What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

[3 Colours Red]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

He has no right to be worried - just as long as he keeps his browser, anti-virus, anti-malware, firewall etc. all up to date it'll be negligibly more susceptible than more modern OSs.

[anton pulisov]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

Janik wrote:

A Fritsch Particle sizer?

Malvern Mastersizer.

Ah yes, I've seen that one in publications. You can tell how old the photo is by the presence of the ashtray, huh.

I've used a Fritsch A22 laser. Also a Micromeritics Sedigraph. The software on the latter was designed by a sadist.

So there you go, kids. If you want really outdated computers look either for someone on a gaming nostalgia trip, or in a cutting edge science lab!

Or both, in my case. I managed to beat all my high scores from the 1980s at the last lab I was in.

At the end of my stint there I replaced the computer controlling one of the main machines with a new Windows 7 thing, after nagging the boss for years. He was convinced it couldn't be done ("it needs serial ports!") and that it would fuck everything up. I bought usb-to serial converters and the whole thing works without any problems at all. I even synched it to Dropbox and now the boss can login from his office upstairs and see who is (and isn't) working. People will hate me.

[Stumpy Pepys]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

Three Times A Reddy wrote: He has no right to be worried - just as long as he keeps his browser, anti-virus, anti-malware, firewall etc. all up to date it'll be negligibly more susceptible than more modern OSs.

Ahs, so all those Windows security updates are just smoke and mirrors?

To be more constructive, yes you can mitigate the risks of using Win XP online, but I still wouldn't recommend it. I do it once in a blue moon, but then again, I have an image of my XP partition in case of emergency.

[3 Colours Red]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

I'm telling you, any half-decent anti-virus is about a million times more effective at combating malicious software than Microsoft's bloated, ineffective "updates".

The fact that many businesses are still using XP for their mainframes shows that it can't be that much of a problem, at least not for the short term.

[caja-dglh]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

Any hackers cracking into EvilC's machine will just end up learning a lot about Solvent and John Foxx. Pretty much nothing else.

[Stumpy Pepys]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

Three Times A Reddy wrote: The fact that many businesses are still using XP for their mainframes …

A mainframe, sir? Where does one buy this Windows XP Mainframe Edition of which you speak?

[3 Colours Red]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?



Well, maybe mainframe was the wrong word but you know what I mean, "software" or "system" just didn't seem sufficient somehow when talking about companies with hundreds of stores and countless other premises, having to process myriad customers' details daily...

[beak]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

Jongudmund wrote: I also have a draw full of 'bits'. Pride and joy: A Zip Disc Drive from our first work computer. Remember them?

yeah. I spent a year in a shared house in south manchester, where pride of place on the coffee table went to a fuck-off big eight track recording desk that ran on zip drives.

basically spent a year getting really high and either playing morrowind or making odd music and noises. all of it recorded on zip discs and thus will likely never ever be listened to again. don't even want to listen to such mad gibberish, but can't bring myself to chuck the discs.

which reminds me, once I get back to NL I need to buy a bloody tape deck.

[Stumpy Pepys]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

There was the Jaz drive as well.

I remember both the Zip and Jaz drive as being less than reliable.

[treibeis]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

Stumpy Pepys wrote: I remember both the Zip and Jaz drive as being less than reliable.

At the office I temped at in the mid-90s, one of my duties was to back-up the department’s weekly output on an external Zip drive.

It used to take fucking ages. And I had shoulders like a hod-carrier’s at the end of my contract there, so heavy and bulky was the equipment that had to be shifted about.

[Capybara]

What's the oldest computer anyone's still using?

I can see a Zip drive from where I am sitting, right now.