I love trying to use ancient hardware. currently I am trying to use a 17 year old dell inspiron 7500 laptop.
It has 128 Mb of RAM, and a 500 MHz pentium 3 CPU. it does not have internal wireless or a phone or eathernet port, but it does have 2 external pci card slots that can be fitted with either a wireless network card or a wired network card, or even a card that allows connection with a phone line. it also has a removable CD/floppy drive. This can be removed while the laptop is turned on and replaced with a second battery. That means the device can accommodate 2 batteries at once, allowing for hot-swapping of batteries. (in other words, you can pull one battery out and replace it with a fresh one while the laptop is unplugged without turning it off first. Honestly I think this is a feature that should still be around in laptops today.)
I have been able to connect to the internet at home, but was unable to do so at my university. A bit of investigation into this revealed that my university wireless network will only use the 802.11g or 802.11n protocol, and the wireless card I am using with the ancient laptop is using 802.11b
Is it possible to update the wireless protocol used by a network card? (for example, I was able to get the driver needed for the card by downloading it with another computer and putting the driver on a flash drive, then transferring it to the old laptop, could I do the same thing with a wireless protocol, or is that something that is built into the hardware and cant be updated?)
>>tl;dr: Can a network card using 802.11b protocol be updated to use the 802.11g or 802.11n protocol?
What is the oldest hardware used by /g/? what do you use it for?
general ancient hardware discussion thread.
pic related: its the oldest usable computer I own.
'01 Thinkpad 600X, basically the same specs as your machine
'00 Compaq Presario 5000 Athlon -- The first consumer 1GHz PC. Needs a new PSU, the one in there is a nonstandard unit out of a Sony Vaio and the floppy power connector can't actually reach the drive.
>>54052351
No. You need a newer pci card.
Nintendo 64. For Doom 64.
>>54052517
ok, thanks.
>>54052351
>Is it possible to update the wireless protocol used by a network card?
I doubt it. I was able to get WPA support on an old card like that by upgrading the firmware, but b vs g is a bit different.
These old Inspirons/Latitudes are great for this kind of thing. I spent a lot of time with the Latitude CPt and the Inspiron 8000.
>>54052351
No, but you can source g cards pretty cheaply, snag one and slap it in.
Recently taken to daily driving a 600E of a similar age to your box with NT4, great keyboard and design and still gets around 2-3 hours out of a charge. I really like it.
Oldest box I've used for anything recently is probably a 25 year old Quadra 700 mostly for playing solitaire, managing my server via serial console/SSH and working on projects in Mathematica, will probably be playing around with a 33 year old PC XT pretty soon too.
>>54052351
just buy a usb wifi adapter
the oldest i ever used? i dunno commodore 64 prolly. i flipped some switches on an altair once.
>>54052351
I Have an old DELL Poweredge 1600 Server
Single Xeon 2.8
2GB DDR ECC
2x 146GB SCSI Drives in RAID
FX5200 PCI
Just for nostalgia
>>54052351
I'm amazed at how little laptop design has really changed over nearly 2 decades
>>54052351
>17 years
Ffffffffffffff
If it has pcmcia it should be able to use a wifi g card and even USB 2.0
The RAM can most likely be upgraded to at least 256MB.
I still have an R30, has more ram than hard drive space.
That would be really impressive by today's standard sizes. Imagine having a 500gb HDD and 512 gb of ram
>>54052351
This is also my hobby. I've got a running Inspiron 3200 I used to hack into the BIOS of a thinkpad recently. Using old hardware with the appropriate software makes you realize that outside of games and video, there's really no reason for newer hardware to exist. We all bought into the meme, but remember, your brand new computer doesn't type documents any better than your old one.
>>54053028
Multitasking is a little lame on older gear though
But maybe that's a good thing.
>>54052351
You can hotswap the battery in the T450s
I have been trying to use a Dell Latitude D820. It has a 1.66 GHz processor. I put lubuntu on it since WinXP was making the cpu run at 100%, and this happens on lubuntu too. It can't handle gzip. I'm thinking about upgrading to a dual core 2.4 GHz processor.
I like this thread. I have been using an OLPC XO-1 for the shit of it lately. Additionally, I have been getting a Libretto 70ct into shape, I could use that thing every day if I could manage to rebuild that battery pack.
It's the little cutie on the right.
Nice thread OP.
Here's what I got:
'99-'00 Compaq Armada 110 - a nice Pentium 3 laptop that runs 98SE. 256MB,800MHz CPU (or 850? don't remember right now)
'03-'06 Acer Travelmate 804 - a slim and good machine,running XP SP3 (previously Longhorn Pro Build 4039). 2GB (yes,2x 1GB Kingston sticks that came with it...o.O) PC2700 SODIMM,20GB HDD,1.7GHz Centrino CPU (disabled PAE by BIOS,can be enabled only on Linux).
Pic related,it's the Acer mentioned above. Easy to carry,and the battery still holds a bit of charge (not too much,about 15-20 minutes at best)
![s-l1600[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/MJVPV28.jpg "s-l1600[1].jpg")
Not super old, but I kind of want one of these to put Linux on it and see what I can make it do. I wish they weren't still so expensive.
>>54053749
>1.7GHz Centrino CPU
Centrino is not a CPU, retard. It's a brand (series) of Intel products for mobile, i.e., processor, Wi-Fi, etc.
>>54052351
dell inspiron 8600 (1.5GHz, 512M, running debian) and some fujitsu-siemens lifebook (1GHz, 256M, running openbsd)
I'm a cheapskate that hoarde what others have no use for anymore
they're good for when I need an extra screen for something
>>54052351
Literally been using one of these old Dells all week. Been using it to copy G code onto fanuc controllers at work.
>>54053767
ssh? server/system management? i'm not sure what "make it do" means, but that's the most use most people get out of small devices like >>54056908
>>54052351
my mini "wireless" ssh palmtop. 8MHz 80186 means the router is doing most of the work, but I have gotten htget, ftp, irc, telnet, doslynx, etc to run native
as for getting really old computers on wifi, i suggest using a mini travel router like in pic that can run openwrt and work as a client, feeding the bitz to anything you plug in. wr703n is the best known one
My current setup. Just recently swapped the hard drive with an SSD.
>>54057057
There's no excuse for that awful XP default theme.
>>54053550
>since WinXP was making the cpu run at 100%
>on a Core 2 fucking Duo
I don't get it. What the fuck are people doing with this hardware that makes it fuck up this badly?
>>54057019
think I've blogged about this idea before, but it would be pretty neat if someone fit your setup into a PCMCIA card that you could access through an SSH client or serial terminal emulator
with an X server or a built-in webrender proxy you might even be able to use an old box for graphical web surfing
>>54057019
Is it text only? can it even show the thumbnails?
>>54058194
text only, holmes. gotta export those sweet visuals to lxpic
Started using a t42 as my daily laptop, runs XP sp3 like butter. Put in 2gb ram, a brand new unopened 7200rpm PATA Hitachi Travelstar, and should have a 2.0ghz Pentium M coming in to replace the stock 1.7ghz cpu with. Shit's pretty comfy.
I have an old Thinkpad A20m from early 2000 I like to tinker with from time to time.
>Dell Dimension XPS B800
No pics, sorry
>Pentium 3 @ 800 MHZ
>512 MB RAMBUS
>GeForce 256
>30 GB Seagate Barracuda
>>54057338
probably it was still trying to install the last 8 years worth of updates. Windows Update behaves very badly when there are thousands of updates to do.
>>54059642
my nigga
I still use a T42 at work for Citrix. Wanted one brand new soooooo bad in College.
>>54052351
>17 year old laptop
>less bezel than any current macbook
applel btfo
BTFO
T
F
O
Ancient to today's standards but I still use a Graphire 4 from 2005 as a backup. Decided to just give away everything here when I can find a place to sent it to.
>>54052351
I have a 99ish G4 tower. Still browses the interwebs and shitposts on 4chans just fine.
>>54060207
Yee. They're a god-tier laptop. I still want to find a t42p or t43p, but they're hard to find and expensive as fuck now. Literally the only thing this laptop won't do that I wish it did is play 1080p video. It stutters badly, and I wish I could figure out why.
>>54053749
Holy Shit! I had a Travelmate 800. What a machine!! Great battery life. Unfortunately the GPU died on mine.
>>54060297
my melanin-enriched person
t. loaded 500 MHz G4
>>54052351
>1999 was 17 years ago
Holy shit, how fast we are
>>54060810
Power supply shit the bed in the G3 blue and white that lives next to it or Id probably still be using it. Free mac is free. Honestly surprised they truck along as well as they have.
My beloved Gateway that I love to shitpost about. Thanks for the thread, OP. Everything works perfectly except for the expectedly dead battery. Can never remember if this thing was built in 98 or 96. I swear the tags said 96.
>>54053622
>manage to rebuild that battery pack
Care to inform an ignorant anon on how this is done?
>>54052351
>a card that allows connection with a phone line
God damn that makes me feel old.
>>54060236
that xplay picture brought back a lot of memories
>>54053767
They aren't that expensive if you keep an eye on craigslist and eay. I just bought a ux180p on craigslist for $75 and like six months ago I got a ux280p for $100. I flipped the ux280p for like $400 on ebay though.
>>54061878
Not him, but I am in the process of doing so with my ux180p. YOu just have to crack the battery pack open (usually glued along the seams so you can use a sharp knife for this) and replace the bad 18650s with new ones. A new battery for my pc is like $50 for an oem one but new, higher capacity cells are only like $4 a piece (and my battery only takes two cells).
>>54061878
>>54062558
here's a pic.
Nearly all laptop batteries are designed like this since 18650 cells are plentiful. Some batteries use different cells though and those will be harder to source.
X200 8GB of RAM, 1TB HDD with Libreboot and Debian SID installed, shit's pretty comfy, not too old though, about 2008
>>54053767
>>54056951
they are actually quite capable little machines
>>54062819
Fuck Yea Morrowind
>>54062842
i have other things as well :^)
I wish I had space to keep more of my old hardware. The oldest thing I have currently is this netbook, which I bought in Japan in early 2008.
That is, unless /p/ stuff counts, in which case I might actually have the oldest tech of anybody on /g/. I have a German folding 4x5 camera that's at least pre-WWI and may be as old as the 1890s.
Man this thread is making me realize that my current tech is legacy...
>>54062558
>>54062615
You're a pretty cool anon. Decided to do some research of my own as well. Wish me luck cracking this bad boy open tomorrow.
>>54063919
>6500099
Wow good luck. That thing is old as fuck but it definitely uses 18650s. Just be careful opening it since if you fuck up the case too bad, you'll probably have a hard time getting a replacement.
Watch some youtube tutorials, m8.
>>54052351
Using old tech just to say you use old tech:
Hipster detected!
>>54064427
is win7 actually usable with that ram
>>54064494
Mostly, when it's not bogged down for five hours looking for updates.
The 1.0 rating is because Windows Media Player doesn't have enough RAM to play HD video, but MPC worked fine.
>>54064427
:^)
>>54064408
Stop having fun everyone, this anon says we're doing it wrong.
>>54064523
win7 is not usable even with 2-4gb ram if its looking for updates/installing them, its ridiculously slow
i recommend to make an image with all the updates if you regularly install windows to machines. in mydigitallife forums there was some kind of program to integrate most of the updates to win7 image
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/45005-Simplix-Pack-to-update-Live-Win7-System-Integrate-hotfixes-into-Win7-distribution
myself i just used microsoft deployment toolkit and let it install programs i install to every machine, install all updates and then sysprep it and capture the image
>>54064566
Luckily by no means do I depend on this machine. Actually, I think I tossed it last year.
>>54064589
i still recommend to make an image with updates if regularly installing windows to machines. i dont know how microsoft has managed to make searching and installing updates for fresh windows installs so slow even on modern machines
>>54052351
17 year old (I believe) Dell Dimension I still play Age of Empires II or Unreal Tournament on if I'm feeling nostalgic.
>>54064678
Running Windows 98, forgot to mention
>>54052351
IBM 5170 running MS-DOS 5
I found c64 and some arima laptop
>>54064991
Try to open 4chan with it
>>54066292
>c64
play this on it: Club Revision
http://csdb.dk/release/?id=146878
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg3mZ5_0Ucg
Compaq Presario 1260... AMD K6-2 at 333mhz.
Little shit can't boot Windows NT so my only option is Linux.
>>54052351
no.
I got a cheap little PowerBook G4 (1.5ghz model) which I've been trying to use for a while as a normal laptop. Pretty slow though, even with an SSD.
>>54064011
Well that was a bear to get sliced open. Smells funny too, like it soaked up some rum or something.
>>54069303
neat, now you just need;
- a soldering iron
- some replacement cellotape
- a set of 12 18650 cells (once verifying they are 18650's)
to ensure they are, either look for a label with that number on it, or measure them, 18650 is a size (18mm diameter, 65.0mm length)
>>54069199
>club revision
better recording from Revison Oldskool compo 2016
https://youtu.be/unZBlGO88Gg?t=42m49s
>>54057267
yeah. Better install Zune
Why did I think 17yrs ago was 1980s ?
17yrs ago was 1999
>>54069539
Because you're bad at counting?
![IMG_0219[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/2lEli5s.jpg "IMG_0219[1].jpg")
I'm literally using a CRT with an I5 powered Windows 7 machine.
>>54064991
>tfw I put my XT in storage
MDA a shit
>>54069251
How much ram does your have?
If you can upgrade to at least 1 GB ram it will make a huge difference when browsing html5 websites.
I picked up the latest Powerbook G4 model with 1.67 GHz cpu and 1680x1050 display for zero money. Only the DC jack was busted and easily repaired. Put 2 GB ram in it and replaced the 80 GB hdd for a 250 GB sata ssd with a sata-ide converter.
Runs osx leopard almost as fast as osx tiger when you remove all the Intel crap from every binary.
>>54070000
>nice quads
Beautiful machine!
Oldest device I have 600x. Linux kinda works on it
>>54052351
I have a laptop from 1996 that I tried to get to work. It had a 120MHz pentium and 48MB RAM. It didn't have ethernet, coaxial or USB, just serial/parallel ports. It came with NT 4 but I installed windows 98 on it. It did have a CD/Floppy drive port. I found an ethernet PC card (It did have a version 1 slot) and managed to browse the interwebs on it. The most striking features besides being quite slow was that the screen was absolutely horrible.
>>54070508
surprisingly the battery lasts a couple of hours. I use it daily when I go out
>>54069330
No numbers found, but the dimensions match. Twelve friggin cells, though. That'll be some money. Worth a try, even if I get cheap ones.
Pic related shows what may have been a problem back when it was operational.
>>54070000
Is that some kind of S100 machine on the right?
>>54071540
yea, nice 18650's aren't terribly cheap, but the battery will be as if it was brand new (or better, if you get higher-mah cells)
pic looks like water/humidity damage
be sure to note down how the cells are connected up before tearing them away, so you can wire up the new ones the same way
>>54071685
>>54071540
also, if you really care to restore and use the machine, don't cheap out on the cells, get some nice samsung/panasonic ones
>>54071685
>>54071713
Documentation is going as I disassemble, no worries there. Finding that Amazon doesn't have too bad of prices, actually. For a $5 laptop that I've already dumped ~$50 into, I think another 50-60 is reasonable to have this beast portable. Hope other anons are taking your inspiration, too.
>>54071588
quad-603e RS/6000 with a dead power supply I need to pry open and fix
>>54071823
well sure, probably the biggest downside to older laptops is that the batteries are worn out, so the machine isn't portable anymore, and new batteries are either impossible to find, or really expensive, and even those might not be perfect anymore
this way you get really brand new cells, potentially higher in capacity than the originals
i also do the same to cordless tool batteries, swap out dead 18650's in them for new, higher capacity ones, and still costs less than official ones
>>54071903
pic related, 18650's are pretty common
>>54071949
Gorgeous. I'll be shopping around and by the time another one of these threads rolls around, maybe I'll be posting from this >>54061791 monster. Once I can get a browser to behave on it.
>>54070000
VGA Wonder fampai
>>54072032
best of luck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZXIbQV6Pi4
Sometimes older hardware is still ok for more modern things. A Pentium D is still fine for office tasks and web browsing.
>>54052351
I'm using an old hp that's as thick as that. I use it for working. It's something like 13 years old.
Still have my 486 DX4 100 runningg windows 3.1
>>54060236
oh hey i use that grey mouse for gaming
>>54052351
16 year old Dell satellite. Horrible laptop age completely aside. but I wanted challenge. Linux failed completely to be run so I gave it a upgrade with hacked windows xp taped up the battery and a wireless adapter. Now functional but too busy with other projects to start with old ass programs.
>>54064427
I recommend Lubuntu/Xubuntu, some lightweight foss browser for shitposting too. What do you use it for?
libreboot Thinkpad X200. Wonderful machine for browsing and doom, but something like Morrowind bogs it down hard.
>>54072550
Sounds like a nice experience, what distro? are you rms tier "free"?
>>54072040
got a VIP around here somewhere I'm thinking of sticking in it, or if I can source an HGC cheap enough I'd use one of those instead
as much as I kind of want to stay date-matched, but I don't think these drives are original spec anyway
I still use what's left of an IBM ps/2 (no working hard drive but boots floppies but no original keyboard/screen but use others) to play dos wheel of fortune.
>>54072778
can it run linux?
>>54072661
Currently on Trisquel now. I like how simple it is.
>>54072809
This is really interesting, run any non free stuff? You should make a thread
also email RMS and make his day
>>54072803
I dunno, maybe one off a floppy? But that really wouldn't be much . It has like 1 meg of ram in it. It's a model 50z.
>>54072840
I've been SSHing my gui-less server for a pretty long time and I realized aside from images and video you can do most basic stuff in CLI you'd want with a combination of the coreutils, lynx, and wget. that is if you want a fun project.
>>54072836
I run wine and am currently trying to get the GOG version of Morrowind to run faster on OpenMW, and opensource Morrowind engine, but I'm not a coder and compiling from source for me is a challenge.
Been meaning to study more of C and learn more about how ssh and getting onto my PC from home. I'm not that tech savvy. I'll send rms an email sometime. He deserves it.
>>54072894
I don't have any networking things in it
I don't have a picture of it, but I use a ThinkPad x60 tablet for my daily driver. It works well for notes in class and shitposting.
>>54072803
Any 386+ PS/2 can, but why would you? It would be slow, have no software, and basically useless.
Even XENIX would be a better idea.
>>54072778
>>54072840
that would be a pretty nice box for exploring DOS/early Windows software if you could source one of those annoying ESDI disks for it or a SCSI controller + disk (and some more RAM)
could also play with OS/2 1.x like I do on my model 70 (the flagship 386 counterpart to the 50) but there's not a whole ton in the way of native software, you'd spend most of your time running Windows anyway
>>54052351
It's pretty
>>54075516
>if you could source one of those annoying ESDI disks for it or a SCSI controller + disk (
What have you got against ST506?
>>54076912
ST-506 drives used MFM, not ESDI
and many early PS/2s used that already rare standard implemented with proprietary DBA connectors
guess I've seen some WD-387s at somewhat affordable prices recently though
