OT'ish: What is the oldest component you still have in regular use in asystem?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gordon Holland
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G

Gordon Holland

Hi,

I was just musing about the life of components, wondering how long the 3
HDD's in my main system had to go the oldest being 3 years old.

Bearing in mind the issue of solid state circuits tending to be obsolete
before they are defunct, and also the matter of reliability with silicon
rather than moving parts. Here is the question:

What components, particularly storage devices, do you have that are in
almost in constant use and have been for the longest time ?

What is the longest use you have ever had from say, and HDD or a cdrom
drive/floppy drive.

Just out of interest, and with relevance to PC h/w.

I find stuff has lower reliability that it used to have in some
respects, particularly HDD's and floppy drives/optical drives. ( I have
had 3 optical drives develop defects, and 2 FDD's in the last few
years).
 
Gordon Holland said:
Hi,

I was just musing about the life of components, wondering how long the 3
HDD's in my main system had to go the oldest being 3 years old.
Click to expand...

My FDD is eight years old, a veteran of many different system configuations, and is still going strong
(it's a TEAC, of course - the Cadillac of FDD's).

Jon
 
Gordon Holland said:
Hi,

I was just musing about the life of components, wondering how long the 3
HDD's in my main system had to go the oldest being 3 years old.

Bearing in mind the issue of solid state circuits tending to be obsolete
before they are defunct, and also the matter of reliability with silicon
rather than moving parts. Here is the question:

What components, particularly storage devices, do you have that are in
almost in constant use and have been for the longest time ?

What is the longest use you have ever had from say, and HDD or a cdrom
drive/floppy drive.

Just out of interest, and with relevance to PC h/w.

I find stuff has lower reliability that it used to have in some
respects, particularly HDD's and floppy drives/optical drives. ( I have
had 3 optical drives develop defects, and 2 FDD's in the last few
years).
Click to expand...

I have a 7 year old Compaq with Quantum BigFoot and Toshiba DVD-ROM drives
that are still chugging along. It sees regular, but not hard use.
 
On Mon, 2 Aug 2004 09:07:01 -0700, "Jon Danniken"

| "Gordon Holland" wrote:
| > Hi,
| >
| > I was just musing about the life of components, wondering how long the 3
| > HDD's in my main system had to go the oldest being 3 years old.

In my experience, HDDs tend to need replacing because they're too
small and/or slow much more often than they need replacing because
they either break or wear out.

| My FDD is eight years old, a veteran of many different system configuations, and is still going strong
| (it's a TEAC, of course - the Cadillac of FDD's).

I'm not sure any FDD bought new now is as good as a TEAC — and several
other brands — from eight years ago.

My oldest computer part (not in my main system) is a Matrox video card
about seven years old. Also, my main printer is an HP 5L laser that I
bought in November 1995.

Larc



§§§ - Change planet to earth to reply by email - §§§
 
I have a Hauppauge WinTV-Nicam PCI card I bought at a computer fair in 1993.
It was installed in a 486 box then. Now it's in my main full tower water
cooled P4C "Beast" machine. Just as well, as my Sony 28" widescreen died,
and my 19" CRT monitor is much better than a 14" portable TV.

Stu.
 
My computer is still using the 486-66MHz case I bought in 94. I
replaced the motherboard with a Tyan S1571 which has gone through two
processors first a K6 then K6-2+. I still use the TurtleBeach Tropez
Classic sound card. My Zoom Modem was originally 28.8MHz and then
updated with a new prom allowed it to go 32MHz. My monitor is still
the original Acer 56L, though I did have to open it up and resolder
some joints and remove the power switch that broke. The 5 1/4 floppy
still works. I'm still running Win95A. It's a classic and I'll miss it
but I just can't figure out how to upgrade it anymore.

Paul
 
Hi,

I was just musing about the life of components, wondering how long the 3
HDD's in my main system had to go the oldest being 3 years old.

Bearing in mind the issue of solid state circuits tending to be obsolete
before they are defunct, and also the matter of reliability with silicon
rather than moving parts. Here is the question:

What components, particularly storage devices, do you have that are in
almost in constant use and have been for the longest time ?
Click to expand...

My keyboard and PC case. The keyboard is an OmniKey/Ultra and I love
it. The keyboard case is metal and it has functions keys on the side
and on the top. My case is a large tower--lots of room.
What is the longest use you have ever had from say, and HDD or a cdrom
drive/floppy drive.
Click to expand...

About 9 years, there is a 2 gb hard drive still chugging away. It is
in my Linux box and it's a SCSI Seagate. I had a NEC monitor that bit
the dust after 12 years of daily use.
 
My oldest computer part (not in my main system) is a Matrox video card
about seven years old. Also, my main printer is an HP 5L laser that I
bought in November 1995.
Click to expand...

My primary printer is still my trusty HP DeskJet 500
made in Feb 1993. The ink tank never dries out through
lack of use (it can be a month or two between prints).
My primary complaint is that it will no longer properly
feed 24# paper, and will sometimes fail to grab onto 20#
paper.

I don't keep track of floppy drives, I do have a handful
laying around. The ones not in cases don't have dates.
 
ISA v90 modem - 4.1 gig WD SCSI drive, an 8086 machine complete with
vid CGA, HD/floppy controller 2 x51/4 drives CPU 12mhz @ a whoppin
16mhz. A complete TANDY 1000. All working and the TANDY still connects
to some old die hard BBS'rs, Umpteen boxes of ISA cards....
 
What is the longest use you have ever had from say, and HDD or a cdrom
drive/floppy drive.
Click to expand...

I have a near 8 year old Gateway machine with the original 13 GB HDD that
has seen daily use for the entire time I've had it. It went from a very
stressed gaming computer, for the first 6 years, and for the past two it has
been running 24/7 as a media player. I occasionally reboot it because it
crashes (the original win 98 install has only been upgraded with SE, but
never freshly installed). The hard drive is loud and slow but it is still
chugging along with close to, I estimate 48,000 hours on it.
 
Hi,

I was just musing about the life of components, wondering how long the 3
HDD's in my main system had to go the oldest being 3 years old.

Bearing in mind the issue of solid state circuits tending to be obsolete
before they are defunct, and also the matter of reliability with silicon
rather than moving parts. Here is the question:

What components, particularly storage devices, do you have that are in
almost in constant use and have been for the longest time ?

What is the longest use you have ever had from say, and HDD or a cdrom
drive/floppy drive.

Just out of interest, and with relevance to PC h/w.

I find stuff has lower reliability that it used to have in some
respects, particularly HDD's and floppy drives/optical drives. ( I have
had 3 optical drives develop defects, and 2 FDD's in the last few
years).
Click to expand...

I have some 120 MB hard drives in use on a system which is devoted for
Abandonware games. Those Western Digital drives are pretty friggin
immortal.

Also I have a computer in my lab with a 5.25" floppy drive.
That machine has a Pentium 75MHz CPU.

I have another motherboard lying around for testing purposes which is
a Pentium 200 MHz with the Intel "Tuscon" motherboard. Friggin thing
is also immortal. It has been through 5 different Operating Systems,
about 200 reformats, and I don't remember how many bootups, but I
would wager in the many, many thousands.

Oh, and just for nostalgia sake, I keep a few relics around.
Just to name a few:

386 motherboard with ESA slots.
A SEALED package of MS-DOS 6 - diskettes and manual.
8-Bit Creative Labs Sound Blaster from like 1995
Syquest E-Z Flyer drive
HP Thinkjet with case and dust cover

....and a bit more old stuff.


---Atreju---
 
Hi,

I was just musing about the life of components, wondering how long the 3
HDD's in my main system had to go the oldest being 3 years old.

Bearing in mind the issue of solid state circuits tending to be obsolete
before they are defunct, and also the matter of reliability with silicon
rather than moving parts. Here is the question:

What components, particularly storage devices, do you have that are in
almost in constant use and have been for the longest time ?

What is the longest use you have ever had from say, and HDD or a cdrom
drive/floppy drive.

Just out of interest, and with relevance to PC h/w.

I find stuff has lower reliability that it used to have in some
respects, particularly HDD's and floppy drives/optical drives. ( I have
had 3 optical drives develop defects, and 2 FDD's in the last few
years).
Click to expand...

Oh, and I just threw out an old Sony CD-ROM drive with a CD Caddy! It
won't run on an IDE channel - proprietary controller! Gawd, that thing
really sucks. 2x man, 2x!


---Atreju---
 
Hi,

I was just musing about the life of components, wondering how long the 3
HDD's in my main system had to go the oldest being 3 years old.

Bearing in mind the issue of solid state circuits tending to be obsolete
before they are defunct, and also the matter of reliability with silicon
rather than moving parts. Here is the question:

What components, particularly storage devices, do you have that are in
almost in constant use and have been for the longest time ?

What is the longest use you have ever had from say, and HDD or a cdrom
drive/floppy drive.

Just out of interest, and with relevance to PC h/w.

I find stuff has lower reliability that it used to have in some
respects, particularly HDD's and floppy drives/optical drives. ( I have
had 3 optical drives develop defects, and 2 FDD's in the last few
years).
Click to expand...

You have to understand, my first computer was in 1982


---Atreju---
 
On Mon, 02 Aug 2004 19:35:17 GMT, PaulCsouls

SNIP
My monitor is still
the original Acer 56L, though I did have to open it up and resolder
some joints and remove the power switch that broke.
Click to expand...

You're telling me that they weren't ALL programmed to self-destruct,
only the 150 I had installed about 4 years ago?


---Atreju---
 
Hi,

I was just musing about the life of components, wondering how long the 3
HDD's in my main system had to go the oldest being 3 years old.

Bearing in mind the issue of solid state circuits tending to be obsolete
before they are defunct, and also the matter of reliability with silicon
rather than moving parts. Here is the question:

What components, particularly storage devices, do you have that are in
almost in constant use and have been for the longest time ?

What is the longest use you have ever had from say, and HDD or a cdrom
drive/floppy drive.

Just out of interest, and with relevance to PC h/w.

I find stuff has lower reliability that it used to have in some
respects, particularly HDD's and floppy drives/optical drives. ( I have
had 3 optical drives develop defects, and 2 FDD's in the last few
years).
Click to expand...

This really takes me back...

I wish I still had my Dad's old Timex Sinclair 1000 computer. Had to
hook it up to a TV. Made a little program on that which I offloaded to
audio casette before I powered down. And I also wish I still had our
Apple 2e.

*sigh*


---Atreju---
 
I still have a 286 operating with a MFM HD, 5 1/4" FD, and green
monochrome IBM monitor (with Hercules adapter.) DOS 5.0.
 
Toshi1873 said:
My primary printer is still my trusty HP DeskJet 500
made in Feb 1993. The ink tank never dries out through
lack of use (it can be a month or two between prints).
My primary complaint is that it will no longer properly
feed 24# paper, and will sometimes fail to grab onto 20#
paper.
Click to expand...

What you need to do to fix the paper feeding problem it rejuvenate the
rubber rollers in your printer that grab the paper. I have no idea wha the
stuff is called, but that is all you have to do to fix it.
 
Did you have "Sniper" on tape for that Timex? Mom didn't want me playing
that one, "too violent" she said. Ha!

--Dan
 
Odd thing is I was talking to a good friend just last weekend on this
subject. I have a system that was put together in 1991. Here are the
specs to the best of my knowledge:

1. 386 - I "believe" it's 33mhz.... but I'm not 100% sure.
2. 400mb hard drive. "Original" hard drive was 40mb.
3. Operating System: DOS No GUI...Does not even have Windows 3.1
on it.
4. 5 1/4" Floppy Drive ( It still works )
5. 3 1/2" Floppy Drive ( I added this drive in 1993 )
6. 16mb of ram. I upgraded it from 4mb. (try running any version of
Windows on 4mb of ram today!

No CD rom. No modem.

Video Card: Unknown.

This system runs Lotus 123 and QuckBooks v 1.0 (DOS versions of
course)

The BIOS date is 1991. I do NOT use this system on a daily basis.
Probably 3 or 4 times a week. This system does EXACTLY what I want
it to do and no other upgrades are planned.

If anyone reading this has any suggestions on how to transfer (clone)
the hard drive I would appreciate it. Back in 1991 I paid someone to
transfer the data from a 40mb drive to the 400mb drive and it was
rather expensive as I recall.



====================================================================
 
My keyboard and PC case. The keyboard is an OmniKey/Ultra and I love
it. The keyboard case is metal and it has functions keys on the side
and on the top.
Click to expand...

Allright. I've got the OmniKey/PLUS keyboard.

Plastic but still kicking. Heavy too. All the keys work, nothing's
worn off. They don't make 'em like this anymore.
 
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