Eulogy for a faithful XP box.

Discussion in 'Windows XP / Older OS' started by smallhagrid, Jun 15, 2020.

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  1. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

    Sep 14, 2013
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    Today is an historic day for me as it was the day that my faithful old XP box was finally dismantled.
    I cannot say exactly when it was built except to point at the time of the Athlon X2 5400 being current.
    Its basis was an 'ultra durable' MB from Gigabyte which has indeed proven its extreme durability by lasting trouble free for so many years.

    It still functioned well, but has not been needed except for the 2 very specific tasks that do not function via WINE or directly under Linux.
    One of them has a newer & better native Linux replacement now - the other I will make up for somehow, soon.

    A bit of amusement was in this activity for me when seeing the 4 separate 1GB sticks of RAM reminded me of the struggle to afford those parts back then.

    Of course I do still use XP when I wish to, via VM, but it really isn't anything I need very much anymore.
     
  2. Janie D.

    Janie D. MDL Novice

    May 23, 2019
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    My condolences. Truly a day of mourning. One I hope never to have to go through!
     
  3. Carlos Detweiller

    Carlos Detweiller Emperor of Ice-Cream

    Dec 21, 2012
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    Still fairly new stuff. One of my systems soon enters "Oldtimer" status. System is from 1991 or '92, 80386SX with 20MHz, 8MB RAM, 540MB HDD. Still works.
     
  4. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

    Sep 14, 2013
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    Actually it is a very happy thing for me to have gone all the way Linux now !!
    I have appreciated having that box sitting off to a side for months...but had to admit finally that it had become a dust collector only.

    In earlier times I also had some truly old h/w and s/w hanging around at my tiny office space (which is quite far from home), and found some collectors who were delighted to add all that stuff to their collections & gave it all to them.
    I even had a full box of original IBM model 'M' keyboards in need of TLC, and one of those guys was so thrilled that he promised to fully restore one & send it to me - and he did too - those KBs are marvels & truly last forever.

    Now the 'guts' from my former XP box are a much smaller pile here that will also eventually go to someone else when I do my next cleaning out, but the box itself is empty & headed to become scrap in favour of using the top fan style only now.

    The X3 CPUs that came after the X2 line have always been a favourite of mine - fast enough & running cool enough even for use in a non-air conditioned place.
    The X2 CPUs are still good enough for use as a dedicated NAS or firewall system, but don't do so well when it comes to running a VM, which is a very good reason (IMO) to retire that level of h/w.
     
  5. urie

    urie Moderator
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    May 21, 2007
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    Yeah I remembe rmy first pentium machine cost over £1000 back then. Before that commodore 16 and 64 and olso amigas :D
     
  6. Carlos Detweiller

    Carlos Detweiller Emperor of Ice-Cream

    Dec 21, 2012
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    I had to start with CP/M. Later DOS and Win. Changing to Linux would be very hard for me.

    A>_
     
  7. smallhagrid

    smallhagrid MDL Addicted

    Sep 14, 2013
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    Way, way back when...
    Did very basic usage with the college mainframe (~45 years back) & decided that the tech was too early in its infancy to get into...

    Later=>
    I gave CP/M a pass along with COBOL & FORTRAN, same reasons.

    Before DOS came around I had the floppy based CLI-only TRS-80 Model 1 - which was educational, but mostly a time waster until the very 1st 8086 clones came out & then=> DOS was great !!

    Exposure to the various 'Nixs, the various (genuine)Apples & eventually windoze happened for me as the different stuff arrived & then 20+ years doing IT work ever since.

    Always kept abreast of Linux developments since it came around - and now it has become so easy to use that on the few times I need to access its CLI - after being a DOS guy - its really no big deal.