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[Roy J. Tellason]

On Saturday 05 August 2006 11:59 am, Ray Arachelian wrote:
> Don Y wrote:
> > Don't confuse consumer "peecees" with other modern machines.
> > (what's the MTBF on that 15 year old disk drive from your 386sx??)
>
> Depends on the drive.  I've had modern 80GB, and 160GB drives die on me
> after only about a year of use (funny how they go just past the
> warranty!).  These were well taken care of drives.  Meanwhile I have
> several 5MB 5.25" full height Seagate drives for my Lisa that are nearly
> 25 years old - and they still work, though they sound like jet engines
> when I turn them on.

Speaking of big old clunky drives,  I have a couple of those around here that 
I have no use for -- they're 5.25" FH,  SCSI,  and I'm told around a gig 
each.  There are some terminators and such on one that aren't on the other, 
and of course the jumpering is different (but there _are_ jumpers).  Anybody 
interested in taking these off my hands?  Please?  Feel free to contact me 
offlist...

> The real problem with ancient x86 hardware is cost per watt.  I don't
> mean the CPU, I mean the entire machine.   A modern machine runs a lot
> more efficiently than an old 386, even though Intel CPU's were until
> recently notorious for consuming lots of power.  There are very few
> things I can't do with a modern machine that I could do with an old 486
> or 386 - even if it has to be inside a VM or emulator.
>
> That said, until very recently, I used a Pentium I 100Mhz with 64M of
> RAM as a router.  Ran beautifully, and it served better as a router than
> taking up space in a junk yard.

Indeed.  I am currently using (and sending this stuff through) a 486dx2/66 for 
a firewall/router.  And when I get done with that one for whatever reason I 
have plenty more similar hardware to "use up" before I move on to the 
Pentium-class hardware,  of which I also have plenty.

> I replaced this with another aging machine - a PIII running at 500Mhz,
> which only uses 100Watts more - but I can certainly get a lot more out
> of it.  So that old machine certainly cost me more to run than the new
> one in terms of performance for electricity used.  I certainly don't
> need a 2Ghz AMD64 with 4GB of RAM for use as a router.  Today.  In 5
> years from now, my desktop will be very likely be my router.

A P-III is "an aging machine"?  I guess I'm still *way* behind the times,  
then...  The "workstation" I'm typing this on is a Celeron 366 (though I have 
a few faster boxes on hand that I really do need to get into the picture here 
when I can stop *using* it long enough to do some upgrades :-) and the 
"server" here is a K6-200...

Got a couple of P-II boards around,  but no P-III -- and isn't that the one 
where they introduced the processor serial number?

<...>
> A few of the ancient x86 line have some historical value.  The 1st IBM
> PC, the Jr, the 1st laptops, the 1st portable PC, and so on are
> collectibles because they are the 1st of something.  But a generic white
> box 386, meh.

I still don't intend to throw 'em out until they're all used up.  :-)

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin