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I had a 486 in 1991. If this person had one from 1999 to 2006 I'm amazed it didn't suffer repeated hardware failures. Hard drives die often. I want to believe t

I had a 486 in 1991. If this person had one from 1999 to 2006 I'm amazed it didn't suffer repeated hardware failures. Hard drives die often. I want to believe this isn't true because it's too depressing. I want to believe it's true because people deserve the benefit of the doubt.

inDigiNeous 12y ago
Why wouldn't it be true? The terms used in the article are misleading though, like many people have already pointed out. Not an OS, a shell, I don't even know if you can build an OS with QBASIC alone, maybe with some assembler support, but I don't recall qbasic supporting assembler, at least without any binary tricks ?
- orangecomputer 12y ago
  I've amended the original imgur post to reflect this. You're 100% correct, it's not an actual OS. but rather a primitive GUI of sorts that is an imitation/representation of what I perceive to be an 80s OS.
  - unexistance 12y ago
    heyya OP, I love CLI, so I really dig what you did here :D for now it runs under QBasic only?
    - orangecomputer 12y ago
      Yep, so far it's just for QBASIC. I can't see much point in resurrecting it or attempting to port it, but if I ever get into C#/C++/another modern language, I will likely focus on writing new and more interesting apps.
orangecomputer 12y ago
Today I still have a working Pentium 1 with hard disks in full operating order. As for the 486, I brought it down to my dads when I moved, and switched to using his much more modern system. It did eventually "die" in 2007-2008. My dad threw it out after the clock chip failed on the motherboard. I was pretty bummed because it sounds like a fairly straightforward fix / such a minor issue, but he's as sentimental as I and referred to it as "an old clunker".
- codezero 12y ago
  Fair enough, pardon my previous skepticism, I hope things are going better for you now!
  - orangecomputer 12y ago
    Completely understandable; My modern system has suffered enough hard disk failures to put it in the 2 digit range, and I've gone through around 7 graphics cards. Likely the result of having a computer that is constantly exposed to extremely tropical humidity and sea air. The last graphics card I had to die (only a few nights ago as a matter of fact) has rust on it, and is only a year old. They don't build em like they used to! The Pentium 1 interior blew me away upon opening it. Not a tad of corrision, rust, or even dust! Also the disks are still in top notch shape and seem to read just fine.
- robert_tweed 12y ago
  I just read that part and was slightly horrified. It's extremely unlikely that there was anything wrong with the RTC chip. What's much more likely is that the CMOS battery was flat. Usually, that's a CR2032 "button cell" that you can buy for pennies. It takes about 5 minutes to change, most of which is unscrewing and re-closing the case. At least you have your Pentium. I've still got a bunch of my old code from the 90s and I'd have a very hard time getting any of it to run on a modern PC.
Zardoz84 12y ago
I've seen a 486 machine with a QBasic program to read values from a parallel port, working perfectly on an university (on a Physics lab) in 2000 . He has been lucky that his 486 don't broke, but sometimes the old hardware is more resilient what you think. The only hard drives that I seen to die, was modern hard drives of >100GiB . However, I have here an Amiga 1200 with a little hard disk of 200MiB that it keeps working fine.
- codezero 12y ago
  Yeah. It's just amazing luck. Hope he can share more of his story. I still have a running clamshell iBook :)
ido 12y ago
I had a mac classic II (1991 vintage) that eventually stopped working in 2004-2005 or so (IIRC). Sometimes old computers live longer than average. I also had a PC XT clone from 1987 before that that I am pretty sure lived more than 10 years.

inDigiNeous 12y ago

Why wouldn't it be true? The terms used in the article are misleading though, like many people have already pointed out. Not an OS, a shell, I don't even know if you can build an OS with QBASIC alone, maybe with some assembler support, but I don't recall qbasic supporting assembler, at least without any binary tricks ?

orangecomputer 12y ago
I've amended the original imgur post to reflect this. You're 100% correct, it's not an actual OS. but rather a primitive GUI of sorts that is an imitation/representation of what I perceive to be an 80s OS.
- unexistance 12y ago
  heyya OP, I love CLI, so I really dig what you did here :D for now it runs under QBasic only?
  - orangecomputer 12y ago
    Yep, so far it's just for QBASIC. I can't see much point in resurrecting it or attempting to port it, but if I ever get into C#/C++/another modern language, I will likely focus on writing new and more interesting apps.

orangecomputer 12y ago

Today I still have a working Pentium 1 with hard disks in full operating order. As for the 486, I brought it down to my dads when I moved, and switched to using his much more modern system. It did eventually "die" in 2007-2008. My dad threw it out after the clock chip failed on the motherboard. I was pretty bummed because it sounds like a fairly straightforward fix / such a minor issue, but he's as sentimental as I and referred to it as "an old clunker".

codezero 12y ago
Fair enough, pardon my previous skepticism, I hope things are going better for you now!
- orangecomputer 12y ago
  Completely understandable; My modern system has suffered enough hard disk failures to put it in the 2 digit range, and I've gone through around 7 graphics cards. Likely the result of having a computer that is constantly exposed to extremely tropical humidity and sea air. The last graphics card I had to die (only a few nights ago as a matter of fact) has rust on it, and is only a year old. They don't build em like they used to! The Pentium 1 interior blew me away upon opening it. Not a tad of corrision, rust, or even dust! Also the disks are still in top notch shape and seem to read just fine.
robert_tweed 12y ago
I just read that part and was slightly horrified. It's extremely unlikely that there was anything wrong with the RTC chip. What's much more likely is that the CMOS battery was flat. Usually, that's a CR2032 "button cell" that you can buy for pennies. It takes about 5 minutes to change, most of which is unscrewing and re-closing the case. At least you have your Pentium. I've still got a bunch of my old code from the 90s and I'd have a very hard time getting any of it to run on a modern PC.

Zardoz84 12y ago

I've seen a 486 machine with a QBasic program to read values from a parallel port, working perfectly on an university (on a Physics lab) in 2000 . He has been lucky that his 486 don't broke, but sometimes the old hardware is more resilient what you think. The only hard drives that I seen to die, was modern hard drives of >100GiB . However, I have here an Amiga 1200 with a little hard disk of 200MiB that it keeps working fine.

codezero 12y ago
Yeah. It's just amazing luck. Hope he can share more of his story. I still have a running clamshell iBook :)

ido 12y ago

I had a mac classic II (1991 vintage) that eventually stopped working in 2004-2005 or so (IIRC). Sometimes old computers live longer than average. I also had a PC XT clone from 1987 before that that I am pretty sure lived more than 10 years.