Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's just my environment.

Does anyone have any "old" machines in their office? An "old" 486 in a corner? An "old" 386 in the computer room, that "nobody ever touches" ??? Maybe someone has actually seen a 286 doing something!

While all of the "developers" at my company have the "latest and greatest" in hardware and software, we still have a few "old" machines that do simple things, like transfer data between our mainframe and LAN, or act as a dial-up server, or, believe it on not, connect our T1 line to our LAN! And they all do a fine job.

Many of our clients also seem to have those "boxes" that just sit there. Old "boxes" that just seem to do the job.

Forget about Y2K, and what may be involved in making these machines "compliant." I'm interested in how much "old" hardware is still out in the field, just doing the job.

Do you have an "old" computer in your office? What does it do?

Tick... Tock... <:00=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), September 15, 1999

Answers

PS

And I guess this isn't just about the PC, but anything "digital." Does anyone still have a 360/30 "mainframe"? <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), September 15, 1999.

360 mainframe? I doubt it!

Cory was trying to find some live 3330 DASD a year or so ago and he couldn't find any!

-- Ron Davis (rdavis@ozemail.coma.au), September 15, 1999.

Quite a few,

They stuck a pc-board into an ISA slot and declared the units Y2k compliant.

We will see how it works :-)

-- justme (justme@justme.net), September 15, 1999.

Nope, we have all new PC's for the Y2000 problem... Our oldest systems now are Pentium II, 300's...running Windows NT 4.0...

Of course the big iron running the factory is still a Vax 7000... But we were told it is compliant, so no worries, right?

worrying a tennis ball...

The Dog

-- Dog (Desert Dog@-sand.com), September 15, 1999.

I work for a mid size city goverment those "old" 486's are everywhere and are in use. Over the years people have added more memory and even new hard drives but have kept the original machines. Everyone that is but the top dogs, who do get the new stuff, but don't know how to use it.

Don't worry though,I keep hearing that our goverment is y2k ok....

-- Mabel Dodge (cynical@me.net), September 15, 1999.

Well, ah, ahem, my home computer is a 486 (uh-ho). Don't want to get into the new fangled ones too fast (hehe). Mine is toast I know. Now for the even better news, our local hospital is overrun with the oldies, they tinker with them a bit and slap an OK Y2K sticker on it. Does not make me feel comfortable about medically related developments locally.

-- Sammie Davis (sammie0nospam@hotmail.com), September 15, 1999.

I work in a college and tutor computers. We have a 486 that we only use for a typing skills program. But if necessary, Windows 3.1 on it works perfectly and we have an old version of MS Works on it. We also have an old 386 that connects a laser disc player to a TV for an interactive algebra program. We just sent a 386 up to technology for students to dig into for practice in repairing PCs, but it was working fine . . . just didn't need it anymore.

-- winna (??@??.com), September 15, 1999.

Sysman,

Yeah, I got an old 486/66 hanging aroung that I use on the in-home network as a shared disk drive (don't have to enable sharing on individual PCs this way). Believe it or not, it's running Windows NT 4.0. It doesn't run anything else, but it does run NT.

Btw, I just got a new PIII 600 mhz. I still had a copy of the ORIGINAL Norton SysInfo hanging around so I figured I'd see how fast SI thinks it is. SI reports that it is 2,375.3 times faster than an IBM XT. Sick ain't it??

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), September 15, 1999.

Sysman,

a lot of these 'old' computers run linux or BSD which will work just fine on a 386 or above. Linux is great for things like sendmail and routing, as it's generally very stable (uptimes of a year or more are pretty common); and you're right, a lot of these boxes just sit there, looking like they're not doing much.

Linux and BSD generally don't suffer too much from Y2K problems - like most unices they rely on a count of seconds since 1980; and also the O/S's and the vast majority of the apps are open source. That means tens or hundreds of thousands of pairs of eyes have already had a chance to spot any potential problems, if they exist, and patch them already. The only failures generally with these old machines would be bios failures in the RTC's, i.e the clock year being reset to 1980.

Hope that helps.

-- a programmer (a@programmer.com), September 15, 1999.

We have a bunch of computers around here. On one shelf is an old Radio Shack Model I (complete with tape recorder for data/programs) that the Hubby just can't part with. An old Atari that we used to keep books with on VisaCalc is still around. I use a 286 daily to keep the books for my Avon business. It works great, has MSWorks for word processing, spread sheet and data file. I use the spread sheet for my bookeeping and the data file for customer files and invantory. Runs on Windows 3.0. Only problem with it is it won't get on the net. My hubby has a Pentium he bought 2 years ago. We will be buying a new computer soon so the girls and I can get on the net from the kitchen and for homeschool programs. Then the 286 goes.

-- Homeschooling Grandma (mlaymon@glenn-co.k12.ca.us), September 16, 1999.

Sysman,

For working 360's check with the FAA. I think they still use some. And for 286 & 386 machines, check with some electric utilities, I think they still use a bunch of them, even in the control centers.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), September 16, 1999.

Yes, we too have some old 486's (Win 3.1) running in our offices, primarily for clerical applications. These PCs aren't networked; they're all stand alones. All of our networked computers are Pentiums. But speaking of oldies but goodies, I have an original IBM PC Jr. in my attic!

-- (Too Shy@tosay.com), September 16, 1999.

Yes, Sysman,

One of my clients has a 486 for a fax server and 5 or 6 386's as network print servers; they boot from floppy disks, no HD. And, like TECH32, I have a home network with a 486/66 running (with System Commander) NT 4.0 Server, Novell 4.1 and WFW 3.11, along with 2 printers, a 386 file server, a couple more 486's and my PII. Dates? I'm not worried about no steenking dates!

-- Elbow Grease (LBO Grise@aol.com), September 16, 1999.