Show off your old and retro computer parts

[Kilrah]

Yup should probably try that too... But since that uses a small-ish 1.8" ZIF HDD you kinda need a way to either do it from an existing XP install and not have too much used space, seems Rufus has an XP-compatible build... if you have no OS loaded at all that wouldn't work

[da na]

4 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Yup should probably try that too... But since that uses a small-ish 1.8" ZIF HDD you kinda need a way to either do it from an existing XP install and not have too much used space, seems Rufus has an XP-compatible build... if you have no OS loaded at all that wouldn't work

Ah the ZIF HDD could make that hard. SATA and IDE drives I take out of the computer and place in a USB caddy attached to another PC, create a 2-4GB partition, turn on "Show USB hard drives" in Rufus, and flash to that partition. 

...anything ZIF though is always hit-or-miss. Only ZIF drive I was ever able to get working in a 2000s tablet of mine was an OEM replacement for the IPod Video, I tried 4 drives.

[Kilrah]

8 minutes ago, da na said:

Only ZIF drive I was ever able to get working in a 2000s tablet of mine was an OEM replacement for the IPod Video, I tried 4 drives.

From what I remember of my Toshiba P1620 days there are multiple ZIF pinouts so it's a bit of a mess... 

 

[da na]

2 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

From what I remember of my Toshiba P1620 days there are multiple ZIF pinouts so it's a bit of a mess... 

 

And ZIF spans both IDE and SATA

[8tg]

I feel this is worth posting now, this is now a 12 year old laptop, my x230 tablet

I still use it at work every day, it runs Debian and in this case it being used to live test while in a ms teams call working on our productivity board 

which is normally this:

Spoiler

So you can kinda see why having a small portable touchscreen is useful rather than trying to live test while using an 82” touchscreen on call 

[8tg]

On 12/16/2023 at 5:57 AM, Schnoz said:

Niiiice! I love those things. From the internals, I wouldn't call them "retro" as they're absolutely super usable even today with an SSD and at least 8GB of memory, but that design is just...mwah

Kinda funny that the thread has gone on for so long that while it’s not retro, it is a 12 year old laptop.

When this thread was made a similar aged laptop would be the thinkpad S30

pic related, my S30 as a size comparison to an X1 nano, 20 years apart

and really the x1 nano is thinner for sure, but it’s footprint is still bigger

the s30 is the same depth

[8tg]

unrelated fun fact, in posting the S30 elsewhere online I once had some tech illiterate dipshit go on a huge faux-helpful rant about how using XP is unsafe and I should install Linux on any old laptop ever, and they recommended

drumroll please…

 

PopOS

 

I hate popOS nerds so much, they’re like the modern day kali kiddos who think they’re top shit for installing a Debian based distro with the gui installer, and proceeded to go shit up the internet for everyone else in some sense of weird elitism 

edit: this is them completely not understanding that a mobile pentium III and 256mb of ram will not do anything that XP can’t already do, it’s not like installing Linux will magically let it play a 480p YouTube video 

[Dabombinable]

19 minutes ago, 8tg said:

unrelated fun fact, in posting the S30 elsewhere online I once had some tech illiterate dipshit go on a huge faux-helpful rant about how using XP is unsafe and I should install Linux on any old laptop ever, and they recommended

drumroll please…

 

PopOS

 

I hate popOS nerds so much, they’re like the modern day kali kiddos who think they’re top shit for installing a Debian based distro with the gui installer, and proceeded to go shit up the internet for everyone else in some sense of weird elitism 

edit: this is them completely not understanding that a mobile pentium III and 256mb of ram will not do anything that XP can’t already do, it’s not like installing Linux will magically let it play a 480p YouTube video 

The distros that I've had running on older PC (typically Pentium III 1000 and slower - SSE2 being a requirement sucks) are significantly older than XP, without a lot of security updates made to them over the intervening years that are found in incompatible distro. XP ends up being more secure.

[8tg]

5 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

The distros that I've had running on older PC (typically Pentium III 1000 and slower - SSE2 being a requirement sucks) are significantly older than XP, without a lot of security updates made to them over the intervening years that are found in incompatible distro. XP ends up being more secure.

It’s just more that I am not concerned about security, very few people are throwing that wide of a net to target home XP users in 2023 anyway for things out of the users control, and then 99% of what you’d encounter otherwise is dependent on not clicking the “download Minecraft for free!” banner ads.

Nothing I’m doing on my era machines is important in the slightest. Like let’s say one day I for some reason use the T43p to directly download pirated GoG game torrents, and one of them comes with a ransomware attack, oh no my laptop is fucked, I have to pay some guy $120 in bitcoins to get my data back, whatever will I do?

-unplug laptop

-throw ssd in trash 

-install backup ssd

-do it again

I have a box of like 20 of these cheap ass 30-60gb msata ssds for that purpose. In case they die, all my retro machines except the pentium MMX ones run CF cards or ide to msata adapters.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, 8tg said:

It’s just more that I am not concerned about security, very few people are throwing that wide of a net to target home XP users in 2023 anyway for things out of the users control, and then 99% of what you’d encounter otherwise is dependent on not clicking the “download Minecraft for free!” banner ads.

Nothing I’m doing on my era machines is important in the slightest. Like let’s say one day I for some reason use the T43p to directly download pirated GoG game torrents, and one of them comes with a ransomware attack, oh no my laptop is fucked, I have to pay some guy $120 in bitcoins to get my data back, whatever will I do?

-unplug laptop

-throw ssd in trash 

-install backup ssd

-do it again

I have a box of like 20 of these cheap ass 30-60gb msata ssds for that purpose. In case they die, all my retro machines except the pentium MMX ones run CF cards or ide to msata adapters.

I was able to get a free 1TB HDD that had been running Windows 7 with ransomware on it. Just a full wipe using gparted 0.5.2 (main use has been checking - so many bad or partially working sticks - SDRAM). Honestly I'm also not actually concerned about virus on my XP PC - considering while I do have several legit keys, I use a 2014 copy of XP BE (comes with all updates up until that point+multiple Windows themes I can't find elsewhere) - because for the most part it is an unattended install.

[luckybob77]

Wait until you guys find out about Virtual Machines...  

 

I'm going to say it.  IBM made the best laptops for a long time.  Sony was a competent #2 when they weren't doing some unhinged weird shit.  And now that I've said that, I miss companies doing weird things like Sony used to.

[Average Nerd]

5 minutes ago, luckybob77 said:

Wait until you guys find out about Virtual Machines...  

 

I'm going to say it.  IBM made the best laptops for a long time.  Sony was a competent #2 when they weren't doing some unhinged weird shit.  And now that I've said that, I miss companies doing weird things like Sony used to.

Yeah modern laptops all kind of look the same. Just a flat and more or less thin rectangle with one of those colours: Black, Silver or Grey.

Where did the creativity go?

[Kilrah]

16 minutes ago, luckybob77 said:

when they weren't doing some unhinged weird shit

But that was the best thing about them!

 

 

 

 

[8tg]

18 hours ago, Average nerd said:

Yeah modern laptops all kind of look the same. Just a flat and more or less thin rectangle with one of those colours: Black, Silver or Grey.

Where did the creativity go?

They still make weird laptops. Its not like the weirdo retro laptops were super common models. Just like today

Lenovo still does weird shit with the Thinkbook Plus, they had two with eInk lids, now one with some ultrawide display and a second display in the palmrest.

While we definitely dont have anything quite like the thinkpad 555bj anymore, theres still plenty of oddball machines out there with unique designs.

one day ill have one of those

its a laptop and a bubble jet printer

[Nirado]

Still has Windows 98 and works. Just the hinges got stuck after so long.

[Kilrah]

@Nirado Merged to retro hardware thread

[da na]

2 hours ago, Nirado said:

Still has Windows 98 and works. Just the hinges got stuck after so long.

 

 

I have never seen a late-90s Compaq with intact hinge covers

[Kilrah]

Just now, da na said:

I have never seen a late-90s Compaq with intact hinge covers

They reversed them shortly after

 

[Nirado]

5 hours ago, da na said:

I have never seen a late-90s Compaq with intact hinge covers

I tried to open it and that plastic just snapped. I felt so bad because except for that it's mint condition. Been sitting on a shelf for almost 20 years.

[Nirado]

But boy oh boy will I have some pics for y'all in here in the next few days, didn't know this part of the forum existed.

I'm in SE Europe and my dad has like 2 rooms filled with tech and technology magazines from 1950s to 2000s. Dozens of lap tops, books, magazines, PCs, GPUs, CPUs, professional TY cameras, even a big Stock Exchange Currency table in those dot like letters/numbers, phones, audio equipment, ...

I'm pretty sure I can maybe even find stuff that never made it to the US or the western Europe much. 

[Kilrah]

I'll admit mine needed a little bit of glue but it could be done without affecting anything visible

 

 

Interesting thing with this guy is the built-in power supply...

 

 

Also the battery still works great

[dight]

i found this rusty s3 trio32 from 1996 i pulled out of (weirdly enough) a socket 478 pentium 4 system

[da na]

10 minutes ago, dight said:

i found this rusty s3 trio32 from 1996 i pulled out of (weirdly enough) a socket 478 pentium 4 system

Camera from 1996 too? 

[MacBookBoy96]

On 12/18/2023 at 3:55 AM, 8tg said:

Kinda funny that the thread has gone on for so long that while it’s not retro, it is a 12 year old laptop.

When this thread was made a similar aged laptop would be the thinkpad S30

pic related, my S30 as a size comparison to an X1 nano, 20 years apart

and really the x1 nano is thinner for sure, but it’s footprint is still bigger

the s30 is the same depth

 I love old Windows laptops! There is something special about machines from 1990-2005, with their latches on the lids and the myriad of ports. Yeah at the time they may be naff but looking back they are fun. 

[Dabombinable]

Was wondering why this Celeron 333 was running so hot. Anyone notice the 24 year old mistake?

Spoiler