No sense in reviving old computers

On 02/16/2017 09:23 PM, Mike Easter wrote:
pjp wrote:
Bonus in keeping one of the old boxes alive is they still use the old
IDE drives and I've got a nice little stack of them here still large
enough to be usable. They work fine as shared drives for extra backups
etc. Note - it's getting harder to find external IDE enclosures for
3.5" drives most now only 2.5" or SATA instead.

Speaking of over-the-hill IDE hardware, not only do I have a stack of
IDEs from 5, 40, and 80G, I also have removable IDE trays and their docks.

Collections of gangs of USB sticks of various sizes take up a lot less
room :-)




Yep same here...
little by little I'm getting rid of the clutter though

On 02/17/2017 05:44 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 16/02/2017 3:34 AM, philo wrote:
The machine must have been 15 years old and though Win7 would install,
the CPU has no SSE2 so I was not able to install any new browser due to
lack of H/W support.

What browser? IE? Or Firefox?



IE comes with Win7 so that works but I would not want to use it.

I tried installing Chrome, Firefox, Brave Browser and Vivaldi

when none of them would install, I pulled the HD , PSU and RAM, then
scrapped the machine

On 17/02/2017 9:29 PM, philo wrote:

I tried installing Chrome, Firefox, Brave Browser and Vivaldi

when none of them would install, I pulled the HD , PSU and RAM, then
scrapped the machine

They should be installed fine. Are you using a bad copy of Win 7 ISO?
Always trust the official English ISO only, no other languages. And
don't trust those custom or tailor-made ISOs built by hobbyists.

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On 02/17/2017 10:19 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 17/02/2017 9:29 PM, philo wrote:

I tried installing Chrome, Firefox, Brave Browser and Vivaldi

when none of them would install, I pulled the HD , PSU and RAM, then
scrapped the machine

They should be installed fine. Are you using a bad copy of Win 7 ISO?
Always trust the official English ISO only, no other languages. And
don't trust those custom or tailor-made ISOs built by hobbyists.




You did not read my post, the problem was the CPU's lack of SSE2

In article ,
lid says...

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 21:40:59 -0400, pjp
wrote:

If it'll run XP I'd likely use it for one thing only. I'm in the habit
of connecting a pc to both a tv and stereo. If the unit is fast enough
to play a XVID video of 720x480 with 192Kbs audio without stuttering
while being fed over a network connection I'd find it still usable.

Wow, xvid. I used that from about 1998 to 2001. Lots of water has passed
under the bridge since then. Thanks for the flashback.

I decided that res was all I required given it's same as DVD and I am 67
I wanted to insure that regardless of time passed I'd be able to play
them on whatever's available at that time. Also filesize verses quality
is fine for me.

Especially given I still use old analog tvs and have no desire to get
anything newer until one of them stops working. I also neither subscribe
to cable or sat tv, if it ain't over the air on one of our three local
channels and I want to watch it I just wait an hour or so then download
it and watch it then instead, Couple hours delay usually at most

On 02/17/2017 05:44 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 16/02/2017 3:34 AM, philo wrote:
The machine must have been 15 years old and though Win7 would install,
the CPU has no SSE2 so I was not able to install any new browser due to
lack of H/W support.

What browser? IE? Or Firefox?


I don't know about IE, but I do have one older Pentium3 computer which
isn't being used much except to run SETI@home. Firefox won't update past
version 48 (current version is 51) saying it's because of a lack of SSE2.

BTW, Apparently Firefox will support XP through version 52, but 49+
require SSE2.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no reason
whatsoever for supposing it to be true." [Bertrand Russell]

On 02/16/2017 02:30 PM, philo wrote:

[snip]

It did not break my heart to recycle a 16 year old comptuer

I do have a 18-year-old DVR (ReplayTV 2020) that was special (since it
was my first). However, it became useless in mid-November 2016 when the
cable system went to all digital.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no reason
whatsoever for supposing it to be true." [Bertrand Russell]

On 02/16/2017 09:23 PM, Mike Easter wrote:

[snip]

Speaking of over-the-hill IDE hardware, not only do I have a stack of
IDEs from 5, 40, and 80G, I also have removable IDE trays and their docks.

Collections of gangs of USB sticks of various sizes take up a lot less
room :-)


I have one (Pentium2 class Celeron) where the motherboard is marked "y2k
compliant". That sounds like it SHOULDN'T mean it's old.

For a "hard drive" is has an adapter to use a SD card. That card has
Windows ME installed. I don't use this system much, just occasionally
when I want to see how my website looks in a very old browser (like the
IE5.5 that comes with it). Strangely IE5.5 is better than IE6 in some ways.

The oldest I have that still works is original Pentium. Too slow for
anything modern, but I have used it for FREESCO (a program that makes a
PC act as a router) to provide a dialup connection that uses my network
(I actually tested IE2 once last year, it was essentially unusable since
it doesn't send the Host: header needed by modern shared hosting). I
know someone who uses such a machine with Win 2000 to play "Spider
Solitaire".

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no reason
whatsoever for supposing it to be true." [Bertrand Russell]

On 02/17/2017 07:29 AM, philo wrote:

[snip]

IE comes with Win7 so that works but I would not want to use it.


I just installed Win 7 on a PC. It came with IE8. Did you upgrade?
However Firefox 48 should work (later versions require SSE2) and is much
better.

[snip]

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no reason
whatsoever for supposing it to be true." [Bertrand Russell]

On Fri, 17 Feb 2017 14:18:24 -0400, pjp
wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 21:40:59 -0400, pjp
wrote:

If it'll run XP I'd likely use it for one thing only. I'm in the habit
of connecting a pc to both a tv and stereo. If the unit is fast enough
to play a XVID video of 720x480 with 192Kbs audio without stuttering
while being fed over a network connection I'd find it still usable.

Wow, xvid. I used that from about 1998 to 2001. Lots of water has passed
under the bridge since then. Thanks for the flashback.

I decided that res was all I required given it's same as DVD and I am 67
I wanted to insure that regardless of time passed I'd be able to play
them on whatever's available at that time. Also filesize verses quality
is fine for me.

At the risk of sounding snobbish, I consider DVD (and analog TVs) to be
unwatchable. 720p is my bare minimum. With DVD, I cringe every time a
low-light scene or a shot of the sky comes along and the banding and
blocking raise their ugly heads. It might not be so bad with an old
analog TV because of their soft, blurry, picture, but I don't remember
clearly since I recycled all of those about 15 years ago.

You're not the only one who feels like you do, though. I have an elderly
friend who still uses a VHS VCR (!!) to timeshift her soaps, and another
friend who still has an analog TV (small) in her kitchen. She does more
listening than watching, I suspect.

--

Char Jackson

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
[]
At the risk of sounding snobbish, I consider DVD (and analog TVs) to be

You do, but in a forgivable way (-:

unwatchable. 720p is my bare minimum. With DVD, I cringe every time a
low-light scene or a shot of the sky comes along and the banding and
blocking raise their ugly heads. It might not be so bad with an old
analog TV because of their soft, blurry, picture, but I don't remember
clearly since I recycled all of those about 15 years ago.

What _angle_ do your TVs subtend at your eye pupil? I think where 5
degrees or less, SD TV is fine, and HD or more contributes little that
is discernible.

You're not the only one who feels like you do, though. I have an elderly
friend who still uses a VHS VCR (!!) to timeshift her soaps, and another
friend who still has an analog TV (small) in her kitchen. She does more
listening than watching, I suspect.

(Again, especially if it's a small one, the subtended angle is probably
relevant. Small sets look sharp.)

Last time I was in a PC store (I think this year), they were still
selling some digital photo frames with sub-VGA resolution.
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On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 14:30:20 -0600, philo wrote:

On 02/15/2017 03:12 PM, Wildman wrote:
On Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:53:38 +0100, Linea Recta wrote:

"philo" schreef in bericht
news I was given a 2ghz AMD machine with 2 gigs of RAM and a bad HD with
XP. In theory that should have been ok for Win7

I replaced the drive and installed Win7


The machine must have been 15 years old and though Win7 would
install, the CPU has no SSE2 so I was not able to install any new
browser due to lack of H/W support.

The machine has now been sent to the recycler



So it had an older processor than Pentium 4?

Intel started SSE2 with the P4 in 2001 but AMD did not support it until
the release of the Opteron and Athlon 64 chips in 2003.




Thanks for the info.

It did not break my heart to recycle a 16 year old comptuer

As long as it was not an IBM PS/2!

sctvguy1 wrote:
On Thu, 16 Feb 2017 14:30:20 -0600, philo wrote:

On 02/15/2017 03:12 PM, Wildman wrote:
On Wed, 15 Feb 2017 21:53:38 +0100, Linea Recta wrote:

"philo" schreef in bericht
news I was given a 2ghz AMD machine with 2 gigs of RAM and a bad HD with
XP. In theory that should have been ok for Win7

I replaced the drive and installed Win7


The machine must have been 15 years old and though Win7 would
install, the CPU has no SSE2 so I was not able to install any new
browser due to lack of H/W support.

The machine has now been sent to the recycler



So it had an older processor than Pentium 4?

Intel started SSE2 with the P4 in 2001 but AMD did not support it until
the release of the Opteron and Athlon 64 chips in 2003.




Thanks for the info.

It did not break my heart to recycle a 16 year old comptuer

As long as it was not an IBM PS/2!

Why? I had my own PS/2 model 30 286 10 Mhz and a borrowed P70
386 portable back then. I hated Microchannel Architecture (MCA) in the
386. 286 was OK without its MCA, but dang slow.
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On 02/17/2017 01:20 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 02/17/2017 07:29 AM, philo wrote:

[snip]

IE comes with Win7 so that works but I would not want to use it.


I just installed Win 7 on a PC. It came with IE8. Did you upgrade?
However Firefox 48 should work (later versions require SSE2) and is much
better.

[snip]




Yes , I know I could have used an older version of FF but the machine
was just too slow...I did not bother to upgrade IE .


Though I still plan to keep as many older machines going as possible, I
now know where to draw the line

On 02/17/2017 12:54 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 02/17/2017 05:44 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 16/02/2017 3:34 AM, philo wrote:
The machine must have been 15 years old and though Win7 would install,
the CPU has no SSE2 so I was not able to install any new browser due to
lack of H/W support.

What browser? IE? Or Firefox?


I don't know about IE, but I do have one older Pentium3 computer which
isn't being used much except to run SETI@home. Firefox won't update past
version 48 (current version is 51) saying it's because of a lack of SSE2.

BTW, Apparently Firefox will support XP through version 52, but 49+
require SSE2.




Yep.

I still have an XP machine that works fine...I know that nothing can be
upgraded.