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Should Pentium II/III Systems Have a Forum?

Should Pentium II/III systems have their own forum?

  • Yes

    Votes: 14 66.7%

  • No

    Votes: 6 28.6%

  • Unsure

    Votes: 1 4.8%
  • Total voters
    21
  • Poll closed .
Bentendo64 said:
I wonder if they'll ever catch on as a hobby like the stuff we deal with on these forums. Once the support for them ends, they essentially become a brick. There's no official way to install an OS on them, so I have trouble seeing them becoming anything more than a static museum piece. I think they tend attract a different crowd anyway.
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I agree. If you can't work on it, what's the point?

All laptops and desktops are on some level repairable/restorable to the average joe. If something breaks on that vintage ipad, it becomes more of a brick than it was already.
 
VERAULT said:
There are literally dozens upon dozens of videos with clickbaity titles in photos of young guys in their 20s and thirties clamoring and bragging to be able to fix these things I constantly have to remove them from my YouTube feed along with the same age group guys working on Pentium 4 machines with the obviously incorrect retro or vintage computer titles. So yeah plenty of people making sacrifices to the altar of jobs and the like.
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I get that you’re not part of that group who’s in to that stuff but I don’t see what you’ve got to trash on the people who are…

As for collecting “vintage” (I wouldn’t call them that!) smartphones and that sort of thing, there is already a community on it. Mainly because of the same reasons we’re into vintage computing. Nostalgia, playing old games, enjoying what we once used. As a younger member myself who grew up with this stuff and enjoys repairing and using them again, this is why. The rationale is the same.

As for keeping them running, it’s more difficult than a modular computer, but possible. I’ve done battery replacements, other repairs, and you can reflash the software in most cases. There’s ways of getting around services that no longer work. Hardware and software hackers will always find a way. I also don’t see anyone trying to call an iPhone 4 or something like that “vintage”, usually people call them “legacy iOS”. You get them jailbroken, set up to sideload apps, then use it for old mobile games. Mobile games have a “certain reputation” today, but the early ones could be pretty good before business interests took over and ruined it all.

There’s a much bigger community around old iPods as well. They’re generally easier to work with and fix, and people including myself like using them as a dedicated music device.

It doesn’t have a place on this forum though.
 
3lectr1c said:
I get that you’re not part of that group who’s in to that stuff but I don’t see what you’ve got to trash on the people who are…
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Because I abhore these devices and what they have done to our society and will feel this strongly about it until my dying breath....
 
Depends on the platform. There is such a thing as a Linux cellphone, albeit not very popular. My FireHD tablet can host Debian, not Android. I don't know if alternative software is available for my old Kobo e-paper reader, however.
 
My original question was never answered. If you're going to dedicate a forum to PII and PIII, where does my Via C3 system fit in? It will boot DOS and Windows XP, as well as various flavors of Linux, so it's definitely X86.
 
I have another perspective to consider on this topic. What do we use vintage systems for most? Games. There's not a ton of people out there clamoring to build a retro 486 so they can run office productivity software on metal. Mostly its either the physical action of restoring/repairing old stuff(itself highly rewarding) or its playing games.

Ergo, instead of separating things by processor type, we should be separating by graphics interface. EG AGP systems, PCI systems, and ISA. Anything PCIe or later is definitely not "vintage" or "retro".
 
Chuck(G) said:
Depends on the platform. There is such a thing as a Linux cellphone, albeit not very popular. My FireHD tablet can host Debian, not Android. I don't know if alternative software is available for my old Kobo e-paper reader, however.
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If I ever find my Zaurus I'll really want to get it working again.

Chuck(G) said:
My original question was never answered. If you're going to dedicate a forum to PII and PIII, where does my Via C3 system fit in? It will boot DOS and Windows XP, as well as various flavors of Linux, so it's definitely X86.
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How well does this thing boot XP? Cyrix CPUs are fascinating.
 
I play my fair share of games…but, I was just in the middle of installing Office 95 as I read your message :)
IMG_6205.jpeg
 
VERAULT said:
Not much of a gamer anymore. Just like old hardware. I like repairing it much more than using it.
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This appears to be my curse as well. Spent forever painstakingly building, fine-tuning a vintage gaming PC, only to leave it collecting dust while I began working on an even older system.
 
3lectr1c said:
I play my fair share of games…but, I was just in the middle of installing Office 95 as I ready your message :)
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I still use office 2003 as my daily-driver. If it turned out 2000, 97, or 95 ran any better on modern boxes, I'd change over to it :p 2k3 sometimes plays badly with the 4k monitor.
 
hunterjwizzard said:
I still use office 2003 as my daily-driver. If it turned out 2000, 97, or 95 ran any better on modern boxes, I'd change over to it :p 2k3 sometimes plays badly with the 4k monitor.
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2010 is my favorite Office release, but it’s what I probably used the most before G Suite took over so I’m probably biased. 2003 would be a close second.
 
3lectr1c said:
2010 is my favorite Office release, but it’s what I probably used the most before G Suite took over so I’m probably biased. 2003 would be a close second.
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I simply could not stand the ribbon interface. Was and still is the bane of my existence(have to fight with it at work). Tons of other things versions post 2003 I just can't deal with or turn off.
 
Ah interesting. I personally really love the ribbon UI. To each his own though, I can see disliking it. As with most UI things where some love it and some hate it and want the old way back, I don’t know why companies never just make it a choice… happens too darn often.
 
The T3100e/40 has one of the best keyboards I've ever typed on, period. Wouldn't mind at all using it for serious word processing if getting the documents off of it wasn't such a pain in the @ss since the floppy drive started acting up.
 
hunterjwizzard said:
I still use office 2003 as my daily-driver. If it turned out 2000, 97, or 95 ran any better on modern boxes, I'd change over to it :p 2k3 sometimes plays badly with the 4k monitor.
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Yep me too. Cannot stand the ribbon. It was the death of functionality. Too bad Star Office went the way of the Dodo.
 
Star Office lives on as LibreOffice, which works pretty well. And no ribbon.
 
Plasma said:
Star Office lives on as LibreOffice, which works pretty well. And no ribbon.
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I thought they were two completely different applications/history. But yes I use libreoffice too, Its great.... except for small things like printing labels. I still have to resort to msoffice 2003
 
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