What's the oldest bit of kit you still have running?

[mikeprice]

Here is the pic @mikeprice has been trying to post:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]69632[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

Thanks - The Good Old Days

 

AKA the days when I knew what I was doing - before all this GUI nonsense and PCs - proper dumb terminals and users that could only do things we told them they could do!!!

 

 

none of all this power on the desktop rubbish and giving users the freedom to come up with their own ideas!!!!

[HarryMonkey]

Aahhh, mainframe computer rooms. Happy days.

[mikeprice]

Aahhh, mainframe computer rooms. Happy days.

 

How dare you Sir, -proper mini computers when there was a proper distinction!!

 

(probably about 15 of them in one room - air con was noisy!!!

but not as noisy as the line printers - especially as they had a tendency to jam on page throws if the lid was down - which had all the soundproofing - so the operators left the lids up!

[HarryMonkey]

but not as noisy as the line printers - especially as they had a tendency to jam on page throws if the lid was down - which had all the soundproofing - so the operators left the lids up!

 

When I was at ICl, we had a room with half a dozen or so line printers, enormous great things about 7 foot wide. Get them all printing at the same time and all with the lids up and you couldn't hear yourself think.

[mikeprice]

When I was at ICl, we had a room with half a dozen or so line printers, enormous great things about 7 foot wide. Get them all printing at the same time and all with the lids up and you couldn't hear yourself think.

 

I used to get phone calls at all hours from the computer room in the picture - and 2 others like it

 

One was in Preston and the only phone the operators could use to ring me was in the middle of a triangle of those line printers

and the most likely time for the systems to go wrong was also the time when all the printing needed to be done

 

and - remember - this was before the concept of dialling into a remote system was "a thing"

 

so trying to get an operator to read out a console printout line by line at 2 a.m. with only the phone to help - and with 3 line printers hammering away within feet of the phone

was "interesting"

 

 

Oh - and one of the shift leader was partially deaf - so getting him to understand what you wanted him to type into the console was also "interesting"

 

Just to make it more "interesting" the console sin questions were a fair distance from the phone

 

and - funnily enough - there "wasn't any budget" to swap the phone for a cordless one

 

many hours spend sitting on the phone with my eyes closed trying to imagine what was being said while the dog lay on the floor watching me and wondering why in the name of $deity I was up at this point and does it involve a walk/biscuit??

[googlemad]

We'll be replacing our last 1st Gen Promethean ActivBoard next week - can anyone remember when these came out?

 

I can remember doing a first big install of ActivBoards in a school about 2004/5, but I think even then we may already have been on 2nd Gen boards....

 

I was in high school 1999 - 2004 and clearly remember the rise of the smart board around Year 9/10 so 2002 - 2003ish, Geography got a posh SMART Board with different coloured pens whilst Media Studies got dumped with the Promethean!

 

As a kid back in those years it felt like the future (particulary when you then went to Maths and were treated to their top of the range OHP!), as someone who then went to work in education IT for 10 years or so the novelty rather quickly wore off trying to support the damn things...

 

In my current workplace we still have a door controller system from the late 80s / early 90s in 24x7 use although the software isn't quite that old (having said that last updated around 2008!), the 'server' is a Windows 7 VM because the communication driver refuses to run on anything higher (trust me we tried and tried and tried after ignoring the supplier telling us that!), management keep promising to look into replacing it but funnily enough then go quiet when the pounds and pence quotations come through!

[Rob_D]

Not quite "in use", but we found a Sony AVC 3200 (video camera) during the summer cleanout, and it still works.

[Dos_Box]

 

And one finger in your uncovered ear?

[FN-GM]

We have a old school clock. This connected via serial to a device essentially connects to an NTP server and keeps the clock time running. That device is 25 years old ish. The clock is much older, it wasn’t originally connected to this NTP device, that was retrofitted later and the clock was old the. Edited August 4, 2023 by FN-GM

[Netwacky87]

We have a old school clock. This connected via serial to a device essentially connects to an NTP server and keeps the clock time running. That device is 25 years old ish. The clock is much older, it wasn’t originally connected to this NTP device, that was retrofitted later and the clock was old the.

 

Would love to see a photo!

[mikeprice]

 

And one finger in your uncovered ear?

 

Were you watching???????

[smurfomatic]

I could definitely win this one, bearing in mind that we have Heath Robinson and Colossus on site!

[Deanuk]

This website still doesn't use HTTPS, does that count?

[Dos_Box]

This website still doesn't use HTTPS, does that count?

 

Behave! This is a job that we had lined up for the first week or so of the summer holidays. @ZeroHour however, has been very ill this past week or so and this has pushed it back. Once he is better, and out of bed, it will be carried out. Your logins are still carried out via HTTPS

Edited August 5, 2023 by robk

[elsiegee40]

At home… a Lenovo A720 all in one bought in November 2012 that’s done sterling service over the years, gone from Win 7 to Win 10 but is now taking a very long time to boot. It will be pensioned off shortly. I could get an SSD in it, but at this age it’s so likely that something else will fail that it’s just not worth doing! We have had our money’s worth from it!

 

[john]

Further comments / arguments on the https subject are not to be posted on here (or any other part of the forum). @Dos_Box posted an update, respect it, and if you don't like it communicate in private with him via PM or via the Contact Us option on the site where I am sure he will come back to you in due course.

 

A reminder one of our site rules is over arguing with mods and admins, we should not need to post further times to behave and respect what has been asked on this topic area!

[Deanuk]

Further comments / arguments on the https subject are not to be posted on here (or any other part of the forum). @Dos_Box posted an update, respect it, and if you don't like it communicate in private with him via PM or via the Contact Us option on the site where I am sure he will come back to you in due course.

 

A reminder one of our site rules is over arguing with mods and admins, we should not need to post further times to behave and respect what has been asked on this topic area!

 

I'm sorry John, I don't normally like to go public with things like this but your removal of posts and reply makes it look like I or others have been unprofessional and or have not respected the rules. This is absolutely not the case and is unfair.

 

You can't remove posts and imply that I or others are out of order, I have stated that I mean no disrespect or malice towards the team but I feel this is unfair.

[john]

Posts are removed when they are off topic or disagreeing with a moderator after the thread has been flagged to get back on topic. Please take this up with @Dos_Box by PM if you disagree with the moderator’s decision

[ZeroHour]

EG HTTPS - Stage 2: < 7 days. Edited August 6, 2023 by ZeroHour

[MrEprise]

At home… a Lenovo A720 all in one bought in November 2012 that’s done sterling service over the years, gone from Win 7 to Win 10 but is now taking a very long time to boot. It will be pensioned off shortly. I could get an SSD in it, but at this age it’s so likely that something else will fail that it’s just not worth doing! We have had our money’s worth from it!

 

[ATTACH]69651[/ATTACH]

 

I don't know, it might last several years more considering we still had about 48 17-year old Core 2 Duo desktops (all with original parts, bar an SSD and a RAM upgrade each) still running up until I removed them over the last 2 weeks.

[3s-gtech]

Yeah, plenty of life left. I have something like *scratches head* 250(!) left still in commission. I have a fun couple of years left to replace them before Windows 10 support ends. The earliest of them date to 2008 (heavily upgraded).

[Olliedawg]

Yeah, plenty of life left. I have something like *scratches head* 250(!) left still in commission. I have a fun couple of years left to replace them before Windows 10 support ends. The earliest of them date to 2008 (heavily upgraded).

We're still running a classroom full of Stone AIO's from ~2010 (can't remember the model off the top of my head). Had SSD replacements & memory upgraded to 8GB. Run absolutely fine but of course will need changing ready for windows 11!

 

Still waiting to see if Microsoft will extend windows 10 support at all, like they did with XP and 7

[SamanthaD]

At home… a Lenovo A720 all in one bought in November 2012 that’s done sterling service over the years, gone from Win 7 to Win 10 but is now taking a very long time to boot. It will be pensioned off shortly. I could get an SSD in it, but at this age it’s so likely that something else will fail that it’s just not worth doing! We have had our money’s worth from it!

 

[ATTACH]69651[/ATTACH]

My old Macbook Pro is the 2012 model, last one with a built in optical drive. Upgraded with 16Gb of RAM and 2Tb SSD, it's going to do me another few years yet before I let it retire on me!

[DavR]

At home… a Lenovo A720 all in one bought in November 2012 that’s done sterling service over the years, gone from Win 7 to Win 10 but is now taking a very long time to boot. It will be pensioned off shortly. I could get an SSD in it, but at this age it’s so likely that something else will fail that it’s just not worth doing! We have had our money’s worth from it!

 

[ATTACH]69651[/ATTACH]

 

My daily driver at home is a self-build from June 2012, so beat you by a few months

 

It's had SSD and RAM upgrades, the case fans have been replaced twice, and occasionally it scares the bejesus out of me and won't start after maintenance, but otherwise it's still going strong.

 

When I get some time, I will research my next box. I'm thinking something minimal and quiet like an NUC.

[psydii]

We've got a computer running that started life on XP that is now running 10. It hosts the management platform for something faciltites related, we have not de-installed/re-installed that software, but it has been through three hard disks and two PC Chassis/Motherboards. It's survived being on a 2003 domain, a CC4 domain and over to a 2012-2019 domain. I'm currently pondering how to move it to Windows 11.