

Ask HN: How old is your computer that you use regularly? - yitchelle

A recent post (https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6606056) about using a 6 year old laptop as the developement machine.<p>I have just retired an old Compaq with an Intel Celeron running WindowsXP with 4Gb of RAM just last year, it was a couple of years after Compaq was acquired by HP. I bought the Compaq computer is 2004. It lasted 8 years before it died. My development setup was through a terminal session and editing code with Vim.<p>So I am asking how old is your regular computer and what is that computer and its configuration<p>It will be interesting to see what is the oldest machine and its configuration.<p>Edit: corrected the typo with the Memory config.
======
pwg
My answer depends in part on exactly how you define "use regularly".

If by "use regularly" you mean utilize for direct user interaction with the
machine, then that would be a Compaq laptop from 2006 with 768M of RAM and an
AMD Sempron CPU.

If by "use regularly" mean "use to perform a task" then that would be a
Supermicro dual Pentium-2 400Mhz system with 512M that acts as a PVR
scheduler/recording driver. I've long since lost track of exactly when that
motherboard was purchased, but it was somewhere in the 1998-2002 time frame.
That puts it at somewhere between 11 and 15 years.

If you'd asked this question last year I could have answered an old PentiumPro
box (with something like 128Meg or 256Meg of RAM) that a buddy from work gave
me that was acting as an internet firewall. It likely hailed from the
1995-1996 time frame. But I retired it last year in favor of an old Pentium4
Thinkstation that I got from a local store in their "refurb" section. I have
no idea of what year the Thinkstation hails from.

------
japhyr
2013 Thinkpad T430s :)

But my linux history:

\- Started with Ubuntu 8.04 on a ~2006 Dell 600m.

\- ~2010 System 76 Pangolin PanP5

\- ~2011 Dell 1530 (work laptop, ended up using it for most stuff)

\- 2013 Thinkpad T430s.

I am hoping to stay with the Thinkpad for a long time. This feels like the
computer I've been meant to have all along.

~~~
pwg
My Linux history:

1992 or 1993 time frame with SLS
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System))
using floppies written to by a Sun SparcStation 20 because downloading 10+
1.44M floppy images over a 2400bps modem connection from the same SS20 was
just way too slow. Switched to Slackware sometime after it was released, still
a Slackware user.

Which means I've been using Linux for 20 years and Slackware for almost as
long....

------
martinshen
I use a brand new MacBook Air. Previously a 3 year old MacBook pro. Only
reason to switch: battery life. 12 hours is a major game changer for me. I
never worry about running out of juice throughout the day.

------
bennyg
2012 MacBook Pro non-Retina with a 2.9 dual-core i7, and upgraded to 16gb ram
and a 120gb SSD. That's my main computer.

My college was selling 2011 macs for 1/2 off last April as a "fire-sale" kind
of thing where they cleared merchandise before the next shipments of 2013 came
in. I bought a Mac Mini for $279 and have put 16gb ram in there to replace the
2gb stock. I primarily use that machine for experimental stuff. I run a couple
dev web services off of it for side projects I build, and do some dev on it.

------
cprncus
September 2004 Gateway laptop. 14.1" screen. Have programmed with this and
used for every other purpose for the past 9 years and 2 months.

It has very been counterproductive to use such a device for programming, but I
can't say I haven't gotten my $240 worth (since I bought it off my job after
I'd used it for 4 years).

------
byoung2
2010 Dell Inspiron 15 laptop with Windows 7 and 2GB RAM. Mainly runs Eclipse,
PuTTY and a few browsers

------
drill_sarge
Since I always partially upgrade my machine, I can tell. But the oldest piece
(aside from the case) is the Radeon HD6870. Rest is FX8320, 16GiB ram, SSD.

The oldest thing I use is probably my "travel laptop" Thinkpad T43.

------
Andrenid
Mid 2011 27" iMac and a ~8mth old Win7 PC.

I generally upgrade every 2 years, just not impressed by the new iMacs enough
to replace my current one (did SSD upgrade to current one + 16GB RAM, earlier
this year).

------
andor
I use a 6 year old Thinkpad. Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD. It's built like a
tank, and will probably never stop working. I'm planning to get something
smaller soon, though.

~~~
sawyer1708
I'm using a 3 year old T510. Same Config as yours. Lenovo build quality is
simply amazing. I'm really really rough with it and its still in one piece.

~~~
samwillis
Hi, I'm replying here rather then on you submission as it's dead and so I
can't. Your three submissions are all marked dead, you may be 'shadow banned'
or your submissions may have gotten caught in a spam filter. That's why you
aren't getting any replies. I browse with 'show dead' on and spotted it.

Edit: actually it's a a little confusing as from your submissions it looks
like you are shadow band but if that was the case I would not be able to reply
to you here.

~~~
sawyer1708
Hi. Just saw this by chance. I'm going to get HN Notify setup so that I do not
miss any more receive replies.

I cannot quite figure out what the issue is. I am not shadow banned, but it
looks like my submissions got caught in the HN Spam filter. What's really
surprising is that the submission was a simple Ask HN with no links pointing
to an external site. The topic does not seem irrelevant either. Maybe I should
post this as an Ask HN.

------
larosh
Thinkpad T42. I bought it in 2009, but it was used, so the real birthday is
2007, I guess. In 2012 I've replaced Lithium battery because old one was
completely dead.

Sinse then I am continiously looking for a new Lenovo with "normal" 7-rows
keyboard layout, but cannot find any. The last one was Lenovo x220, which is
also relatively old. After that Lenovo completely fucked up "Ins-Del - Home-
End - PgUp-PgDn" block and even removed some keys at all.

------
nether
2-y/o MacBook Air. Well, some components (most of it) are new replacements
following a spilled beverage (had drop & spill insurance). But the specs are
the same.

------
bliti
Before my current MBP(2012 model), I had a Lenovo R61e for about 5 years. It
ran Ubuntu, and still works very well (except the battery, which is toast). It
cost $400.

------
grn
I upgrade my hardware once in a few years. For the last 3 years I've been
using Core 2 Duo E7200 + 1GB RAM + 500 GB HDD. Before that I'd been working on
Pentium 200 MMX + 64 MB RAM + 20 GB HDD for around 8 years. Before that I had
Amiga 600 + 20 MB HDD. There's an adage saying: develop on old hardware and
you'll get a free profiler. ;-)

------
sejje
< 1 year old gaming laptop by Asus. I dual-boot win8 and ubuntu, ubuntu being
my primary system for dev work and general use.

------
27182818284
Late 2012.

Before that I had a 2008 MacBook that I would still use if I hadn't broken it
accidentally.

------
iends
Home: 2 year old desktop. Ubuntu. 6gb ram. 2 monitors. Work: Thinkpad t520.
Win7. 16gb of ram. 2 monitors.

------
aldanor
Early 2011 MacBook Pro 15'' i7 Quad, upgraded with a second SSD hard drive and
16GB RAM. Still works pretty good and fast, love the dual hdd hack that you
can't really do with Retinas...

(considering getting a haswell 27 imac soon though for the sake of screen
space)

------
dangrossman
2010 HP Envy 14 laptop (i5, 8GB RAM, SSD, Win8.1)

I expect to upgrade it near the end of this year.

------
caw
I use a mid-2010 13" MBP, and a Core i7 custom desktop from Nov 2008 (Vista,
then 7).

------
J_Darnley
Until 3 months ago my computer had parts ranging in age from 8 years to 3
years old.

Now it is 4 years old and younger.

I miss my old computer, especially Windows XP

------
dorfuss
I have a 4 y.o. macbook that I use for most stuff and a 10 y.o. PC with WinXP
for some other stuff (also for the sake of some old PC games from the past :))

------
redrory
Macbook Pro Mid- 2009 Upgraded to 8GB Ram

------
autotravis
> running WindowsXP with 4Mb of RAM

huh?

~~~
yitchelle
Thanks for picking up the typo. Meant to be 4GB. fixed.

------
hollerith
mid-2011 Mac mini, base model, SSD added by user.

