Comments on: Adventure with Old Hardware http://mrpogson.com/2010/02/27/adventure-with-old-hardware/ One man. Closing, all the windows. Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:23:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Robert Pogson http://mrpogson.com/2010/02/27/adventure-with-old-hardware/comment-page-1/#comment-13852 Robert Pogson Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:25:54 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=1118#comment-13852 Yes. RAM is the bottleneck. The CPU sucks, too. It cannot keep up with an old man pushing a mouse. We will strip them for screws and fans and chuck the rest. FreeDOS is a possibility but the teacher wants fancy fonts and text formatting. If I had 64MB or so, it might be worth doing something with these. Yes. RAM is the bottleneck. The CPU sucks, too. It cannot keep up with an old man pushing a mouse. We will strip them for screws and fans and chuck the rest. FreeDOS is a possibility but the teacher wants fancy fonts and text formatting. If I had 64MB or so, it might be worth doing something with these.

]]> By: saulgoode http://mrpogson.com/2010/02/27/adventure-with-old-hardware/comment-page-1/#comment-13819 saulgoode Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:46:23 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=1118#comment-13819 My guess is that the 8Mb of RAM is what was killing your performance. Xorg requires about 15-20Mb to operate, so you were likely executing all of your code from disk. Nonetheless, given that more capable Pentium machines are often available for the same low price (free), there is little reason to expend too much effort on these older models. My guess is that the 8Mb of RAM is what was killing your performance. Xorg requires about 15-20Mb to operate, so you were likely executing all of your code from disk.

Nonetheless, given that more capable Pentium machines are often available for the same low price (free), there is little reason to expend too much effort on these older models.

]]> By: Robert Pogson http://mrpogson.com/2010/02/27/adventure-with-old-hardware/comment-page-1/#comment-13818 Robert Pogson Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:36:43 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=1118#comment-13818 Yes. I was disappointed. The oldest previously that I used was a PentiumPro. With 100 megabits/s it was usable as a terminal. This beast was not. I could still try networking over a serial link but it does not seem worth the effort. The CPU is 486 DX2 and cpuinfo shows 66 bogomips and that's with "turbo" engaged. ;-) Maybe students could use them to practise formatting floppies and hard drives... Yes. I was disappointed. The oldest previously that I used was a PentiumPro. With 100 megabits/s it was usable as a terminal. This beast was not. I could still try networking over a serial link but it does not seem worth the effort. The CPU is 486 DX2 and cpuinfo shows 66 bogomips and that’s with “turbo” engaged. ;-)

Maybe students could use them to practise formatting floppies and hard drives…

]]> By: Richard Chapman http://mrpogson.com/2010/02/27/adventure-with-old-hardware/comment-page-1/#comment-13817 Richard Chapman Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:22:04 +0000 http://mrpogson.com/?p=1118#comment-13817 That was an interesting blast from the past. I always wondered what it would be like to try to resurrect one of those ancient machines with GNU/Linux. Now I know. Thanks. That was an interesting blast from the past. I always wondered what it would be like to try to resurrect one of those ancient machines with GNU/Linux. Now I know. Thanks.

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