TalismanRich
Well-known member
I've got a 486 box that started out as a 486-25 and morphed into a 486-100 with a replaced motherboard, processor and memory. It had DOS, and got Windows for Workgroups 3.11. It got upgraded to Win95 which still runs on it today. It's got a tape drive and a couple of old hard drives, 3.5 and 5.25" floppies, a network card and a SCSI port for a scanner. When I purchase it in the early 90s, it was about $1800. With the "upgrades, I've probably got over $2500 in it. It still runs, but essentially, it's JUNK now. It was good for running old DOS and Windows games in it's day. I played a lot of Diablo and various war games with friends, spent a lot of time on Compuserve and GEnie with it, but it's time is passed. I keep it for the occasional time I need a floppy drive (about once every year or 2).It's not really "fascination" like restoring an older car. It's more that the stuff I spent good money on is essentially junk now. That pisses me off. It was good enough for me then it would be good enough for me now but it's lifespan is essentially limited. How long can I keep it going?
Oh yeah, I've built 3 other computers since I bought that one, and bought 2 more prebuilt desktops, plus laptops. The P2-800 was nice, the P4-2G was a great gamer. All but one still run today. But they are essentially worthless.
It's not a lot different from the new electric stove that I'm looking to buy next week. Three of the 4 burners on the old one are still working. But I can't get new parts, and the wiring on the hood is going bad. Or the 27" Sony TV that I bought and was still working nicely, until they decided to stop broadcasting the old analog VHF/UHF signals. The $900 that I paid for it in the 90s is more like $2000 today.
Eventually, you just say "enough" and move on. I keep looking at new computers. For $500 I can get something that is more than twice as fast as the computer I'm using for audio/video today.
But it's fun to get old stuff to work. Let us know if you get it working. I'm sure there are others out there with Firewire gear that they would like to resurrect.