The oldest pc
- Thread starter GFX^^
- Start date
SFR
Truth fears no questions
LaptopExtreme
VIP Member
Yeah a lot of things were ROM/RAM based. Check out the board, it may be worth something. I forgot what color was the more sought after, either the red or orange boards.Bobo said:I don't even know what it is, but it is before the cpu era....It is an IBM Personl System, with a 20MB hdd and a 5.25" floppy drive. I don't know what the model is, it doesn't say.but there is no cpu, just a cluster of chips.
LaptopExtreme
VIP Member
I still have my EPSON 286 also, I remember buying it with my brother for like $2000. It was top of the line back then. Had the latest Windows 2.1 with upgrade to 3.0. I even expanded the 2mb RAM to 4mb. That cost $250 for 2mb!GFX^^ said:which is the oldes pc you have, mine is a 286
Well I took apart the IBM Personal System, and it has an AMD board 
circa 1983. The AMD chips are '82, but the IBM chips are '83. I must say that it is absolutely fascinating....it used the 5-pin AT for both keyboard an mouse, and on the video card it had a serial port and said COLOR GRAPHICS (wow!) The 5.25" floppy is like 4" high, and the harddrive (which was updated) is 40MB from 1990. I will post some pictures soon.
Oh, and the board is brown with orange lines (the circuits)
edit: whoops, the 2 5-pin AT sockets are for keyboard and "cassette" I don't know what that is. I don't know where I got the idea that they had mice in '83 (duh!)
circa 1983. The AMD chips are '82, but the IBM chips are '83. I must say that it is absolutely fascinating....it used the 5-pin AT for both keyboard an mouse, and on the video card it had a serial port and said COLOR GRAPHICS (wow!) The 5.25" floppy is like 4" high, and the harddrive (which was updated) is 40MB from 1990. I will post some pictures soon.Oh, and the board is brown with orange lines (the circuits)
edit: whoops, the 2 5-pin AT sockets are for keyboard and "cassette" I don't know what that is. I don't know where I got the idea that they had mice in '83 (duh!)
LaptopExtreme
VIP Member
Yup, that's a classic. As for mobo's being highly sought after, there are some auctioners and appraisers that collect some of those old parts. I really forgot which was the more rare. I remember seeing an old 8mb HD go for about 800 bucks as a collector's item. If you find the market, you can sell anything. I'm sure if you put it up on eBay, it may not go for much, but for collector's genre it should go for a good price. I just kept mine, not for value, but for the memories.
LaptopExtreme
VIP Member
You know, I would classify the orange and brown as the same color. Let's just say "orange/brown". I just know the one i've got a mobo that has SIPP's, those were before the SIMM RAM. The Sipp RAM actually had to be soldered onto the motherboard.Bobo said:Well is that the red or the orange board? It sure looks brown to me...
A side note: if anyone has one of them giant floppy drivers (bigger than the 5-1/4 ones). I hear that's a keeper too.
Chris Chan
New Member
Man, my hardware is comparatively really new. My oldest is a Dell PowerEdge 4100/200 from 1997 with dual Pentium Pro 200MHz procs and 128MB EDO. Runs NT4 Server and thinking of getting an IDE card so I can install Windows 2000 Pro (the SCSI CD-ROM doesn't work)
zkiller
<b>VIP Member</b>
i sold all of my old machines as i got new ones. the oldest PC i still have is a Pentium 200 MMX and the only reason i never sold it is because the mobo is fried. lol. i wish i still had some of my old machines though, especially those that i had before the IBM compatibles. 
Heres my old PC:
Old 28 pound Compaq Portable, the first computer from Compaq.
"The Compaq Portable was similar in performance to the IBM-PC with a 4.77 MHz 8088 processor, 128k of RAM, a single full-height 320k 5-1/4" floppy disk, and a built-in 9-inch green monochrome monitor. The complete system sold for $3000"
Old 28 pound Compaq Portable, the first computer from Compaq.
"The Compaq Portable was similar in performance to the IBM-PC with a 4.77 MHz 8088 processor, 128k of RAM, a single full-height 320k 5-1/4" floppy disk, and a built-in 9-inch green monochrome monitor. The complete system sold for $3000"
LaptopExtreme
VIP Member
Hey, I remember that one. It was awesome because the keyboard popped off the front just show the monitor and disk drives. Very "compact". It was simply amazing...
Got rid of my IBM XT, VIC 20 and two C-64s... too much stuff to lug around.
Oldest I have right now is a 486SX with 4 1MB SIMMs in it.
The computers I used to work with at work were ancient, though-- Harris H100 24-bit mainframes (circa 1978) with a whopping 512K of memory and HP-7906 18-inch split hard drives (one fixed, one removable, 5MB per platter). .
Those were the new models... don't remember the designation of teh older computers, but suffice to say they used punched tape for primary storage and both systems had card-reader controllers for emergency compiling.
Oldest I have right now is a 486SX with 4 1MB SIMMs in it.
The computers I used to work with at work were ancient, though-- Harris H100 24-bit mainframes (circa 1978) with a whopping 512K of memory and HP-7906 18-inch split hard drives (one fixed, one removable, 5MB per platter). .
Those were the new models... don't remember the designation of teh older computers, but suffice to say they used punched tape for primary storage and both systems had card-reader controllers for emergency compiling.
Apokarteron
banned
I used to have the old Amstrad which ran on MS-DOS, till now I have the Apple Centris 660AV ( The first computer that had video music support/editing) came out at 1991 but still fantastic...
