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

[yitchelle]

A recent post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6606056) about using a 6 year old laptop as the developement machine.

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.

So I am asking how old is your regular computer and what is that computer and its configuration

It will be interesting to see what is the oldest machine and its configuration.

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) 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....

[yitchelle]

Totally agreed with T430s, I have one at work with a SSD. It is the most responsive machine that I have ever used.

[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.

[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