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An 18yo Server? Meh. Try Dozens of Thirty Year-Old Laptops Still Used 24/7

posted by on Monday February 15 2016, @04:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the exemplary-mtbf dept.

-- OriginalOwner_ writes in with a an article from El Reg, reporting on some very old hardware still in use:

The can of worms we opened when we learned of the server switched off after eighteen years and ten months' service is still wriggling, as a reader has contacted us to tell of nearly 30-year-old laptops still in service.

Reader "Holrum" says he has "a couple dozen Toshiba T1000 laptops from the mid [1980s] still fully functional (including floppy drives)".

The T1000 was introduced in 1987. [...] The machine was one of the very first computers to use a clamshell form factor. [...] It also offered a rather archaic LCD display, as illustrated.

[...]The machine ran MS-DOS 2.11 on a ROM [and] came with a colossal 512kB of RAM [...] and a single 3.5-inch floppy drive.

Holrum says the T1000s are taken offline every few years for just the few minutes required to replace the NiCad batteries and give them a clean before they are returned to duty as process monitoring terminals.

Previous: Beat This: Server Retired After 18 Years and 10 Months

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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:10PM

    by Freeman (732) on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:10PM (#305292) Journal

    That's a lot less than I would have thought. One could compare it to a raspberry pi, but you'd also have to consider power for a screen as well. Raspberry Pi Power Usage: "400% CPU load, 1x USB 64GB SSD, 1250 mA (~6.25W)." http://www.pidramble.com/wiki/benchmarks/power-consumption [pidramble.com] Raspberry Pi Display (7"): "The display used 2.23 Watts. (0.43 A at 5.19 V)." That would make a total of ~8.48Watts. The real difference is that the raspberry pi has vastly superior processing power. Sure, it may not have the track record of the Toshibas, but those Toshibas won't last forever. Assuming the Pi Zero ever becomes available for purchase at a reasonable quantity for the original price, that might even do the trick. Assuming you could run them headless, the Raspberry Pi would make even more sense. Though, if not the Raspberry Pi, something else could do the trick. How about PocketChip http://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip [getchip.com] or an Orange Pi http://www.orangepi.org/index.html [orangepi.org] or something totally different? It is negligent to use such old hardware for systems that you rely on. Assuming their loss would be of little consequence, then perhaps it's time to remove them from service. Otherwise, preventive maintenance is a thing.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:12PM

    by Freeman (732) on Tuesday February 16 2016, @07:12PM (#305295) Journal

    Bah, I forgot to include the source for the comment "The display used 2.23 Watts. (0.43 A at 5.19 V)."http://hdmipi.com/ [hdmipi.com]

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"