thanatoid's computer is 10 years old today, Sept. 27, 2007!
(As one of my good friends in news.software.readers branded me,
I am proud to be a "reverse hardware snob".)
***
Computer custom-ordered and built by some shop in some city in
some country.
Intel Pentium 166 MMX (original)
PC Chips M572 MB (I originally got the M571, two died and there
were no more in stock but the M572 had just come in so they gave
me one)
4 x 16MB EDO RAM DIMM's (original, changed 2 of them for one
64MB DIMM about 6 months ago, total RAM now 96 MB)
Matrox Mystique PCI (original)
Creative AWE64 Sound Blaster (original)
U.S. Robotics Sportster 33.6 Fax internal modem (original)
LG CED-8080B CD-RW (upgraded from Toshiba 12x CD-ROM player 5 or
6 years ago)
8.4 GB Seagate HD (upgraded a few years ago after various drives
ranging from 3GB to 40GB in size kept on dying - so far so good)
15" Sony Trinitron Multiscan 100sx monitor (original, image
quality is exactly the same as it was 10 years ago)
Dell AT-101W switch keyboard (upgraded about 7 years ago from a
pre-Win keyboard that someone gave me)
Logitech Track-Man Marble (Omron switches replaced a couple of
years ago)
APC Back-UPS Pro 280
HP LaserJet 6L printer (original, second cartridge installed
about a year ago - I don't print much)
Beyer unidirectional microphone (over 30 years old but studio
quality)
Realistic Optimus STS 50AV shielded 2-way speakers
***
DOS 6.22/Win95B OEM (Tweaked for several years until it finally
ran the way I wanted it to.)
Last system "patch" or "update" - I put in the ME versions of
scandisk and defrag a few years ago.
***
Core applications:
(N.B. - nothing by Microsoft except the OS)
Total Commander 6.55
OffByOne 3.5a
Opera 7.53
Xnews 5.4.25
nPop 1.01
FileHound 1.2.2
Adobe Pagemaker 6.52
Edxor 1.60
Micrografx Picture Publisher 7
ACDSee 2.22
STP mp3 player
Acronis TrueImage Deluxe
TaskInfo2000 2.2
WinRAR 3.11
CDRWin 4
***
Boot time from BIOS password entry to full Windows load: 45
seconds
Overall speed - IMO, fast as heck
Crashes or hangs - only when I do something really stupid or hit
too many wrong keys at the same time.
***
What it CAN do:
Everything I need it to except music and video editing (see
below). (It actually CAN convert - not edit - music or video,
but it takes hours and hours, which is why I got the other
machine.)
What it can NOT do:
Play games less than 10 years old (but I am not a gamer),
watch/edit/convert video or music (but I have a 2GHz machine for
that). (It CAN however *record* flv video - and any audio,
obviously - as well as allow me to talk online and listen to
internet radio - although the last time I bothered with either
of those was about 8 years ago.)
Many "new" programs or later versions of old ones don't run on
95B. I find the older versions smaller, stabler, and faster,
IOW, much better. AFAIAC, there hasn't been anything new worth
using written for years. (Not counting certain new developments
like mp3 and other audio and video compression methods, DVD-
RW's, or Skype - which won't run on 95, but I have no one to
talk to anyway.)
***
Advantages:
I don't have to worry about patches, updates, crashes, latest
drivers, etc. I know the machine pretty well and don't worry
about anything going wrong (it hasn't for a very long time). I
get everything done faster than I would on an XP let alone Vista
machine (except as mentioned, audio and video which are handled
on the 2GHz machine). I get to spend money on other things.
Disadvantages:
Ridicule by people who enjoy spending several hours a week
patching, updating, or reinstalling their OS's; "learning" to
use useless new features; putting the computer in the living
room as the second Idiot Box; and throwing their money away on
bloated "new" versions of software for the most part originally
conceived by someone else in the late 80's and early 90's. I
also can't DL DVD's or use torrents, but since I prefer reading
and music to movies and TV, I don't care.
P.S.
I realize it's almost the 28th, but while I've planned this
announcement for about 6 months, I decided yesterday that I
wasn't going to bother and then changed my mind about an hour
ago. Also, I was in a different time zone, and did not take
"delivery" of the system until the 28th or 29th, so I think it's
OK. Hope you agree.
