Just my main desktop. All of my other machines are out of commission for one reason or another.

This is my server and it is the oldest computer that use every day. It is where I host my bigger files and the backup of my main desktop. It isn't really that old and it is still very capable of common desktop tasks like 1080p video and word processing. I love this system. I've used the motherboard and case as my main desktop for nearly 8 years.

I'll throw an extra 3TB drive in there soon so I can mirror the main storage drive.

How funny, I'm using an ASUS P5B as well. What Linux distro are you running on it?

I can't help but laugh at Core2 era machines being considered old. The oldest ones are about 8 years old
but computer performance increases has slowed way down.

Dual Pentium III-S Tualatin 1.4 GHz running at 1.5 GHz. It is my everyday, and my only everyday, computer. Has 3 GB of RAM, which I suppose is on the small side by today's standards. It does everything *I* need it to do and see no desire to upgrade until it no longer does everything I need it to.

3GB of ram isn't bad, I consider 2GB to be an absolute minimum if you're running Windows, 1GB if you're on a lightweight Linux distro. I'm more amazed that you're getting by with dual 1.4GHz Tualatins. They may have been impressive CPUs for their time, but I imagine they must really struggle with the modern web. 😜

smeezekitty wrote:

I can't help but laugh at Core2 era machines being considered old. The oldest ones are about 8 years old
but computer performance increases has slowed way down.

I'm amazed how many people have and love Core2duos. I never owned one but i'm considering building a machine around one. I actually have a core2duo laptop that was given to me last year and doesn't work. I think i really should take a look at it soon.

King_Corduroy wrote:

However my daily driver is a Core 2 Duo 3Ghz E8400 with 8GB ram that is capable of running modern games and doing everything a modern computer is expected to.
I've done it up to look like a much older computer.

I love the concept 😁

feipoa wrote:

Dual Pentium III-S Tualatin 1.4 GHz running at 1.5 GHz. It is my everyday, and my only everyday, computer. Has 3 GB of RAM, which I suppose is on the small side by today's standards. It does everything *I* need it to do and see no desire to upgrade until it no longer does everything I need it to.

Tell me that you have a ati 4670 AGP to go with it!
I actually tried to manage not long ago with a Athlon XP 2600+ oced and a nvidia 7800GS, 3GB of ram and even some websites rendering looked painful but i guess that if you can handle with that it can still be useful. Problem is that a single core x86 can get 100% often most of the time than not.

My oldest computer I use is a 14" notebook with Celeron 1.7 GHz processor bought maybe 2 years ago? But I pimped it out with 8 GB of memory and a SSD 😀

I watch TV shows and Movies and surf the Internet in bed.

The C2D is old, but I don't think they're slow. They're too slow for some games these days, but more than good enough for compiling the linux kernel and common desktop tasks. Compiling big stuff like firefox is no fun tho. It takes about two hours to compile firefox with my E7600, but only 20 minutes with my i5-4690.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

What Linux distro are you running on it?

I like simple things, so I use CRUX.

Dual Pentium III-S Tualatin 1.4 GHz running at 1.5 GHz. It is my everyday, and my only everyday, computer. Has 3 GB of RAM, which I suppose is on the small side by today's standards. It does everything *I* need it to do and see no desire to upgrade until it no longer does everything I need it to.

Wow awesome! Respect.

I only have 3 GB of RAM too. There is 4 GB installed but with 32 bit address space limitation and the PCI-E aperture, it is only 3 GB usable

I deplete it very often

smeezekitty wrote:

I can't help but laugh at Core2 era machines being considered old. The oldest ones are about 8 years old
but computer performance increases has slowed way down.

Yeah. For me a Core2Duo is still pretty good and modern. It's amazing how much computers evolved up to the mid-2000's and now everything is coming to a standstill. It would have been unthinkable to use a 1994 PC in 2002 for anything other than playing old DOS games. I still remember my 486DX2-66 being completely obsolete by 1997, let alone five years after that.

As for the original question: mid-2011 Mac Mini with some upgrades.

🤣 You say that but I used a few mid 90's computers until 2008 when I finally upgraded.

One of them was a Packard Bell like I have now and the other two were P-II Compaqs of some sort or another. Both trash picked.

Well, I'm sure you weren't using them to play the latest games or run the latest version of Windows, 3DS Max, AutoCAD, any modern web browser, etc 😜

I also used a P200MMX/64MB system for simple audio recording back in 2008 😁 It was fitted with a SCSI Ultra2 HDD and it rarely stuttered during recoding, but converting the raw wav to mp3 or ogg was quite slow.

I used to use a P2 laptop with XP in 2004-2005 as a main machine.

devius wrote:

Well, I'm sure you weren't using them to play the latest games or run the latest version of Windows, 3DS Max, AutoCAD, any modern web browser, etc 😜

I also used a P200MMX/64MB system for simple audio recording back in 2008 😁 It was fitted with a SCSI Ultra2 HDD and it rarely stuttered during recoding, but converting the raw wav to mp3 or ogg was quite slow.

No I used it for older games and schoolwork. It was pretty normal when I was in gradeschool to bring your work to school on 3.5" Floppy diskettes but not so much when I was in Highschool especially around 2008 when I was a senior. 🤣

I did use the school library computers to download old DOS games curtesy of Abandonia and thats really how I got into collecting old games and computers. Too bad I didn't get into collecting old computers soon enough to save my original Packard Bell. 🙁

My oldest computer still in use 24 hours a day 7 days a week is a 1.3ghz Pentium M with 512MB ram and a 20GB hd. Its a laptop acting as my router running Pfsense. I needed 2 network interfaces, so the built in network interface is connected to my modem, and a $3 pcmcia nic from ebay is connected to my switch.

My oldest desktop machine that I use quite often still is a Core2Duo E6400 with 3GB DDR2 and a Radeon X800 running Windows XP and a 5:4 monitor. Super fast and burns through old games nicely. I don't game on it every day but its also hooked up to an old printer that prints out postage labels for Ebay.

Fun fact, George RR Martine still uses a DOS machine to write his mult-million dollar A Song Of Ice and Fire series. It's not really about the strength of the computer (unless you're a graphics designer/video editor), it's about how you use it. 😎

smeezekitty wrote:

I can't help but laugh at Core2 era machines being considered old. The oldest ones are about 8 years old
but computer performance increases has slowed way down.

Well if we're objective, new processors are way way faster than Core2's, the problem is most software doesn't really need to utilize the speed advantages. Basically the thing that's going to kill Core2's is flagship software that runs on new instructions the Core2 doesn't support, or software that is very heavily threaded.

I love my Core2Duo, so much so that I figured if I loved my Core2Duo that much, what would happen if I slapped 2 Core2Duo's together!? Enter my Core2Quad Q6600. 😎

Also Core2's run with chipsets that can support 8GB and sometimes 16GB of ram, so there's not really a ram shortage with the platform like there is with older processors for modern things. A Core2 with 8GB of ram and an SSD would be awesome and perfectly adequate for most people.

Hi to all,
- for experimenting when there is time: Cx5x86 on PVI-486SP3, win95b, testing register changes on CPU at the moment
- for experiments: T2P4S with i233MMX and some old SCSI HDDs, win98SE
- for my all-time favourite game with loads of mods, M:TW/VI: ABIT BH6 with PIII-850 on slotket and ASUS CUBX with PIII-900@1000, both 98SE (yes, I play so many mods not to get installations confused I use two PCs 😉 )
- for daily work/internet something I don´t even really know what´s in, with XP SP3 still installed - post-BX is of no interest for me to know...

call me a HX/BX fanboy 😉 duncan

Oldest machine that I use daily and interactively is a Compaq Deskpro EN with Tualatin 1.4GHz/512K CPU, 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive. Intel 815 chipset and it's integrated graphics. It runs Win2k and is used to print postage labels, because it's more convenient than printing from my modern desktop which is in another room.

Oldest machine that runs daily, but only in the background, is a Dell GX150 with a low end Coppermine Celeron chip, I can't remember the exact speed. Either 256 or 512MB RAM, and a 12GB laptop hard drive. This isn't used as a desktop though, it's just running a VoIP thing.

I'm currently using a dual 1GHz coppermine box as a server at work since I couldn't be arsed to set up one of our P4s. It has 1.5 GB of ram and a hard drive larger than the BIOS can support. To be honest, that machine is actually quite fast, even when browsing the web.

If I hadn't upgraded last year, I'd still be using an IBM Thinkcentre with a Pentium 4 630 (I hated that thing), but in retrospect having a crap computer does teach patience better than nearly anything else.