25 year old laptop---still works!!

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67Dart273

67Dart273

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Tonight, digging around, found a power supply for an old IBM Thinkpad, "I wonder" so I went and dug out the old Compaq LTE-5000 made around 95-ish and hasn't been powered up for at least 5-6 years maybe more. Checked the voltage/ polarity/ size of the power plug and fired that ***** right up!!!! Rompin Stompin Pentium 1 at 95 mhz!!!

I still have a couple of these older rigs because I still have some old commercial FM radios that can/ have been used on Amateur Radio. Some of these old radios must be programmed for channel information with a software program, runnning in an old "DOS" environment, via a by Gawd 9 pin serial cable!!!!

So this one still has the GE MLS program. "Laplink" a couple of different versions. This was a VERY useful program that could be used for file transfer, and in fact the program itself could "sometimes" be forced to another computer if the recipient didn't have that software

And XTREE GOLD one of the best (for me) file organization, manipulation, editing, and transfer programs EVER. it has NEVER been surpassed in my book

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GE MLS2 radios were still built by GE and when GE used to actually make stuff I haven't "fiddled" with one in years, and I have several, but I bet they all work as good now as they ever did

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Cool stuff! I bet they're worth some $$ to a computer geek. That top "laptop" unit was worth huge $$ back in the day.
 
Old computers don't seem to be worth much. Another interesting old girl I have is an old Kaypro-II which runs 5 1/4" floppies and the OS is called CPM I haven't powered it up in at least 10 years.

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I still use a old "Vendex" on occasion, to run a program called Quarter Jr. Runs DOS, 10 meg HD and one 5 1/4 floppie. Bought new in 1984.
Vendex 888-XT turbo
Owned a computer for 38 years, and still can't use one.
 
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I had to look that up, never heard of them

My first "computer" was a Vic-20 used from 'a friend' after he bought a Commodore 64 or 128 forget. Anyhow that damn thing nearly cured me from wanting to ever SEE a computer again. Old TV set for a display, audio cassette recorder for a "hard drive." Laborously type in lines and lines of a program, only to have it die at the end, or the recorder screwed up and didn't properly "save" it. And finding the program again on tape was a neat trick, as well.

Next, bought at a "hamfest"--ham radio get together and fleamarket-- was a Bleeding Edge 8088. Originally had no hard drive. Had two floppies and a 20mb hard drive. I took it apart to clean it later on, and found a receipt for the hard drive and controller inside. The hd and controller had been purchased USED--for over TWO THOUSAND dollars. It had a small amber CRT display.
 
My laptop from 2008 still works and never gave me any trouble.
I quit using it in probably 03 or 04 because it was so damn slow.
Outdated electronics are worthless.
 
I'm not sure I agree with that. I have and still use "outdated electronics" including --gasp-- vacuum tubes. I have a couple of old vacuum tube voltmeters, the frequency response of which will beat the **** out of my best Fluke. Same for some of the old analog multimeters. They will go up into the low megahertz region.
 
Jeff Seighman said:
Outdated electronics worthless, 0H NO! I hope not!View attachment 1715843122
Click to expand...
That stuff there is fairly new compared to some I've got

..........Last year working at home building power wheelchair modules.......

That old round tube HP scope above the extractor hood is about 65? The old 141 series spectrum analyzer towards the right---with the tracking generator stacked on top--was about 71 ish

I've got stuff a LOT older than that

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Yes, Sansui amps from the 70's. Alot of people think they are outdated till they hear them, blows away the throwaway crap made today.
 
I still say it needs Cinemax. And HBO.
 
I bought a C-64 overseas in 1988, returned it the same night, and I even had computer experience! I had a Tomy Tutor graphics computer (TI-99/4 CPU) in 6th grade (maybe) and before that Dad brought home a $13,000 (in 1976) IBM that was about worthless in 1980. It had 2 8" floppies and a 9" amber CRT that flashed when it was processing, talk about a weak *** processor! It was used to run an embroidery machine and they were tossing it because the new PC's were 1/4 the price and 4X the performance at 1/4 the weight. I built a spindleless (no drives) 386 from spare parts to run Puppy linux off a thumbdrive. I used to to remotely monitor a cable system I was in charge of in Fullerton. I could run VLC on it and stream the output to my IP at home and telnet into one of the commercial convertor boxes we had and change the channels on it so I could monitor the 58 78 channels we were providing offsite. Saved me running out there 3 times a week checking all the channels for operation. I agree, most of that old computer stuff has little to no value anymore unless it runs a proprietary piece of software that you still need to work. "Norton Disk doctor " was my 1 'go to' piece of kit when I was building rigs.
 
^^And hasn't Norton anything turned into a bloated ridiculous POS?^^
 
Two other little interesting machines I have "somewhere" are both early "solid state drives." One is a miniature IBM laptop called a "PC radio." The radio part is that it had an early analog cellular communications module inside. It ran DOS 3 or 4.?? off a memory chip. As I recall the "hard drive" was either 1 or 2 Mb. A similar one might have also been Compaq, I cannot remember model.

The "PC Radio" also had provisions for a built in printer---strip deal like an adding machine

Uncle Roger's Computers -- IBM PC Radio
 
My collection of old 'crap' machines range from a Videopac 2000, Commodore64, Amiga500 and a small number of old Apple Macs after that.
 
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