OT: Old programs

blink3times wrote on 7/10/2007, 4:40 AM
I have old programs, updates, upgrades and OS's dating all the way back to the days of DOS. I keep saving them thinking they'll come in handy for something.... but never use them. I even have driver disks from hardware that has long since passed into that great scrap yard in the heavens.

Well, it's time to clean house and I'm thinking I should just toss this stuff because most of it has yet to be revisited...even once. But then upon rethinking... most of this stuff can not be replaced so if I toss it... it's gone for good.

What the heck are other people doing with this stuff???

Comments

Grazie wrote on 7/10/2007, 5:01 AM
Seriously? Think of some IT museums. The HAS to be some out there needing this stuff.

G
richard-courtney wrote on 7/10/2007, 5:03 AM
Do you have a church, community college, or learning center that you can donate to?

Diskettes can be used again, and old CD's can be hung from the ceiling as "ART".
blink3times wrote on 7/10/2007, 5:10 AM
"and old CD's can be hung from the ceiling as "ART"."
==============================================

Yeah... I can just see the wife falling in love with that idea! :)
richard-courtney wrote on 7/10/2007, 5:16 AM
I won't mention the improvised DISCO ball....




(that is a ball covered in tiny mirrors, or CD fragments, hung from the ceiling
with a spotlight pointed torward it as it slowly spinned around - used in the 70's)
blink3times wrote on 7/10/2007, 5:36 AM
Disco balls.... art....

ladies and gents... ye make puns at such a serious time! Is there no one here that can see the depth of this plight? Is there no one here that can see the tear in my sole that this dilemma is stirring? Is there no one here that can relate to the aching in my heart at the sad prospect of junking such tresures?


All though I must say.... the disco ball idea does sound kinda neat! :)
ushere wrote on 7/10/2007, 5:44 AM
i use old cd"s by hanging them in the veggie garden as bird scarer's, also on fruit trees and have done for years. all i can say is they last a lot longer in sunlight than they used too!

i still have word perfect on 5" floppies (though no longer have a functioning drive), not to mention the first major credit roll i created on an aston on a 8" disk.

one wall of my studio is made up of old motherboards (quite a talking piece - breaks the ice with new clients a treat - they obviously think i know about pcs)

but what id really like is the hair back which i lost when each one of the myriad hds i have as skirting board died.

to mis quote woody, i dont believe in the hereafter, but im taking my wireless modem with just in case.

leslie
Chienworks wrote on 7/10/2007, 6:01 AM
One thing i did a while back was to burn copies of all my old 3.5" and 5.25" software disks over to CDs. I condensed about 500 floppies onto a single CD and made a couple of copies. Then i tossed the floppies. Saved a ton of room.

'Course, most of that stuff can only be installed from floppies in the A:> drive. But, should i ever really need to, i can just make floppies of that particular program from the CD and have at it.

Then again, i doubt most of that stuff would run on even the oldest PCs i currently have. DOS 6.22 wouldn't know what to do with 2GB of RAM, a DVD+-RW, and 300GB+ hard drives, not to mention Windows 3.11 trying to use better than SXVGA video.
Grazie wrote on 7/10/2007, 6:07 AM
OK! I'm in . ..

I'm looking at a DOS 3.3 install disk!

Any lower bids?

G
Xander wrote on 7/10/2007, 6:15 AM
Virtual PC 2007, let you install old operating systems and software, and its free from Microsoft.
baysidebas wrote on 7/10/2007, 9:45 AM
What are these "floppies" you keep mentioning?
Chienworks wrote on 7/10/2007, 10:20 AM
.... must .... resist .... temptation ....
Grazie wrote on 7/10/2007, 3:01 PM
Or to quote one of my Heroes: " I can resist everything - save temptation!"
Tchak wrote on 7/10/2007, 4:07 PM
I have MS DOS 3.2.

I'll have to look in my storage unit to see what else I have. I know I have one of the earliest versions of Lotus 1-2-3 and Q&A, the first programs I bought back in either 88 or 89. Can't remember.

I have an old IBM clone 8 MHz "TURBO" (my first) with a 12" RGB monitor. I swapped out one of the 5 1/4 "B" drives with a 720K 3.5 drive when it was the "NEW" thing to have.

Just can't seem to part with any of this stuff.

Tom
fldave wrote on 7/10/2007, 5:42 PM
I've got some old DOS around, including some DR DOS (remember that?). Also have Word 1.0 with documentation box. And an Atari 2600 with 35+ games that still works. And some old PCs, 8086, 286, 386.

In case DRM gets too bad, I can whip out one of my 10 year old "free" AOL disks and can still surf the net and no one will understand what is trying to connect to them with this ancient protocol.
bw wrote on 7/10/2007, 9:06 PM
I've got two CPM desktops, 8" drives and all. A tandy TRS 500, Sinclair Spectrum, Vic 20, Amiga 1000. For all I know none of them might work but cant bear to think of throwing them out. Would love to give them to a museum but cant find any interest.
Then there is the vintage radios, ham gear, black and white TVs, colour TVs, liquid photocopiers old cameras & projectors and any thing else that looked as if it might come in usefull some day.
At least I live on a farm and can keep building sheds but a bit scared the local council will notice one day (they show up on Google Earth !!!!!!!!!!!!)
The CPM has a disk with 'Spelbinder' word processor, any one remember it?
At 70 I guess I'm not going to change but time is running out to do something with it all. LOL
Brian
rmack350 wrote on 7/10/2007, 9:18 PM
Still used today. I've pointed lights at them many times.
rmack350 wrote on 7/10/2007, 9:26 PM
Oh yes, I'm intimately familiar with the problem. There are two solutions- keep them, or scrap them.

I also like to browse second-hand stores, especially the co-op type with many little booths. Yes, I like to look at all the stuff, but I also like to wonder about the person who collected it all and finally amassed so much junk that they were compelled to rent a spot to sell some of it. Why? so they could make room for new junk.

So I say scrap it so you can make room for new stuff.

Rob Mack
Steve Mann wrote on 7/10/2007, 10:18 PM
"I've got two CPM desktops, 8" drives and all"

Got you beat. I still have a few HP punch tape loaders.

I also have one of the IBM 2Mb pancake platters. It's about 15-inches diameter and weighs about ten pounds. The drive was the size of a dishwasher. It was tossed when the machine got a major upgrade to a five-megabyte drive.
AlanC wrote on 7/11/2007, 1:15 AM
Thanks blink3times.

Four or five years ago our IT Manager asked me to send him our copy of NT Server. I looked everywhere for it. Turned everything upside down and still couldn't find it. Me and some of my staff spent several days trying to find the CD but eventually decided that the IT Manager must have taken it away and forgotten that he had it.

After reading your post I started looking through all my old 3.5 inch floppies to see what old software I still had.

I waded through DOS 6.2, Windows 95 (about 19 disks) Windows 3.11 and a multitude of drivers and various utilities. And there, in one of my cases was our copy of NT Server. It was on FLOPPIES. I had been looking for a CD !!!

Thanks for helping to solve a long standing mystery.

Alan