical information. Taking two hours to wade your way through spelling errors instead of one hour it would normally take is not a good way to spend your time. The same goes for punctuation and grammar. In a short paragraph it doesn't matter. But in a longer documents it matters a lot - a misplaced comma can change the whole meaning of a sentence. If you have any pretence in being a good communicator, correct spelling, grammar and punctuation does matter. Therefore, it is a good habit to get into. Stuart

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Hi Stuart, The Spell Checker link in post 5 above isn't working. I think you meant to link it to http://www.iespell.com/ Regards i_XpUser

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Hi XP, Yes, it was meant to be http://www.iespell.com Stuart

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At least it was fun to read Byran's post. I read an entire article based on how only the first and last letters need to be in the right place and all the spelling was completely wrong, it was pretty entertaining....... for people with nuthin to do that is, the article was found scrunched up in the bottom of a shopping trolly..... heh. Any ways, old computers you say!? (MMMMM Grammar) Mattwizz3 : ) Sempron 2600+ OC 2.2GHz 1024Mb DDR400 2x80Gb 7200Rpm 8Mb nVIDIA FX5500 128Mb Damn Microsoft...

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Look, Technology advancing and a lot of people want to go along with it. It might be good for some old folks who don't care about PCs, but you know what, students like us, have to have faster PCs. I do a lot of work on it and sometimes play. I just want my PC to meet my basic requirements, but still to be considered not lesser of a performance of my friends PC. I would not throw P3 away, but I will donate P2 to someone else, or to some old folks. Nowdays you can get a PC for 299$ from Dell, so why give 100$ for P2, where you could put 200 more for P4 that will be 5 times faster that your P2. Children do not care about what kind of PCs they have, but we do in here. So, you have my point of view too. Jam, again, do not respond to this message :). Killer Lider

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>> It might be good for some old folks who don't care about PCs << I think you might be referring to me when you mention old, but certainly not in respect of not caring. The two do not necessarily go together. >> Technology advancing and a lot of people want to go along with it. << Technology for technologies sake is an expensive hobby. >>students like us, have to have faster PCs.<< Why? Word processing, spreadsheet and data processing don't require a lot of computer power, the Internet even less. Games do! >> but still to be considered not lesser of a performance of my friends PC.<< Thats says it all. My PC is faster than yours, so there! Whats known as a wall pissing competition that teenagers often indulge in but soon grow out of. Stuart

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As you already mentioned I said about old folks, not because I don't care, but because they don't like to go along with developing technology. You are right, advancing with technology costs money, but it is worth if whatever you are with it right now, P2, is too old of a machine. It might be good for you though :). Nowdays, we usually care more about cars we drive, than PCs, but I mentioned about competition only in respect to some friends of mine, who actually believe that they need faster PCs. Word Processing and some other stuff doesn't require that much of speed, and I don't pc gaming at ALL. But I got my PC only for my brother, who is 14 and haven't yet grown out of gaming. Stuart what was that all about? "Thats says it all. My PC is faster than yours, so there! " LOL :), you don't sound like and old person. I don't really care if your PC or someone elses is better than mine, as long as I am better in something else, and I don't want to mention that :). Lider

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killer, do you have a problem with me commenting on your posts? LOL! Like Ryan said, the average Joe knows very little about computers...all he knows is he wants it to work. And when it doesn't, he's usually clueless about what to do...& repair shops charge big bucks! The main problem is they don't perform routine maintenance & when their system gets bogged down (usually with spyware/viruses, no defrag in 5 yrs, etc) they don't know any better & blame it on being "old"...& all their friends who as just a computer savy as they are say, "just throw it out, it's old & slow". After all, everyone knows a 3.0GHz CPU runs 6 times faster than a 500MHz, right? Then there's the mentality that your PC has to "be considered not lesser of a performance of my friends PC"...the old "keeping up with the Jones'" way of thinking. People tend to think in terms of CPU speed because that's what's pushed on them in the ads...but I think most who really ARE computer savy know it's the overall package that counts. Just look at the specs of these $300 Dell Dimensions that are being pumped out. 2.4GHz Celeron w/256MB "shared RAM" & Intel eXtreme graphics...what a joke. "Gee, it has a 2.4GHz CPU...it should fly! How come it doesn't seem any faster than my old 'slow' P3 w/512MB PC133 & 64MB MX440? I can't even play games with this friggin thing!" LOL! Oh well, it's idiots like that that keep people like us in our little basement PC businesses...& keep forums like this alive ;) ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

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The main problem is they don't perform routine maintenance & when their system gets bogged down (usually with spyware/viruses, no defrag in 5 yrs, etc) they don't know any better & blame it on being "old"... This is when some people "discover" CN :-) i_XpUser

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Jam, you are my buddy! You just like making negative comments about my posts :), therefore I don't want you responding to my posts LOL! But anyways, you make sense of what you say. I have P3 with 784 Ram on it and runs very good with 900MHZ processor on it. I don't complain. I don't like P2, but P3 meets all my needs. All right then, Sincerely, Killer Lider

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killer, I only make negative comments about your posts when they're...uh...less than helpful. Like your suggestion in another thread to get an A64 4400+, 2GB RAM & a Radeon X700? What a poor config! LOL! ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

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Killer >> you don't sound like and old person << Thanks for that Killer. I am probably one of the oldest people on these forums. Stuart

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Jam, It was supposed to be this card ATI X850XTPE, Who knows, maybe he wants to spend big bucks and build a system like that. :) Lider

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Have to agree with all the above post on this subject, it is nice for me the mentality that newer is better? As jam points out in post 15 the short comings of some peoples logic leaves quit a bit of discarded equipment just waiting for people in the know to get there hands on and get everything possible from them, I am not and never will be a gamer and have found of all my computers one that is 8 years old is my day to day favorite, it just keeps on ticking hasn’t crashed in almost 5 years now and does absolutely everything I need .......Bryco, nice display of grammatically correct Ebonics at work, where did you find the spell "chekkur" still looking for a link to one..... Keep the old stuff running

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I was just given an old PC yesterday...slot 1, Celeron 333/66, microATX, 440BX chipset w/160MB PC100. The person that gave it to me didn't know what was wrong. She said it just up & quit, & since "it isn't worth spending any money on", she spent even more money & bought a brand new one. That kinda thinking is good for the economy...lol What was the problem, you ask? Someone moved the switch on the back of the PSU from 115v to 230v... ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP1

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i have always been a pac rat about things, and computers are no differant. Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours.

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JAM, Nice find...."One Mans Trash Is Another Mans Treasure" Dumpster Diving my favorite pastime Keep the old stuff running

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i love dumpster diving, too. you can find some good crap. my best was a 733mhz Slot 1 system with 256mb RAM, all it needed was a new hard drive. i love dumpster diving. Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours.

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... maybe that should be your new sig?? Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 1/2 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949

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LOL Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours.

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I agree that spelling and punctuation is very important. I should have ended my joke with a smiley face. :) Bryan

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This thread makes for some fun reading! Stuart, I might be able to give you a run for the money on age, old tymer. My first PC-type computer was a 386, with I believe, 1 Mb of memory. I built it myself. I put in a really fast 14.4 Kb Modem and went online in 1988 or '89. It was the most fun you could have with your pants on. Before that I was playing with the Commodore systems. Since I was employed in the computer industry, doing repair and service work, it seemed only natural for me to own my own system. I have found many uses for older sytems, too, and find many people are still using them, even in their businesses. Speeding up the CPU doesn't help the overall 'speed' of the PC. I am part of the grid computing network with United Devices, and no matter what I am doing my system always has plenty of spare CPU time for them to use. (check it out at http://www.grid.org/projects/hpf/) The computer industry is in a slight slump, so they have to generate excitement for their products. Pretty much everyone who wants a computer has one, if they can afford one. So, NEWER, FASTER, BETTER is the keyword. Helping the deserving souls out there who do not have a computer but could use one is a laudible goal, and keeing these 'old' systems upgraded and running is the best way to do it. AS noted, they can handle just about any job, except newer games. After all, we all surfed the net, even back then, and wordprocessed, and data entered and spreadsheeted, and etc. We had it all. Maybe a little bit slower but not much. Memory was expensive then, and my first hard drive was only 1 Gb and it cost me $180! Much better stuff available now and cheaper, even for PII's. Even for 386's. My current system runs an AMD 2000+ CPU with a 60 Gb HD, so I have kept up pretty well for an OLD guy, I guess. I put in a DSL line last month and I must say woooohooo... DOS rules! (Or Linux, or Win 3.11, your choice) LOL Have a great day, everyone. Bob

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PC Bob >> My first PC-type computer was a 386 << The first computer I built myself was a 386. By then I had decided that my long serving Tandy 1000 with an 8088 CPU had come to the end of its useful life. I missed out on the 80286. Incidental the power supply the powered the 386 is still powering an AMD K6. Hows that for longevity. I agree that there is a lot of hype when comes to the fastest and the best. IBM/Intel/AMD ect have got to make their money somehow - there just not going to do it with me. Stuart

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you wanna talk about keeping old machines?? the oldest PC i still have is a: Tandy (???) 20mhz 386 4mb RAM 350mb WDC hard drive 14.4k ISA Modem Integrated video w/ 512k of memory it runs windows 95! i still have it in fully functioning order and sometimes use it to play solitare (once i even had it on dial-up AOL, version 4.0; LOL) Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours.

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IBM 5150 64K Motherboard

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My build 'em and give 'em away list is at 124 machines now...386's up thru PII's. About a dozen more waiting in the wings. The laptop I use for work is a P133/32Mb and is completely serviceable running 98SE/Office97Pro. Skip

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LOL......love this thread guys! I'm "gettin on in years" myself but I wouldn't wager any $ on being the oldest...heck, I'm only in my early 40's. I got into computers and computing later in life so my first was a 486 SX 33 with a whopping 4 MB's of RAM. The old girl is probably still running like a top if the people I gave it to are still using it. It worked perfectly for me for years and after I bought a PII, I turned it into a print server. A role it held for years. Sadly, I'm still behind the times. My fastest PC is a 2 GHz AMD Athalon (2600+) I bought two years back when my 700 MHz AMD's mobo melted down (I still have the CPU, never know when I'll run into a mobo it will work in!). One thing I've noticed about the "newer faster" hype is it only really appeals to: A) People who know little or nothing about computers. B) People who are into bragging rights (see A) C) The companies trying to sell their new equipment. D) Gamers (I like to play them myself) As I look over at my old PII which I have running linux (runs like a clock too I might add) I have to wonder why one would want to throw away a perfectly good PC. Like so many others here (I'm happy to see I'm not alone) I believe in getting the max out of everything I own. When I get too much stuff clogging up my office and basement and bedroom and...... (LOL) I give some away to people who have nothing or sell it cheap to people who can afford the paltry fee I charge. In some cases I donate to schools. All in all, I get years of computing out of any system I buy and can't imagine dropping what I have now for what's hot 'this week'. When I finally run into a game I can't play on this system, I might break down and buy a better one...

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I try to MAX the specs of every computer i have, then hang on to it till im out of room, and give 'em to charities, and family and friends. I had no idea my thread on Old Computers!!! would cause this much discussion. COOL. anyway, yeah, the laptop i use in High school is a Compaq LTE 5400, 150mhz, 80mb RAM, and like his, completely useable for basic apps, and i also have some fun MS-DOS games on it. Epic Pinball, Terminal Velocity, Heretic, and more. Windows 98 SE and Office 97 Pro, too. Perfectly useable for basic apps. I even have it linked to my wireless 802.11g home ethernet and through that, DSL internet. Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours.

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I seem to be surrounded by juveniles here! Who else remembers 8" floppies? CP/M (and M/PM)? The first machine I worked on was an IBM 8086, which arrived a bit at a time to keep it under the office capital budget of £5000. The memory was individual chips that had to be inserted into the MOBO - which meant bending the pins to fit.64M in 4m chips, if I remember rightly. Computing does not have to be for the young. I got my father-in-law interested at the age of 85, and last year I bought him an old Dell off ebay, with a completely blank hard drive. With a modest amount of telephone help, he partitioned, formatted, installed Win 98 and applications, set up internet etc. He's now looking for a manual for DOS (not easy to find nowadays) so he can get into batch files etc. Actually, I think I should point him at this site......

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oldfogey "Zilog Rulz" after all anybody from our era knows that when Micro$oft was out counting cars for a living they had only C/PM to work with right? As for an 8" floppy I think at that time it was my fourth or fifth computer I owned was one that I had scratch built from what had once been an 8" vertical drive case, 80286 with 2 intel above board memory cards MAXED out to 5 MEG, first upgrade I made to it was a 1x speed cd drive, man I had them lined up out the door waiting to see it, as it turned out of all the guys in our computer users group I had the only TOWER in the bunch, ran a multi-line BBS on it for almost 5 years!!!! By chance did you ever get around FIDO? As to the dos book you are looking for, last time I helped someone to find one it was at a used book store, might want to give that a shot if E-Bay comes up empty handed………. ATH0 for now p.s. I ended up trading it for my second Z-80 Keep the old stuff running

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In the era before IBM legitimatized the microprocessor, the cpu market was up for grabs, the 6502, 6800, 8080, it was a hobbiest market. By the time of the Z-80 and CP/M the computers were starting to be offered into the commercial market. The driving application was the spreadsheet, Visicalc for the Apple and Lotus 123 followed for the IBM PC. Later came the word processor and the database. oldfogey: Those weren't 64M chips. The first IBM was designed for 16KB-64KB on the motherboard. The first computer I worked on had 1Kb chips - 4KB total memory. Later 64Kb chips were piggybacked to make 128Kb (used in early AT's).

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Spelling checkers, hhhhhhhm. I did once see a spelling checkers lament which was extremely funny, the words were all spelt correctly but were actually the wrong words. Spelling checkers do have problems with, for example: Which witch is which? and the article was based on words that are spelt differently but sound similar I have had a look but i can`t find my copy or I would have posted it to give everyone a laugh Woof Curiosity may have killed the cat but at least the cat wasn`t bored

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Woohoo I found it at last: I have a spell in checker, It came with my PC. It plainly marks four my revue Mist takes I can not sea. I ran this poem threw it, I'm shore your please to no Its letter perfect inn it's weigh, My checker tolled me sew. Have a good laugh :) Woogf Curiosity may have killed the cat but at least the cat wasn`t bored

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LOL. i think i might have heard that before but it is still funny Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours.

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Sometimes when people say they "can't spell", they mean it: they maybe dyslexic. Between 5 and 15% of the population suffer from varying degrees of dyslexia. The most common form is inhibited reading and writing ability. Having said that, the original poster may or may not be dyslexic, I am just defending them if they are. In addition, dyslexic spelling is often written phonetically. Modern spellcheckers rarely cater for this type of mispelling.

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Interesting stuff you guys have said. I helped my friend clean out her garage and we found a laptop - a CTX EZBOOK 700E. It booted up fine, has WIN 97 on it, and has a CD drive. But, when popping in a CD - an error message comes up that says the drive is not ready. Being an "old" gal, myself, I have no idea what that means or what to do about it. CTX no longer makes notebooks so their website is no help at all. I can't seem to find a manual either. I do agree with all of you - that it will be just fine for my needs if I knew what to do with it. Another friend just gave me his old HP DVD drive. How do I know if it will work in this thing? He said it is a universal drive and should work in just about any laptop. I checked with a couple of repair shops and it will cost quite a few bucks just to have them look at it. That's why it's easier for us "dummies" to just go buy another, better, newer PC!!! So, all you hotshots out there - tell me what to do with this old computer! Teach this old dog a new trick or two. Or at least point me in the right direction. p.s. as a former teacher it is my duty to reinforce the importance of good spelling, grammar and punctuation. I cannot believe some of the memos and emails that I get from the so-called educated, management types. It does take a while to read and understand them sometimes.

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Ill just bring up another little pearl from a foregone era that i still sometimes find kicking around (someone already mentioned it furthur up) and that's the venerable BBS!!!! If you've never BBS'ed you haven't lived. No fancy hi-res graphics and such just perfectly (?) crafted ANSI and ASCII art =D Ahhh those were the days I believe my first modem was a 2400 bps, and watching an ANSI screen load was so slow i could probably build the same picture out of lego in the same time =D but i loved it, a single BBS had more soul then the entire internet put together. The only salvation is sites such as this where we have a COMMUNITY of people not just a loose association of people ** wipes a tear from his eye ** I believe that was on my first 286 when i was 6-7 years old, with i believe a 10 MHZ CPU and 2 MB ram, which cost close to $4500 from harvey norman (AUS) back then AMD Athlon64 3500+ 1024MB 512x2 Dual Channel Corsair TwinX Coolermaster Wavemaster 120GB Seagate SATA HDD Gecube X800XT Platinum Logitch 5.1 Surround LG 16x Dual Layer DVD Countle

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My main computer is a Pentium one running at 200 Mhz. I have 128 meg of sdram, a 15 gig Hard drive, a SVGA monitor, video card with 2 meg ram, and the windows 98 OS. I just hooked it up to SBC Yahoo DSL. THe DSL Install CD refused to install because they require a minimum of a 266 Mhz Pentium II. That was a bummer. I had two choices (1) look for a faster CPU (my mobo will take up to a 366 Mhz AMD K6-2) or (2) figure out how to install the DSL without the CD. So I tried both choices. I went on Ebay and found a K6-2/400 for $1 and submitted a bid of $6.50 for it. I went on google and started to find sites and info about SBC Yahoo DSL. Two days and nights later (I didn't sleep all night) I found a site for instructions on how to install the DSL: http://www.dslreports.com/faq/8346 Of course I had to be able to get the network card installed & running, install TCP/IP, and hook up the DSL modem and phone lines. I tried to follow the instructions but my browser (IE 5.5 SP2) locked up after I typed in the address 192.168.0.1 and got logged on the modem. So I called SBC Yahoo support and a tech walked me thru the rest of it. So now my 200 Mhz Pentium is on DSL! I won the auction on Ebay so I also have an AMD K6-2/400 microprocessor on the way. It will be difficult to install. My motherboard has jumpers for all the settings which are now in Bios for most newer motherboards.

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That is one of the biggest problem of installation. The software on the CD's require more power to install than is needed by the application. The secret is to not use the CD if possible. Manual installation of DSL modems or routers are possible using a capable browser only. You can run an internet connection using a 25Mz 486 or less. Sometimes you may need a better computer just to do the setup. You just got to read the manuals and sometimes call tech support for the settings.

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