I was just wondering what the oldest piece of computer software or hardware that people own is. The reason i'm asking is that I was clearing out one of the cupboards earlier and find a complete edition of Dragon Naturally Speaking Edition 1 complete with the dragon Naturally Speaking mobile recorder that it came with in the original box. was wondering if anyone had anything older that they hadn't realised that they still had until tidying up one day. yes before you ask I was so bored that tidying up seemed like a good idea.
Last year when poking through my dads stuff (cant remember why) i found a copy of windows 3.1 on floppies which im fairly sure he'll still have. That and what i later found out was a serial mouse, i found this out when i asked him what the weird connector it used was. He laughed. These are possibly the oldest computer related things ive encountered
Got it from a thing called free cycle, since fixed the screen and when ever i get around to it reinstalling dos. It's a Texas instruments Travelmate LT286/12 Other then that some old HP, in our networking class we have some ancient parts.
WE have the PCs my dad started his company on back in 1989. Because he was a startup then the PCs were about 5 years old in 1989. He has them for keepsakes on what is a thriving business.
Apple IIc (1984) with a TON of working 5.25" floppy disks, external 5.25" floppy disk drive (also has an internal drive), 9" green monochrome display, and an early Apple dot matrix printer that still works and I have a spare ribbon cartridge to replace the hardly used one in it. I just need the right feed paper. I have A LOT of Where in the World is Carmon San Diego games. Including USA edition, USA Classified edition, Europe Edition, and North Dakota Edition, but that is not working. The Europe and USA editions still have their original packaging and manuals. Got it all for free from my school. I learned how to type on an Apple IIc when I was in 2nd grade, I'm so happy I was able to grab one of them when they were tossing them. I also have a Mac SE with HDD in poorish condition, the screen has burn in and the case is yellowed. (1987) Mint condition Color Classic (1992). I might post pics because now I feel like playing with them! lol
I think I have a old Super Nintendo layer around here somewhere and I think it has Duck Hunter with one or two guns
Systolic Systems PC 100. It's an external arithmatic unit that was attached to an old IBM terminal. Unfortunately we don't have the terminal anymore because it took up too much space and we didn't know that this went with the terminal before we got rid of it. Unfortunately this is the most relevant document I could find on the device. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=01104927 Additional references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systolic_array EDIT: Ohh, and I think the newest old software I have is a copy of OS/2 on 5.25 floppies. (with logo stickers and manuals in box) EDIT 2: We have an old HP nixie tube thermometer with aluminum cased platinum resistive temperature probe on 50ish feet of shielded coaxial cable.
I found a 2kbps (kilo BIT per second!) modem in my grandfathers attic. His old software company used to have offices in Texas (USA) and Reading (UK); he said they rented a pair of twisted wires that ran direct from one office to the other (repeaters along the way I guess), and these 4 modems / 2 lines could provide Real Time Flight data/scrolling text on 64 screens! They were about the size of a Carry on hand luggage bag.
I've got a ZX Spectrum 3+ 128K with the floppy drive attached. I'm sure I've got an Acorn Electron and a Spectrum 48K up in the loft too. Ahhh, happy memories.
Pretty sure there's a 486 cpu hanging aorund here somewhere. Used to have lots of old hardware but had to bin most of it as we were going to move 6 years ago, but never bothered in the end.
