Computer nostalgia - Post your relics!

[blufeb95]

From what I can find, bigmem support first was developed by Andrea Arcangeli with SuSe and Siemens in the summer of 1999, you can find patches that were made for the 2.2.10 kernel and they were included in the 2.3 development line starting from 2.3.13 and thus made their way into the final 2.4 kernel.
https://static.lwn.net/1999/0819/a/bigmem.html

 

[brianl703]

From what I can dig up, 2.0.x kernels apparently had a lot of problems detecting RAM above 64MB and you had to manually specify the size and aparently had another limit around 1GB through the 2.2.x kernels, the 2.4 kernel added support for PAE and raised the limit to 64GB, although that was the point it was committed to mainline RedHat may have made their own patching beforehand, and I'm not sure about non x86 ports.

I think that's it. Definitely had many machines in that timeframe with more than 64MB of RAM.

 

[brianl703]

From what I can find, bigmem support first was developed by Andrea Arcangeli with SuSe and Siemens in the summer of 1999, you can find patches that were made for the 2.2.10 kernel and they were included in the 2.3 development line starting from 2.3.13 and thus made their way into the final 2.4 kernel.
https://static.lwn.net/1999/0819/a/bigmem.html

Yes, as I recall by the time the 2.2 kernel was used by RedHat it wasn't necessary to tell it how much memory was in the machine anymore. It was only a problem with 2.0

 

[Carmudgeon]

Anyone else used MO drives?

I had an Olympus magneto-optical drive that used 3.5" disc cartridges that held 230MB. The storage densities later increased, but it was an uphill battle that the technology never won. The U.S. model has a SCSI ID (check for conflicts!) selection dial on the back that I guess the home market model didn't.

They were reasonably fast, but more importantly, reliable, and not volatile like Zip drives in terms of portable storage.

 

[researcher]

Anyone else used MO drives?

I had an Olympus magneto-optical drive that used 3.5" disc cartridges that held 230MB. The storage densities later increased, but it was an uphill battle that the technology never won. The U.S. model has a SCSI ID (check for conflicts!) selection dial on the back that I guess the home market model didn't.

They were reasonably fast, but more importantly, reliable, and not volatile like Zip drives in terms of portable storage.

I do remember them but never used any of them.. Yup Zip drives had the "Click of Death".. then CD-R's took over, tech was moving very quickly!

 

[blufeb95]

I still have a parallel port zip 100 drive and a 250mb USB drive, haven't used them in several years, because I now have a couple parallel port CF card readers that I found dos drivers for that I use to move files to older machines, or if it's a laptop I just use the CF card in a pcmcia adapter with a dos ATA enabler.

 

[350Rocket]

Some pics I took about 4 years ago when my parents were away on vacation and I rebuilt a desktop I had with old parts from work PC's (drafting computers) for my dad. This is his stash of old computers, I tried to save every file for him on the extra hard drives I was able to get for the new one.

 

[350Rocket]

Some pics I took about 4 years ago when my parents were away on vacation and I rebuilt a desktop I had with old parts from work PC's (drafting computers) for my dad. This is his stash of old computers, I tried to save every file for him on the extra hard drives I was able to get for the new one.

Oh yeah the Dell dimension was the family computer but new in 1996 I believe (when I was 13) to replace a Compaq 386 which was ancient. It became my computer in the early 2000s when I went to college and flunked out (because of my autism). I later upgraded it but can't remember all the specs.

 

[OVERKILL]

Oh yeah the Dell dimension was the family computer but new in 1996 I believe (when I was 13) to replace a Compaq 386 which was ancient. It became my computer in the early 2000s when I went to college and flunked out (because of my autism). I later upgraded it but can't remember all the specs.

I had the same or similar Dell, got it in the late 90's.

 

[Vil_Riker]

I'm all for vintage stuff but surprisingly, not for computers. I sold a functional Macintosh Plus a few years back. To me it was a decorative item but someone paid $250 for it.

EDIT: I despise everything vintage that has microprocessors in it.

 

[Rand]

I still have a parallel port zip 100 drive and a 250mb USB drive, haven't used them in several years, because I now have a couple parallel port CF card readers that I found dos drivers for that I use to move files to older machines, or if it's a laptop I just use the CF card in a pcmcia adapter with a dos ATA enabler.

I had an imation ls120 MB parallel port floppy drive I used with that 386 I mentioned earlier.

internet pic.

 

[researcher]

Oh yeah the Dell dimension was the family computer but new in 1996 I believe (when I was 13) to replace a Compaq 386 which was ancient. It became my computer in the early 2000s when I went to college and flunked out (because of my autism). I later upgraded it but can't remember all the specs.

I thought those pictures looked familiar.. yup had the dell dimension xps m233a in 1997. Lasted me until I built the Athlon Slot A 600mhz in 2000. Seems we all took a similar path back in the day!

EDIT: actually it was an XPS m233s, always messed up that last letter.. lol..

 

[brianl703]

I had the same or similar Dell, got it in the late 90's.

My work computer in 1997 was an Optiplex GX1. Beige/white box.

 

[brianl703]

EDIT: I despise everything vintage that has microprocessors in it.

No fuel injected vehicles over 25 years old for you?

 

[walterjay]

I had an Apple from the 80's. Sold it at a yard sale.

 

[Vil_Riker]

No fuel injected vehicles over 25 years old for you?

If I were to buy an 80-s car or earlier, it wouldn't be fuel injected for sure.

 

[Carmudgeon]

My work computer in 1997 was an Optiplex GX1. Beige/white box.

I had one until a couple years ago, as part of my "rescue pet/home for stray PCs" collection. Built like a tank.

It was supplanted by a Dell C2D tower of some sort, but it, too, will soon head for the glue factory, since an i3 HP AiO was acquired.

 

[bunnspecial]

I pulled this one out of storage not too long ago to set up at work to run some legacy software.

This computer was given to me several years ago by someone who just wanted to see it go to a good home. I did pay shipping on it, and unfortunately it came out a little worse for wear in shipping like most late 90s Macs(I wont' have them shipped anymore, and often avoid even working on them when I can). He'd used it as his daily until around 2010 when it got to be too old to keep up, which is pretty impressive for a 1997/1998 computer.

He called it "The Beast" and I still refer to it as that. Yes I have faster Macs, and have built out ones with more upgrades than he put into this one, but I look at this one as special for the number and quality of period upgrades in it.

Basic specs:
PowerMacintosh G3 Minitower
768mb RAM
1ghz Sonnet G4 CPU
ATTO 68 pin UW SCSI card driving a big(don't remember how big) 15K RPM drive
Sonnet FW/USB Card

It had a Radeon 7500 when I got it-I swapped it for a Radeon 9200. It's mostly as received other than adding my own software.

BTW, I show it running OS 9, but OS X is quite useable on it. It has OS X Tiger(10.4.11) installed. It COULD run OS X Leopard(10.5.8) but that's a tricky install on systems this old. I have a ready to go disk image a friend built for me years ago that will run on pre-AGP Macs with G4 upgrades(I've run it on systems as old as a PowerMac 8600) but never have done that on this system. I should...

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

My work computer in 1997 was an Optiplex GX1. Beige/white box.

Mmm, Intel 440BX Slot 1 goodness.

 

[blufeb95]

I pulled this one out of storage not too long ago to set up at work to run some legacy software.

This computer was given to me several years ago by someone who just wanted to see it go to a good home. I did pay shipping on it, and unfortunately it came out a little worse for wear in shipping like most late 90s Macs(I wont' have them shipped anymore, and often avoid even working on them when I can). He'd used it as his daily until around 2010 when it got to be too old to keep up, which is pretty impressive for a 1997/1998 computer.

He called it "The Beast" and I still refer to it as that. Yes I have faster Macs, and have built out ones with more upgrades than he put into this one, but I look at this one as special for the number and quality of period upgrades in it.

Basic specs:
PowerMacintosh G3 Minitower
768mb RAM
1ghz Sonnet G4 CPU
ATTO 68 pin UW SCSI card driving a big(don't remember how big) 15K RPM drive
Sonnet FW/USB Card

It had a Radeon 7500 when I got it-I swapped it for a Radeon 9200. It's mostly as received other than adding my own software.

BTW, I show it running OS 9, but OS X is quite useable on it. It has OS X Tiger(10.4.11) installed. It COULD run OS X Leopard(10.5.8) but that's a tricky install on systems this old. I have a ready to go disk image a friend built for me years ago that will run on pre-AGP Macs with G4 upgrades(I've run it on systems as old as a PowerMac 8600) but never have done that on this system. I should...

Do you watch the YouTube channel ActionRetro, he's always finding ridiculous and hard to find old Mac accelerators.