I use my Mac G5 towers every day, even to the point of doing scientific work running Octave & a lot of image editing / processing on them. Also fine for general browsing / forum posting / Youtubing / etc. I have one at home and one in my office. I don't really consider 2GHz+ dual-CPU machines with 4 & 7.5 GB of RAM to be particularly obsolete though, even if they are over 10 years old.

brassicGamer wrote:

I used a 486DX4-100 for far too long because it was the only machine I had with an ISA slot to accommodate my GUS classic for using Impulse Tracker. I never learned to use Modplug or Fruity Loops or even a MIDI sequencer. Even acquired a copy of Reason with the intention of moving over to that but never used it. I think I stopped writing music in 2003.

My main audio production workstation, which I purpose-built in 2013, is a P233MMX industrial-PC running Impulse Tracker. I use it as a sampler & MIDI sequencer to control hardware synths. (I should do a post on it sometime...) Its AWE64 & GUS PnP output straight into the mixer along with the rest of my gear. For multi-track recording I use ... one of the G5 towers.

Something to be said for building a machine that does the job you want perfectly and then just leaving it. Sometimes I think 90% of "upgrades" people do are completely pointless.

When I did my undergrad in the early 2000s I had a Thinkpad 365ED which packed a 5x86/100, 24MB RAM & 524MB HDD. I carted it all over and did a ton of schoolwork on it. It ran Win95 and an early version of Matlab (5.3???) and even had wifi via a PCMCIA card, although wireless networks weren't very common yet. Web-browsing was totally doable on whatever release of Opera was around then - I think 4 or 5. I had a better desktop at the time but nothing beats portability for an overworked student! (I still have it & use it occasionally BTW. It's no less capable now than it was back then.)

brassicGamer wrote:

for using Impulse Tracker. I never learned to use Modplug or Fruity Loops or even a MIDI sequencer. Even acquired a copy of Reason with the intention of moving over to that but never used it. I think I stopped writing music in 2003.

xjas wrote:

...is a P233MMX industrial-PC running Impulse Tracker. I use it as a sampler & MIDI sequencer to control hardware synths. (I should do a post on it sometime...) Its AWE64 & GUS PnP output straight into the mixer along with the rest of my gear.

Trackers have utterly destroyed us 😢 How much did it take you, if ever, to adapt to arranger-style DAWs for sequencing (i.e., not multitrack recording/editing)?

psychz wrote:

brassicGamer wrote:

for using Impulse Tracker. I never learned to use Modplug or Fruity Loops or even a MIDI sequencer. Even acquired a copy of Reason with the intention of moving over to that but never used it. I think I stopped writing music in 2003.

xjas wrote:

...is a P233MMX industrial-PC running Impulse Tracker. I use it as a sampler & MIDI sequencer to control hardware synths. (I should do a post on it sometime...) Its AWE64 & GUS PnP output straight into the mixer along with the rest of my gear.

Trackers have utterly destroyed us 😢 How much did it take you, if ever, to adapt to arranger-style DAWs for sequencing (i.e., not multitrack recording/editing)?

That would be never. I'm not classically trained. Well I am but not in the classical sense (sucked at theory) so I've never taken to a keyboard. I'm all about programing and nothing else has given me the same simplicity and versatility of IT. I started on Scream Tracker 3 so IT was a huge leap - I don't know of anything other than Modplug that could be called a next logical step.

Same here, no classical training either, however took me a long time to wrap my head around a piano roll and the "forward" sequencing approach (took up Cubase, then Logic; using FX plugins in conjunction with samples and hardware gets you much more control over the sound, esp. in psytrance where you need crazy soundmangling). A modern-day tracker is Renoise, with plugin support etc., but it just isn't the same 😢 It's supposed to be an up-to-date fork of arguru's noisetrekker or something.

I almost never use a new PC. For the most part I use older P3 stuff. It's not just the hardware, but the software that make a pc usable for everyday use. if you use something like DLS or TCL you can make a P2 system an dally system. if you don't use flash... A P3 system with 256 or 512mb of ram and a good fast hdd can make a grate day to day system if you use the right software.

psychz wrote:

Trackers have utterly destroyed us 😢 How much did it take you, if ever, to adapt to arranger-style DAWs for sequencing (i.e., not multitrack recording/editing)?

My issue with modern DAWs is trying to compose while swishing windows around a GUI with a mouse. There's never enough screen real estate, there are constant clunky interface elements that pop up and need to be clicked away, and fighting with that instantly saps my creative energy. Working with IT in a single-tasking OS feels like more like using a true hardware sequencer like an Akai MPC, but with a real nice full-screen video output. 😀 IT's MIDI timing is ROCK solid. If you've never used it you have NO idea how good it can be. Hanging a flimsy MIDI dongle off a USB port under a bloated, laggy multitasking OS is incomparable.

Also keyboard >>> mouse for input. I have ten fingers. A keyboard has 80~120 buttons. A mouse has three. An Apple touchpad has one. Madness.

I get along with a piano roll okay (my first musical experiments with a real sequencer when I was a kid were with Adlib Visual Composer), but again, I don't like clicking notes in with a mouse. Yeah you can usually use a MIDI keyboard for input but tracker style is what I'm used to so I'm faster on it. That means a lot.

I do use Renoise, Reaper, SunVox, etc. (and Schism, Milky, Protrekkr, and everything else I can get my hands on...) on modern systems and do okay as long as there aren't 50 browser tabs open in the background to yank my attention away. Full-screen mode helps a lot. I was really into Jeskola Buzz for a while but it's windows only and I don't run that anymore.

I would give an arm for a good DOS-based sample editor that supports 16-bit WAV files, SMDI, and has full EQ capabilities. Just saying.

saturn wrote:

... A P3 system with 256 or 512mb of ram and a good fast hdd can make a grate day to day system if you use the right software.

Such as?

tayyare wrote:

saturn wrote:

... A P3 system with 256 or 512mb of ram and a good fast hdd can make a grate day to day system if you use the right software.

Such as?

I have a Duron 950 + 256MB PC133 and that thing feels fast enough as long as I use noscript and do not allow many scripts through using Firefox 2.0. Word 2000 runs great on it as well. So I guess it is still a fine computer for typing assignments and light web browsing (well, except YouTube) . A K6-2 with a simillar software setup isn't nearly as comfortable with the internet.

On my P3 500 Debian with Firefox worked pretty well. On my P3 866 Windows 7 actually runs very well, but browsers suck without popping in a full gig.

xjas wrote:

My issue with modern DAWs is trying to compose while swishing windows around a GUI with a mouse. There's never enough screen real estate, there are constant clunky interface elements that pop up and need to be clicked away, and fighting with that instantly saps my creative energy. Working with IT in a single-tasking OS feels like more like using a true hardware sequencer like an Akai MPC, but with a real nice full-screen video output. 😀 IT's MIDI timing is ROCK solid. If you've never used it you have NO idea how good it can be. Hanging a flimsy MIDI dongle off a USB port under a bloated, laggy multitasking OS is incomparable.

USB MIDI devices just suck, my MOTU MIDI Express performs worse than an Amiga serial MIDI interface with Bars'n'Pipes, but as for the screen real estate and the hands-on experience I beg to differ. Using a dual-monitor setup (just two 22" widescreens running at 1920x1080), I can see the arranger on the left and the mixer/plugin windows on the right, plus a Roland SH-201 used as a master keyboard with a ton of assignable knobs, plus a Behringer BCF2000 with motorized faders-pan knobs-mute/solo buttons-full transport control, and for the most common tasks, well, keyboard shortcuts! You get the idea 🤣 Granted, it took some time to get used to it (and cash for MANY controllers), but it all eventually clicked into place and has really improved my workflow. If you take into account modern DAWs such as Studio One which have tools like Melodyne integrated and can render MIDI clips even from hardware synths with just one click, and with features like "Event FX" (fx plugin assigned on a per-clip basis), the amount of control on the output is, well, not even comparable to a MIDI sequence streamed to some daisy-chained synths connected to a mixer with 2/3 sends, regardless of how tight the clocks are...

As for browsers and other stuff disturbing the flow of the creative juices, just set up a DAW-only PC somewhere with no internet access and all your hardware nearby - problem instantly solved 🤣

tayyare wrote:

saturn wrote:

... A P3 system with 256 or 512mb of ram and a good fast hdd can make a grate day to day system if you use the right software.

Such as?

Any Linux disto biuld for old system and their peinstaled apps. Dsl used to be good but it was abanded. I heard tcl is good and there's always puppy Linux.

Now as for the other apps. It's a toss up. You have so many thing to pick from... But with open soures solfware you can compile apps for you hardware. Anyway here a quick list of apps I used on older p3 systems.

Web: dillo, elinks, lynx. Or Firefox with noscipt, abp, flash block and so on. compiled for your system.
Gui: window maker, openbox, bisybox, Jwm.
Media: xmms, audacious, mplayer, vlc. It's best to compile any video player and all needed codeics for your system.
Office/text: AbiWord. Vim, vi, emacs.
Photo edit: gimp compiled for your system.

In 2008/9 or so, my main machine was a crap, mostly defective Acer Pentium M laptop I literally got out of a skip one time, considering it only had 256mbs of memory and a failing 20gb HDD, it served me well and it's basically the first machine I personally owned. Currently, my main desktop system is probably worse spec than some of the systems I've seen talked about in this thread spec wise, I'm rocking a Pentium 4 HT 3Ghz, 3gbs of DDR1 memory, 80+160gb WD Drives, a Radeon 9250 and a 500w EVGA PSU all in a quite nice AVP Storm P27 case. I really like this system, and I've been using it as my daily driver for over a month now, the only bottleneck is my sub-par GPU, which will be upgraded soon thanks to my BF sending me his old HD4650 (iir, I'm not awake rn and can't remember specifics) I'll be building a much more modern system in the future, but I'm incredibly surprised how powerful this machine is, and how well it's serving me considering some of you would probably consider this "vintage", and it's specs comparing to a mid-high rig from around 2004 or so.

xjas wrote:

I use my Mac G5 towers every day, even to the point of doing scientific work running Octave & a lot of image editing / processing on them.

A friend of mine uses a G5 Mac Pro as an iTunes server. Which is madness when you think about it - he obviously doesn't care much about his electricity bill. I'm wondering how long it will take me to use up the money I saved by not investing in a dual-bay NAS by building a Core2Duo server for free instead.

xjas wrote:

My main audio production workstation, which I purpose-built in 2013, is a P233MMX industrial-PC running Impulse Tracker. I use it as a sampler & MIDI sequencer to control hardware synths. (I should do a post on it sometime...) Its AWE64 & GUS PnP output straight into the mixer along with the rest of my gear. For multi-track recording I use ... one of the G5 towers.

Something to be said for building a machine that does the job you want perfectly and then just leaving it. Sometimes I think 90% of "upgrades" people do are completely pointless.

Right, that's it - I'm building a P233 MMX for my GUS Classic! MY music-making abilities have been neglected for far too long. Thanks for the unintentional kick up the arse!

saturn wrote:

Any Linux disto biuld for old system and their peinstaled apps. Dsl used to be good but it was abanded. I heard tcl is good and […]
Show full quote

tayyare wrote:

saturn wrote:

... A P3 system with 256 or 512mb of ram and a good fast hdd can make a grate day to day system if you use the right software.

Such as?

Any Linux disto biuld for old system and their peinstaled apps. Dsl used to be good but it was abanded. I heard tcl is good and there's always puppy Linux.

Now as for the other apps. It's a toss up. You have so many thing to pick from... But with open soures solfware you can compile apps for you hardware. Anyway here a quick list of apps I used on older p3 systems.

Web: dillo, elinks, lynx. Or Firefox with noscipt, abp, flash block and so on. compiled for your system.
Gui: window maker, openbox, bisybox, Jwm.
Media: xmms, audacious, mplayer, vlc. It's best to compile any video player and all needed codeics for your system.
Office/text: AbiWord. Vim, vi, emacs.
Photo edit: gimp compiled for your system.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely don't despise aging machines as daily drivers. My own most modern rig is a Core2 Quad with 4GB RAM and a GTX560. It was an XP box even, till I upgraded to Windows 7 32bit in late 2013, which I still use. What I do daily is games and internet, though, and although most of my games are ancient (the newest ones are Criysis 2 and Far Cry 3) and my machine is quite good for them; todays internet sometimes screws up even this rig. So I really have a hard time considering a PIII class machine as a acceptable daily rig, especially one of your daily activities is lurking around modern web.

When it comes to other activities and software, I really have a hard time finding what I can do in Word 2010 but not in Word 2.0 for Windows. 🤣

Bringing back an old thread here but...

At the moment, I have two "everyday machines". A win10 multi-core beast that I've been using for pretty much everything including games, handbrake, daily normal tasks. Thing is, I don't like using this machine for everything. I purposely built it to play games and run through Handbrake queues that my previous only machine struggled with if I even thought of doing those tasks. When I need to do actual work of some kind, this machine is 100% a total distraction. Notifications, steam/origin/GOG at the click of a mouse, THE INTERNET...yeah.

For a few months now, I've been attempting to use some of my old Macs to offload the productivity related tasks. At the moment, I've upgraded through a G5. The machine is now 12 years old, but as long as I avoid doing much of anything website related, it's pretty good.

I've got Office 2008, Adobe CS2, the iLife suite...everything I need for daily use except for web browsing. I'm seriously considering shutting down the windows machines when I'm trying to get things done and just keeping my ipad or iphone next to me if I need to look something up. If nothing else, it keeps the internet-based distractions to a walled garden so to speak...if it's all in a seperate device, I can ignore that device till I ABSOLUTELY need to look at it.

Honestly the slowest machine I use daily for actual work is my Cloudbook. Has a Celeron N3050 and 2GB of RAM. I'd say it's roughly on par with a Pentium D 925 with a GeForce 8400GS except with a more modern featureset (DX11, OGL 4.0, Vulkan, SSE4.x, AES). Still, it browses fairly well provided I manage my expectations and don't ask it to have 10 YouTube tabs open or something like that, even with Chrome. Part of that might have to do with my dramatically slimmed-down Arch install, though. Even handles some older games (or newer indie titles) in WINE without too much trouble. Diablo III and WoW run, but are barely playable, though that bit might be better on Windows since it wouldn't have to translate from D3D to OGL.

All in all I'm incredibly happy with its performance, it's hella quick for a sub-200 dollar Windows laptop I bought brand new.

My slowest, usable, machine was a Celeron300@450 with a 7600LE which got killed by a bios update.
The only reason I have a faster computer is because of youtube and on and off Fallout3'ing. Many programs today are so wasteful when it comes to resources - the bona fide stinkers being .net applications which I avoid like the plague.

Honestly...the breakpoint is needing to use the modern web. EVERYTHING else that I personally need to do can probably be done on a 486 running win3.1.

Mind you, I wouldn't give up my modern OSs and versions of programs...but damn.

Before I went to college, the machine I used most was my Pentium/133 desktop in my room. Since all I did on it was word processing, listening to music, and games (I really don't play much of anything except DOS games), it's perfectly sufficient for everything. I also had a dot matrix printer hooked up to it so I could print stuff, and a PCI USB card so I could transfer files to my modern PC when I absolutely had to.

Honestly, that thing could be a 386/486 and it would be just as useful for what I do with it.

amadeus777999 wrote:

Many programs today are so wasteful when it comes to resources - the bona fide stinkers being .net applications which I avoid like the plague.

The ultimate example is MS Office.

If you could somehow compile Office 2016 to run on Windows 9x and ran it on my Pentium/133, it would be slow as heck. But Office 2000 performs exactly the same functions (with a simpler interface, mind you) and it's smooth and snappy, even more so than Office 2016 is on a modern PC running Windows 10. Modern programs have tons of bloat built up over the years; it's the same with operating systems!

As hardware expands, software expands to fill it, and most tasks and programs never end up actually being any faster. In a lot of cases you don't even get any tangible benefits; the bloat all happens under the hood.

I actually use Office 2000 as my main word processing suite (with the Compatibility Pack) and it works perfectly for everything I need it to do. Never even have any problems opening other people's files that they just made with their bloated, crashing Office 2016. Also (on my modern PC) it's running on Linux via Wine so I'm basically giving Microsoft the finger on all sides.

Essentially, this is Wirth's law at work.