Thomas Dineen <tdineen2...@gmail.com> wrote:
This whole thread is INSANE!!!
Old computers of this generation are so slow that they would be
USELESS!
On 5/8/25 11:16 AM, Charles Curley wrote:
Well, yes. But the original question was whether one could install
Debian on it, not whether it would be useful to do so. People do a
lot of things that aren't useful. Like argue in email threads.
Quite right, Mr. Curley. And whether antique hardware is "useless" is
entirely dependent upon what one is doing with it. I would agree that
installing any even remotely current release of Debian (or any other
kind of *nix) on hardware over a decade old probably doesn't have much
practical benefit, and is more of an exercise in seeing what's possible.
But there are plenty of very old, but very good, applications that
simply will not run properly on the newest hardware. Then again, because
of their age, they don't *need* the newest hardware. I can say, from
personal experience, that Xerox Ventura Publisher will run just fine on
an 8MHz 8086 box, such as an old Tandy 1000SL, running DOS 3. On my
DOS/Ubuntu dual-boot, on which Linux is so slow as to be barely usable,
Ventura runs so fast on the PC-DOS 2000 side that scroll bar arrow
buttons become unusable. But I once tried running it on a box that was
state-of-the-art about a decade ago, and it didn't run at all, at least
not in any remotely useful way.
I spend my Saturdays, BTW, docenting at the International Printing
Museum. Where I regularly run presses and linecasting equipment that is
older than I am (some of the presses are around a century older than any
living human being), yet still perfectly serviceable. And I'll add that
if you pick the right day to visit the Computer History Museum, in
Mountain View, California, you can see live demonstrations of an IBM
1401, a DEC PDP-1, and an IBM RAMAC 350 hard drive, all restored to full
working order.
--
JHHL
"Luddites of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your
upgrade-treadmills!"
