Save Your Old Computers

[Air Art Girl]

I have a $10,000 engraver running on our oldest computer that is dying a slow death. This old thing takes forevvvvvvver to boot up, slow as anything, both CD drives will not open, usb ports in front will not work, gives us "Can't find a hard drive" message....ect..... We kick that damn thing and then it works better. (really...we kick it)
Anyway, called Xenitech to see if there are any updateable drivers or anything to put the engraver on a different computer. Answer NO. But......for only $6,000.00 I can upgrade the electronics to run on a newer computer. Ha...for $8,000.00 I can get a new one.
So, found a "newer" old computer and am going to transfer everything over. Am planning on finding about 3 that will work and just keep them stored for that rainy day when we have to kick the "newer" old one to keep things going.
You never know when you will need those old parts so hang on to them.

[Craig Sjoquist]

well my 1998 pent2 computer still works ..but your reminder makes me wonder about the extra HDs and ram I sold off

fonts have rights

[BSshop]

i had the same problem a month ago, i finally got tight-arse partner into buying a tower package off of tigerdirect. built it and installed win98 and works like a charm, not to mention alot faster, total cost - $275 alltho i still had all the old ops and software. Still have the dinosaur tho just in case

[mystysue]

airart.. I feel your pain..
my vision engraver runs on a old computer that is loaded with windows 95 and the program runs on DOS.... We have a couple of old puters here at the house just in case.. that we will use if need be..
we also have a very old graphtec plotter that runs on signlab 5 and windows 98 lol.. But if that gives up and dies.. at least i have other plotters.. Its the engraver that worries me the most.

[Air Art Girl]

I can always switch over to my laser engraver to do awards but I wouldn't be able to do routed plastic signs and engrave on the back of medal awards. The old one is working good that last 2 days but just getting the other one ready.

[petepaz]

about 8 months ago we where cleaning and we threw away our
mac LC (only about 13 years old) but we still have our power mac 7200 just to get old files off from time to time

[jiarby]

I passed on an old Dahlgren engraver for that very reason a few months ago.

Old PC's are easy to get, buy two and keep one on a shelf.

We laser everything, but would like a rotary to bevel edges of ADA lettering and make trophy plates.
Sometimes rotary is just the right look.

I used to be an IT weenie and tool care of old machine tools (Lathes, 5-Axis Mills, etc...) and we had to keep some of those PC-XT's on the shelf running DOS to be a machine controllers. They charge 100k's to upgrade controllers on some of those things!

At a Motorola wafer Fab (another old IT gig) I came across a Tandy 286 that was there soley to run some home brewed run-time calculation basic program that now one knows how it works and can't re write it.

I'd just save your sheckels and buy a new one when budget permits.

[kraigsnowden]

well my 1998 pent2 computer still works ..but your reminder makes me wonder about the extra HDs and ram I sold off

fonts have rights

Ha, we've still got an ORIGINAL Packard Bell w/ Win95 on it, and it's got all our customers files on it from the first jobs we did. It's nuts. The CMOS battery went dead once, but other than that, we haven't done a thing to it. It's not on the internet (obviously), so long as the HD holds out, we're good to go. We backed it up about a year ago, hooked another drive up inside there, pulled some stuff over...but it's got no USB's or anything, so it's not easy to backup. Gotta love the original Gerber software.

[mystysue]

my vision engraver is a real money maker. and with the city sending us customers for electrical plaques several times a week.. Its a must have at the shop..I guess i should get a machine with the software backed up on it.. just incase..

[salvauser]

I run a small cnc cutter with a 486. The only thing is you have to transfer the gcode in a 3 1/2" disk. But it runs great.

[pacmn]

give it one more kick , buy a new one and downgrade the OS ,Should Work

[Air Art Girl]

give it one more kick , buy a new one and downgrade the OS ,Should Work

It won't run on a new computer. But, got a newer "old" computer and getting it ready.:Big Laugh

[THATgirl]

you sound like me. I have 3 computers 'just in case'. I don't have an engraver, but each computer I have seems to have a mind of it's own. Drives me nuts. And I too buy new 'old' computers.

[JimJenson]

It won't run on a new computer. But, got a newer "old" computer and getting it ready.:Big Laugh


Perhaps it will run on a win95 system, booted in MSDOS mode. I use this to run an old machine I have.

[Air Art Girl]

The problem is it has a PCI card. I got a great backup computer now. Problem solved.

[jiarby]

yeah...

Try finding a PC with some EISA or VLBUS slots these days

[SirSlarty]

My Commodore 64 still works.

[hilltopper]

I am a teacher in Kentucky. I have had good luck contacting school systems about their outdated computers. Sometimes for a small donation they have let me get parts or whole systems. My latest purchase was an IBM laptop that will run Cadcam and autocad. Cost me $50.

[Graphics2u]

Finally I have a good reason to give my wife for that pile of old computers in our basement!!! I just hate to throw them away!:smile:

[slapakiss]

we have a really old computer here at the shop.... it makes popcorn noises from the tower so it don't get used that often cause it's very annoying

[Cadmn]

could some one explain why it takes an old computer rather than just old operating system. XP will run a win95 mode that will run most things needing to run in 95 or 98 etc.

[kraigsnowden]

We took an XP computer, and tried to send it back to Win 98SE and that didn't go to well. It just crapped all over itself. We got it up and runnin'...but it's only got like 16 colors, and we can't network it...which is mainly what we need.

[Air Art Girl]

it's not the operating system. It's the mother board and the PCI slots and other special cards that need to go into the computer. No more serial or parallel ports which need converter boxes. I still have software with no interfacing with vista yet. Obviously building a computer is better then off the shelf but with some of the older stuff I have, it's got to go on an older computer.