anyone know how to use superold pc?

[Crashman]

My very first PC didn't even have an OS or hard drive. You could load programs at boot from a casset tape.

 

[nukemaster]

was it a Vic20 or c64?

Those loaded off of tapes....

 

[Crashman]

It was a Timex Sinclair. I also had a Timex portable!

 

[onestar]

Hmmm...my atari 2600 had an external floppy drive...
I was the envy of the neighborhood kids because I could
do my own programming woohoo!

 

[rethdog]

how to use an old computer? get sagetv, i've had computers since 386sx33 and this is the first real great use for them!

 

[jhyukkang]

hey!! everyone this case is over~~~

i did everything i could and found out that HDD is gone bad. i hear it spining. when i tried to install the windows, it says HDD is not good.

so now that HDD is opened up..
yay one more toy!!!

 

[runswindows95]

If you're willing to spend the money, you can get an 80GB IDE for about $40. 256MB of RAM for $30. Once you do that, you can easily run 2KPro on it.

 

[Crashman]

The system might not even support 80GB drives or 256MB modules! Certainly that majority of those systems wouldn't support the high density 4-chip DIMM's that flooded the market starting around 2004

 

[runswindows95]

That is true, crash. At this point, it's a paperweight or a doorstop.

 

[Slappy_Slime]

bad hard drive? Try "m0n0wall" you can use the system as a firewall/router, needs no hard drive. Just cd-rom and a floppy and 2 nics! Or run a nas server (FreeNAS) from a cd-rom w/floppy, and you can run any size hdd for the storage. When you run FreeNAS from cd-rom (which is boot drive) you will by-pass the BIO's limitations on HDD size. "I have a 300 gig in mine" "AMD k-6 300mhz"....But if your HDD still worked you could have ran PC-BSD. 6 gig HDD is more than enough for that system. PC-BSD is a cool OS! O well just some thoughts that rambled by. Good luck!!!

 

[mundungus]

32mb wasn't enough for 95, 98 or ME. It's just that most resellers only put 16mb or 32mb in win95 boxes because ram was so $ at the time. 64mb was really adequate for 95, 128 for 98 but 256 was better. I remember a work computer with Win95 and 32 megs ram. I wanted to shoot it. Bumping it to 64mbs made as much difference as a CPU upgrade on a normal system.

 

[Superheat]

LOL

My first computer was a Radioshack micro color computer came out around 1980 I believe. Ran everything off of a cassette drive. If I remember correct it supported 16 colors. I thought at the time that it was incredible machine. Back in the days when I spent time programming DOS(Basic). Back before Mircosoft lol. For a good laugh check out pic here and read specs next to pic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer

 

[Crashman]

32mb wasn't enough for 95, 98 or ME. It's just that most resellers only put 16mb or 32mb in win95 boxes because ram was so $ at the time. 64mb was really adequate for 95, 128 for 98 but 256 was better. I remember a work computer with Win95 and 32 megs ram. I wanted to shoot it. Bumping it to 64mbs made as much difference as a CPU upgrade on a normal system.

You're wrong of course. 32MB was blazingly fast for Windows 95 unless you had some crap-tastic application like McAffee running in the background. I only started upgrading those old systems when WEB PAGES got big enough to suck up all the available memory (in combination with newer IE versions). With 32MB you could run Word 97 and IE4 splendidly, but when Word 2000 and IE5 became the norm, the newer applications simply used too much RAM.

 

[chookman]

Your calling P3 old... my god... one guy i work with gave me a 486 100mhz and a P1 200mhz they are what we call old machines. By thw way believe it or not that both still boot with no problems. You young wiper snappers prolly dont remember the good old days of AT PSU's and EDO/SD Ram... What about the little known about RD ram that was in the early P4's?

On a side note and more back on track P3 is a decent machine XP will run on it ok and enjoy.

 

[Crashman]

XP would require a bunch of RAM and most P3 motherboards have sever limitation on what density of RAM will work.

 

[BustedSony]

XP would require a bunch of RAM and most P3 motherboards have sever limitation on what density of RAM will work.

All the P3 desktop systems I've ever encountered, and since I've been in the business since 1992 that's a lot, will support up to at least 512 megs ram, and that is plenty for XP (256megs bottlenecks XP since there would be a lot of swapping) It can be tricky to get the right type of ram for a particular board, and some LAPTOP P3s would only go up to 256 Megs or even just 128. Hard drive support among P3s and late P2s starts at 40-60 gigabyte drives (even though a typical originally-installed drive might only be 9 to 40 Gigs) but frequently, as on the system I'm using, will go the full 120 Gigs.

As I said previously I am typing this on a P3-600 slot-1 BX system from 1999. When I see a P3 I know that with little effort it can be a great W2K/XP/Linux machine, as good as need be in fact for Office and Net browsing. I have two Core2 systems and a late-run Athlon 939 and this P3 system does NOT drag in comparison, if it did feel slow I'd stop using it, since I appreciate performance and am as impatient as anyone here. I suggest the OP have a go at more memory and a cheap new hard drive for his found P3.

A P3 is NOT "Superold." I was using a 486SX-50 until recently for lighting control and system functions in the edit suite, mainly as DOS windows in Windows 3.11, it was fully internet-connected. It finally died after 14 years of 24/7 use and was replaced with a P2 laptop I got for $6 from Goodwill.

 

[Crashman]

Your BX won't support the majority of 256MB DIMM's on the market. High-Density RAM is cheaper to produce, so the market was flooded with it a few years ago. Most 128MB DIMM's are medium density, but even some of those are just 2-chip versions of the 4-chip 256MB modules that won't work. This means that if he buys RAM he'll either need to buy "small" DIMM's or have specific information on the motherboard/chipset and the physical orginization of the modules (not the electrical organization, which is usually provided).

 

[BustedSony]

Your BX won't support the majority of 256MB DIMM's on the market. High-Density RAM is cheaper to produce, so the market was flooded with it a few years ago.

It supports most of them. I was lucky to also get a bag of 128 and 256 meg Dimms from that same Goodwill, and pretty well any ram that works in the P3-1000 815 chipset editor will work in this one. The exceptions seem to be IBM and Compaq-branded. The problem is not running ONE 256 dimm, but running TWO of them. That does eliminate a lot of contenders. So far every 512 Meg ram I've tried does work and is stable, both multiple small chips and just two or three large ones. But yes I know the problem.

 

[mitch074]

OS'es worth running on it:
- Linux or BSD, with a stripped down desktop envioronment (Xfce or windowmaker; GNOME or KDE won't run with so little RAM)
- Windows 95/98 (Me chokes on 32 Mb)
- Window 2000 (completely stripped down, it barely, but does, run)

The CPU is beefy enough, but a 650 MHz with only 32 Mb sounds strange. Plug in a 256 Mb SDRAM stick and it'll do well with any of those OSes. Enough for a server, or a Web browser, or a desktop unit.

 

[mitch074]

that's nowhere near old though; now, a 8088-based PC with 512 K of RAM, no hard disk, Hercules mono graphics, and 360K floppies, running MS-DOS 3.2 with GEM graphical environment, THAT is old!

 

[onestar]

BustedSony...I was running a fantastic little BX system until about two years ago. It only had a celery 500 but OC'd pretty well as I recall. I used it to download files and surf, and it was great for those jobs.

I think it caught a cold, and it was easier to replace than repair.

 

[torcida_kutina]

Beacouse my C64 died last month, i've buy 386SX 33MHz(with turbo, 10MHz without), 4MB RAM, 13MB HD(with stacker 29), black-white VGA monitor 15'' with ''256''colors, and win 3.11(6 Floppys). Only problem is when i play Michael Jordan 3D basketball, i have to disable in config.sys and autoexec.bat allmost everything-mouse keyboard, language, win startup,... help please! he, he just kidding

 

[torcida_kutina]

not enough EMS, to many XMS memory. I think DOS 6.2 will resolve the problem

 

[BustedSony]

OS'es worth running on it:
- Linux or BSD, with a stripped down desktop envioronment (Xfce or windowmaker; GNOME or KDE won't run with so little RAM)
- Windows 95/98 (Me chokes on 32 Mb)
- Window 2000 (completely stripped down, it barely, but does, run)

The CPU is beefy enough, but a 650 MHz with only 32 Mb sounds strange. Plug in a 256 Mb SDRAM stick and it'll do well with any of those OSes. Enough for a server, or a Web browser, or a desktop unit.

A Pentium 3 600 EB with 256 megs will run XP, with 384 megs it will do so beautifully. A P3-650 is not limited to W2K and will run it more than just "barely." Remember that the Pentium 3-600 came OUT in 1998/1999, and is hardware current with windows 2000, and XP is now an "old" operating system that was developed on a P3 platform or earlier. Vista would even run but would not be at all nice on less than 1 gigabyte, which most P3s wouldn't support, so THAT is the OS which would present a P3 with problems.

Here's a pared-down CPU-Z grab from my P3..
-------------------------
CPU-Z version 1.41
-------------------------

Processors Map
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 1

Processors Information
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------

Processor 1 (ID = 0)
Number of cores 1
Number of threads 1 (max 1)
Name Intel Pentium III EB
Codename Coppermine
Specification
Package Slot 1 SECC2 (platform ID = 0h)
CPUID 6.8.1
Extended CPUID 6.8
Brand ID 2
Core Stepping cA2
Technology 0.18 um
Core Speed 600.1 MHz (4.5 x 133.3 MHz)
Stock frequency 600 MHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE
L1 Data cache 16 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 32-byte line

size
L1 Instruction cache 16 KBytes, 4-way set associative, 32-byte line

size
L2 cache 256 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 32-byte line

size
FID/VID Control no
Features


Chipset
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

----

Northbridge Intel i440BX/ZX rev. C1
Southbridge Intel 82371EB/MB (PIIX4E/M) rev. 02
Graphic Interface AGP
AGP Revision 2.0
AGP Transfer Rate 2x
AGP SBA supported, enabled
Memory Type SDRAM
Memory Size 512 MBytes
Memory Frequency 133.3 MHz (1:1)
CAS# 3.0
RAS# to CAS# 3
RAS# Precharge 3
DRAM Idle Timer 32


Memory SPD
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

----

DIMM #1

General
Memory type SDRAM
Manufacturer (ID) SpecTek Incorporated (7F7FB5FFFFFFFFFF)
Size 256 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC133 (133 MHz)
Part number
Serial number 0C060C00
Manufacturing date Week 09/Year 01

Attributes
Number of banks 2
Data width 64 bits
Correction None
Registered no
Buffered no
EPP no
XMP no

Timings table
Frequency (MHz) 100 133
CAS# 2.0 3.0
RAS# to CAS# delay 2 3
RAS# Precharge 2 3
TRAS 5 6


DIMM #2

General
Memory type SDRAM
Manufacturer (ID) Hyundai Electronics (ADFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)
Size 256 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC133 (133 MHz)
Part number 71V32635HCT8P-K
Serial number 628A90FE
Manufacturing date Week 102/Year 12

Attributes
Number of banks 2
Data width 64 bits
Correction None
Registered no
Buffered no
EPP no
XMP no

Timings table
Frequency (MHz) 133 133
CAS# 2.0 3.0
RAS# to CAS# delay 2 2
RAS# Precharge 2 2
TRAS 6 6


Mainboard Model 440BX-ITE8671 (0x317 - 0x6B33B311)


DMI BIOS
--------
vendor Award Software International, Inc.
version 6.00 PG
date 11/20/2000

DMI Processor
-------------
manufacturer Intel
model Intel Pentium III
clock speed 600.0MHz
FSB speed 133.0MHz
multiplier 4.5x


DMI Memory Controller
---------------------
correction 8-bit parity
Max module size 32MBytes


DMI Memory Module
-----------------
designation DIMM1
size 256MBytes (single bank)


DMI Memory Module
-----------------
designation DIMM2
size 256MBytes (single bank)


DMI Memory Module
-----------------
designation DIMM3


DMI Memory Module
-----------------
designation DIMM4




Software
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

----

Windows Version Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2

(Build 2600)
DirectX Version 9.0c

 

[eightender]

As others have stated, you would need to invest a little dough in RAM, but otherwise you should be able to run pretty well any version of Windows you want on this thing up to XP.

We just recently (3 months) retired my wifes old computer (Celeron 650 with 256mb) and it was running XP beautifully for what she used it for (Music, Internet, and Word Processing) until she went and downloaded SP2 and killed it. With some extra RAM and careful configuration, that PC still has plenty of life in it to perform the basics.