Old Computer

[Revoltingest]

oh man....why oh why did I ever get rid of my old 8088 and 8086 and all the associated 5 1/4 floppy disks..... I could have been a millionaire by now

The vast majority of them are worthless.
You need something both rare & desirable....like those very first Apples....or
an ENIAC...or a Babbage machine.....or the infamous Revoltitron 2000.

 

[Wu Wei]

The vast majority of them are worthless.
You need something both rare & desirable....like those very first Apples....or
an ENIAC...or a Babbage machine.....or the infamous Revoltitron 2000.

What about an old Apple PowerBook 520...will that make me Rich beyond my wildest dreams..... will I then be a wealthy Miser

 

[Eliab ben Benjamin]

The vast majority of them are worthless.
You need something both rare & desirable....like those very first Apples....or
an ENIAC...or a Babbage machine.....or the infamous Revoltitron 2000.

What about an original Acorn Electron running RISCOS and still working ...

 

[Valjean]

What about a Tang dynasty abacus?

 

[Revoltingest]

What about an old Apple PowerBook 520...will that make me Rich beyond my wildest dreams..... will I then be a wealthy Miser

Even better....you'll be a bear.

 

[Revoltingest]

What about an original Acorn Electron running RISCOS and still working ...

Oh, those are utterly worthless.
I'll give you $1000....out of charity.

 

[Quagmire]

I have a hewlett packard....1995
it seems to be completely dysfunctional

is there any use for such a thing?

By completely dysfunctional do you mean it won't turn on? Wont boot up?

If you're getting any signs of life at all from it you might be able to make it usable again with this: Puppy Linux Community Home - Getting Started

(Edit: sorry, for some reason just before I posted this this thread was only showing 3 posts)

how about recovery of files?

Puppy Linux might be able to help you with that too.

 

[Quagmire]

I have a hewlett packard....1995
it seems to be completely dysfunctional

is there any use for such a thing?

Hey, I just looked on Wiki and if your HP is a Pavilion, 1995 was the first year of production so it might wind up being a collectors item. :HP Pavilion (computer) - Wikipedia

I looked at the specs though, and it may be too whimpy even for Puppy Linux.

 

[McBell]

how about recovery of files?

The easiest way to recover files is to put the hard drive with the files you want to recover into a hard drive enclosure, plug it into another computer and copy them.
You might want to check with local computer shops.
Two of them in my area rent them for about $5 a day.

A Hard Drive Enclosure basically turns a PC hard drive into an external hard drive.

 

[Wu Wei]

Even better....you'll be a bear.

Does it matter if it is slightly chewed?

 

[Revoltingest]

Does it matter if it is slightly chewed?

No.
You'll still be a bear.

 

[McBell]

No.
You'll still be a bear.

Is a barely chewed bear really a bear?

 

[Wu Wei]

No.
You'll still be a bear.

Awesome

 

[Thief]

been to Ebay......

no one is selling anything like what i got

 

[Wu Wei]

been to Ebay......

no one is selling anything like what i got

Did you check in the boating section under anchors?

 

[Thief]

But seriously.......can the old program hold up to todays internet?

assuming I get it going

 

[Wu Wei]

But seriously.......can the old program hold up to todays internet?

assuming I get it going

That would all depend on what version of Web browser it could support. Also older Microsoft products are fairly open to attack on the internet.

 

[Thief]

That would all depend on what version of Web browser it could support. Also older Microsoft products are fairly open to attack on the internet.

so it might boot up.....and immediately take a virus and puke?

 

[Wu Wei]

so it might boot up.....and immediately take a virus and puke?

If it does not support at least Internet Explorer 10 or a current version of Google Chrome or Firefox then the majority of the webpages you try and access will not load properly, if they load at all.

And once on the web it is a target for attack and if it is a Windows OS that is later than Windows 7 it is unsupported and will no longer get security updates plus there are no current security systems that will run on it (with the possible exception of Windows XP).\

The best way to use an old PC is to go with a version of Linux that will run on it and then go from there

 

[ShivaFan]

There are old home security camera systems that run the camera interface on this thing, but you would have to reinstall the Windows OS on it and I doubt you have the software.

You can get old Linux versions for free, but you would first need to get on a pc that works with an internet connection, download it on that, then assuming your junker has a CD reader, then install it. But you would probably need to buy a new h/d but why dump money into this thing?

You can buy a new desktop pc/tower for under $500 these days (but not so for laptop), but I assume you already have other computers/pcs/laptops. A lot of "storage units" businesses take old computers for recycling (or something - do they melt them down? Not sure what the hell they do with them, but I turn in my old junkers to them)...