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My MacBook died, so...

Discussion in 'Entertainment and Technology' started by kettleoffish, Jul 1, 2009.

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  1. kettleoffish

    kettleoffish
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    After a brief while of wondering how on Earth I was going to browse EC while it's getting fixed, I ventured into my garage to see if I could find an old computer to get on here on.

    I found two such machines.

    The first - an original orange iMac.

    And, more excitingly (and nostalgically), this machine, a Viglen Dossier 486SM laptop from roughly 1992, so I speak to you now EC, from what is quite possibly the oldest machine ever to venture onto this website, it boasts:

    -Sound!
    -an Intel 486 processor, running at the lofty speed of 66Mhz
    -A black and white 6" LCD, running at 640x480
    -A floppy drive
    -a trackball!
    and, most importantly, a PCMCIA network card

    I will post photos of this beast of ancient technology once I get my 'Book back tomorrow night, it is even older than me, and clearly built like a brick shithouse to have survived my garage for that length of time :slight_smile:
     
    #1 kettleoffish, Jul 1, 2009
  2. Shevanel

    Shevanel
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    LOL That's amazingly badass XD
     
    #2 Shevanel, Jul 1, 2009
  3. kettleoffish

    kettleoffish
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    forgot to mentino, someone must have upgraded it at some point, because it's running Windows 95
     
    #3 kettleoffish, Jul 1, 2009
  4. djt820

    djt820
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    Dear god....
    *facepalm*
    Thats what you get when you buy into the Steve Jobs naziism
     
    #4 djt820, Jul 1, 2009
  5. KeithJ108

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    What was wrong with the iMac?!? :rolleyes:

    Running old (and sometimes new) microsoft OSs is just asking for trouble :lol:
     
    #5 KeithJ108, Jul 1, 2009
  6. kettleoffish

    kettleoffish
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    Nothing's wrong with the iMac - I use it sometimes for listening to music while I'm in the workshop down here, I just found this machine today though.

    and wtf about Steve Jobs naziism - so what if I use one of his company's products, it doesn't change me as a person or anything stupid like that, I jsut prefer the OS and the hardware is of very good quality (except, apparently from my power board). I can hardly fault the customer service eaither, I phoned up yesterday, made an appointment for today, took it into the store, 5 hours later I have a message on voicemail telling me it's fixed and I can pick it up tomorrow.
     
    #6 kettleoffish, Jul 1, 2009
  7. djt820

    djt820
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    Lol.
     
    #7 djt820, Jul 1, 2009
  8. Just Adam

    Just Adam
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    wow keep that laptop so when the machines take over we can still use that to communicateXD hehe
     
    #8 Just Adam, Jul 1, 2009
  9. kettleoffish

    kettleoffish
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    pics as promised (I'm on my dad's laptop).

    3rd one is for pure nostalgia :slight_smile:
     

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    #9 kettleoffish, Jul 1, 2009
  10. hiddendc4

    hiddendc4
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    that's awesome
     
    #10 hiddendc4, Jul 1, 2009
  11. starfish

    starfish
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    What the hell does that mean?
     
    #11 starfish, Jul 1, 2009
  12. pianolover95

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    :confused:



    that is ridiculous
     
    #12 pianolover95, Jul 1, 2009
  13. hiker360

    hiker360
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    Sweet,now you can hack into fort knox and steal all the money and noone will ever knowMUAHAHAHA:badgrin: :eek:did i just say that outloud?
    seriously what does it mean???????
     
    #13 hiker360, Jul 1, 2009
  14. Kenko

    Kenko
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    Oh you youngin's, so easily impressed.

    I have older computers than that. 386SX-16. Great machine.

    The PCMCIA network card isn't that big of a deal. Up until 10 years ago pretty much every laptop needed one. Another 4 years and everyone used PCMCIA for Wifi (well maybe technically Cardbus). I used a P150 as my "laptop" up until last year. I'm planning on turning it into a picture frame or something. For a 12 year old computer it has a surprisingly good battery life.

    The laptop I used before the P150 was this beast:
    [​IMG]

    8086, 640kB RAM, 20MB (mega byte) hard drive. Even has a 1200 baud modem, so it is in fact internet ready. Excellent keyboard. I used it for taking notes in high school.

    Somewhere there's a photo of Fred running EC in Windows 3.1 in a Virtual machine.
     
    #14 Kenko, Jul 2, 2009
  15. fallendream

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    20 mb hard drive.
    640kb RAM.

    and it still looks better than my grans viao...='(
     
    #15 fallendream, Jul 2, 2009
  16. KeithJ108

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    That looks like one of those word processors with built in printer that you used to be able to buy instead of a proper laptop.

    Seriously, was that thing good for anything more than word processing?
     
    #16 KeithJ108, Jul 2, 2009
  17. ProfessorLepus

    ProfessorLepus Guest

    Paperweight, improvised weapon, stick linux on it, make it a web server with a page that says "this page is served by a toshiba 1200!"
     
    #17 ProfessorLepus, Jul 2, 2009
  18. kettleoffish

    kettleoffish
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    that's a pretty sweet looking machine. I only mentioned the network card becasue without it, EC would have been a no no. Still, got my Macbook back now - they even replaced part of the case because it was a bit cracked, so I'm pretty happy :slight_smile:.
     
    #18 kettleoffish, Jul 2, 2009
  19. Kenko

    Kenko
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    My mom had one of "Those word processors" when she was going through grad school. It was a godsend for her thesis. And it wasn't instead of a proper laptop, it was because it was several thousand dollars less than even a low end desktop computer.

    And I used to run a Web server on a 486-50, that served a real site.

    Linux doesn't run properly on anything less than an 80386, so your choices for *NIX are a half assed attempt at porting Linux to 8086 architecture, or Minux. Technically Windows 3.0 will run on it, but I don't even want to try. Runs DOS nicely. Might run PC/GEOS, never tried. Boot time of less than 10 seconds.

    As far as what it can be used for, in addition to word processing (which it does very well in WP5.1 for DOS), it also runs all sorts of good DOS games, and I have Lotus123 on it, so you can do spreadsheets. I also can get it to play WAV files through the PC speaker (which for anyone that knows how the PC speaker works, it's quite a feat!)

    It also has a composite video out jack, so it can be hooked up to a television. When I did some instructing I would make monochrome slides up on my "real computer", save them as PCXs, transfer them over. Then I could have slides showing through on a television. This worked fairly well. Especially because the facilities lacked a whiteboard, chalkboard, projector screen, and most of the time an OHP. Yet there was access to a television...

    I also used it to make credits for Junior High English class movies. People, this is before Movie Maker and iMovie.

    What people forget about computers is at one time the machine sold for several thousand dollars. People paid that kind of money because it performed tasks they needed. It is every bit as good at those tasks now.

    EDIT:
    And for the T1200 I got a parallel port crossover cable so I could transfer files without having to use a god-forsaken 720kB floppy. It's actually pretty fast over LPT.
     
    #19 Kenko, Jul 2, 2009
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2009
  20. djt820

    djt820
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    Oh for the love of god.....
    WELL, I was referring to his macbook breaking and how its all fucking planned to break so you BUY MORE APPLE PRODUCTS. Theyre one of the worst companies to use planned obsolescence but theres still so many Apple fanboys. And Steve Jobs is head of Apple if you didnt know that either.
     
    #20 djt820, Jul 3, 2009
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