How many are still using a 20 year old computer

Geo-TH,In · Jan 27, 2016

When my son was in high school, he got parts off the internet and made me a computer. Loaded windows 95 on it. Later installed works 4.0. Been using computer for business records only. Not connected to internet, no worry about computer catching a cold or a virus. I just completed 19 pages of business records, sorted, totaled like CPA wants. Took CPA print out so he could get to start working on them before his busy season. I love the spreadsheet on works 4.0. Why change if it works? My boy calls the computer he made an AMISH COMPUTER. I also have my records backed up on another computer my boy made about 12 years ago. It too is obsolete, but works for my purposes.

Nice to have a son and SIL that makes their living knowing more about computers than the average person.

Super-H-Mike · Jan 27, 2016

My desktop is now 12 years old and still doing the job.

1970-1655 · Jan 27, 2016

I have an HP computer in the shop that is still running Windows 95. I have a lot of restoration files, parts diagrams, and how-to videos on it and several more on antique 3.5" floppy's and cd's. And like you, good for record keeping. To me, I think my data is a lot more secure than one hooked to the internet. If I need to search on the internet, I am only about 75' from the one in the house. Until it goes up in smoke, or totally wipes out, it will remain my favorite.

Goose · Jan 27, 2016

I have a 14 year old computer on XP in my shop, mostly for playing solitaire when I take a break. It's not connected to the 'Net.

Other than that, both my desktop and my wife's desktops are three years old and my laptop is one year old. All on Windows 7 Pro. I special ordered the laptop with 7 Pro and with a matte screen to eliminate glare.

Jimmydog · Jan 27, 2016

There's a school district in or near Grand Rapids Mich. that is using an old Atari if I remember correct. They had to buy a new (used) one off Ebay or something cause the old one crashed and it was going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to retro fit all the school buildings with new interfaces. They use it to control the HVAC in several buildings.

As for myself the first personal computer I ever used was back around 1980-81 it was an IBM-286 4Mhz w/256kb ram and 256kb ext. ram. It was in the computer room at a large company where they had an enormous main frame that used those giant reel to reel magnetic tapes. The room had positive pressure ventilation and I don't know what else but when ever I had to work in there I always got a sore itchyness in my throat. I remember there was this one computer technician that all the other techs thought was daft because he would go around telling people that some day those little computers were going to replace those main frames. Boy he couldn't have been more right.

Dave H (MI) · Jan 27, 2016

For the CPA practice I have a computer that sits on one corner of my desk and it has been in nearly continuous operation since ????. It has XP on it and I know it is very old. IBM brand. When I say continuous operation, I mean it has not been shut off. It runs accounting software which I purchased in 1989 that is DOS based. The software is high end and not the krap you buy at the bookstore. The software is also blindingly fast for data entry and processing. We back up a lot and have a guy who keeps it running...well worth it. That machine saves me a lot of time and money.

rrman61 · Jan 27, 2016

Bet old Hilary would have paid more attention to what she was doing with her computer! That's what happens when your so arrogant you think your bulletproof.

Fatjay · Jan 27, 2016

I have a "new" computer, that is 7 years old. About that age the hardware sort of hit a plateau and hasn't made much advancements like it did in years prior to that.

The risk of an older computer is, if something breaks, it will be hard to find appropriate replacement hardware which will force an upgrade, which will mean having to learn something completely new, and potential loss of records. Sometimes an upgrade is worth while if it means more reliable access when you need it to work.

There's a reason most modern construction crews don't use 30 year old machines, down time is money.

Ken Macfarlane · Jan 27, 2016

My accounting computer was about 15 years old and didn't go on the internet but it just wouldn't start up one day. The hard drive came out and went in a little box and plugs in via a USB cable to my new machine now.

ray_woods · Jan 27, 2016

I don't use anything of that age daily but I have 286's and 386's that are from the late 80's that have CAD,FEA,FEM and CAM software that still is useful. All DOS software.

Stephen Newell · Jan 27, 2016

I wish I did. I find the newer the computer the less useful they are. They seem to do everything but what you want it to. I still have a computer that runs on Dos. It doesn't work but keep hoping to find someone that can fix it. It was the most useful computer I've ever owned. I still have the 5" floppy discs for it too but I think the one I like the best is corrupted.

JRSutton · Jan 27, 2016

I like the "amish computer" line - I'm going to steal that.

My son's really big into the computer stuff too. I spent my life in that field, but he blows me away.

I was never really a pc guy - more programming/databases - other specialties - but most people just thought of me as a "computer guy". So for years I was the goto person any time friend or family had an issue with their home computer.

Drove me nuts.

But now - for the first time in my life when *I* have a computer issue, I have somebody to lean on. Kinda nice.

Batel · Jan 27, 2016

I have a couple of computers that are 20 years old that would still run. I've since upgraded though. The one I'm typing this on shipped in 2003 with XP but I've changed to Ubuntu 14.04lts with Gnome 3. The one I use for my "print server" is a 1998 with XP Pro. My wife has the "new one", 2009 with Win7.Linux has spoiled me, updates are set to automatically download, it tells me there are updates ready, 2 or 3 minutes later they are done. I probably spend 2 hours a month keeping my wife's Win7 machine updated.

jeffcat · Jan 27, 2016

My old desk top is from 2000. Still running but I now use my Sony Vio laptop anymore. My Sister had, still has, a Gateway from 1996 if I remember. It is a 75 Mhz chip and a 525? Hard drive. Something like that so the hard drive is not even one gig! Running on windows 75. Right? She asked me why it kept shutting off. I go down and check it out and it is not shutting off it is crashing. Had to start Defrag four times till it finaly started cleaning. They had NEVER cleaned it in like five years, Had a disk full up to 98% full.
My lap top has a 500 gig hard drive and my Passport external is 2 TB. I also use San-Disk flash drives that are 128 gb. Keep It in my shirt pocket. The new hard drives are hybrids now. Huge hard drive and they have an internal bubble memory. They can boot up in like 30 seconds from a dead start. Screaming fast.

Geo-TH,In · Jan 27, 2016

My boy got into computers in HS so he could play video games on line. At the time he made the fastest computer to beat his competition. He even knew how to network computers at home to play games too. Now he heads up an IT security team for a large company who's budget is $3.4 billion a year and has a lot of information that has to be kept secure. So his passion as a kid turned into a very good paying job, makes many times more than I did when I retired 12 years ago.

My SIL is both Mac and MS certified administrator. He can raise a computer from the dead.

Yep nice having two family to fall back on. Of course when it comes to other things mechanical, plumbing, electrical, remodeling or woodworking they call me.

jeffcat · Jan 27, 2016

Hold on I found what I was looking for. This is going to bunch you shorts! I remember those big ones at college in 1972 in the RCA Spectra 70 computer. Those 3 inch floppys will not even hold ONE picture from my Cannon 18mp camera. Oh the good old days!

SparepartsTN · Jan 27, 2016

I've got a way to go, this XP laptop is only 9.5 years old.

JRSutton · Jan 27, 2016

Yeah - I still get the calls to fix everything else, but at least I'm not the computer guy anymore!

My son's still in high school - he goes to a trade school, in their IT program.

I'm impressed with the program - they graduate with one heck of a leg up on others going into college for that field. It almost seems unfair to the others.

Cisco certifications, Microsoft server certs, it's impressive. Wish I had that option when I was a kid!

Geo-TH,In · Jan 27, 2016

My boy makes the big money in IT security. He said what he know isn't taught in any college. When he applied for his first job, he learned 12 people with college degrees in computer science didn't get hired, he didn't have computer science degree, just a lot of experience building and repairing them. Where he used to work, they realized they needed someone who know the computers inside and out. My boy played a prank on a co worker. Every Thursday at 2 pm co worker's computer would lock up. To get it to work he had to push enter 1000 times. Boy got a kick out of the prank. The insurance company he worked for realized they needed a security department to keep their computers safe, so guess who they asked? They sent him to hackers school to learn from the best hackers. The rest is history. He no longer works for insurance company but learned a lot heading up their IT security. All started over a prank.

Deutz Lover · Jan 27, 2016

The first main frame computer I had to work with was a DEC PDP11. It was still a little too large to call a PC. It ran at about 2meghz. The 8 inch floppy disks held anywhere from 300-600 kilobytes. The computer was not turn-key nor user friendly. To boot it you had to type in several keyboard memory locations.
The opsys was loaded on a floppy.

When they went to a hard drive (a ten megabyte Western Hard drive w/ 10k hours mtbf) we thought we were in hog heaven. They did make a cardinal error though. If something happened to the hard drive (and it did despite my warnings) the computer did not know to search the floppy drives for an alternate boot. The computer was down for 3 months. Afterwards they did install firmware for it to look for boots on the floppies.

It is amazing to see a single thumb drive holding just 16 gigabytes of data that would have taken more than 11,665 double sided floppies to hold. This is not to mention trying to load a program that needed 15-90 floppies and expecting no read errors.

Bret4207 · Jan 27, 2016

Still have our first computer. A Gateway bought in 96 IIRC so my wide could do her Masters. It had Windows 97 on it and that was a BIG THING then. Cost us $2800.00. The big sales pitch was that when you wanted to update to a newer computer, Gateway would let you "trade in" the old one. Right, I bet. Anyway, according to my geek friend it's a well made unit, but so old that nothing works on it anymore. Programs I mean. Plus, the kids got on it and messed with a lot of settings. There might be a use for it, but it's outside my ability. I still have some of the old big square floppies and lots of the little square floppies, the ones that don't flop.

There's supposed to be a guy up here who has or had a mess of Commodore 64's (something like 12 or 15 of them) "piggybacked" or something like that so that he could get on the internet. I don't know if it's true, but it makes a great story.

buickanddeere · Jan 27, 2016

We have an old Accer 4100 laptop running XP that we still use for email. It must be 12+ years old ?

Geo-TH,In · Jan 28, 2016

Do you use spreadsheet? I can use my phone for emails, texts, pics, even post on YT with it.

My Phone can't do spreadsheet, which I need for business records. I even made a check book program
using spreadsheet. All I do is put in the amount of check or deposit and spreadsheet automatically
tells me the balance. That's very handy balancing bank statements too.

Glad I'm not the only person that uses old school computers. Can't see buying new, when the old
works just fine.

How many are still using a 20 year old computer

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