My most prized vintage machine

[Twiggy]

I wonder, does anyone else here like to collect or work with / play with vintage computers at all?

I rather due, and have a growing collection, my oldest computer is Macintosh SE from 1986, though I have a lot that span from 1990, to the early 2000s, and between.

This here is the pride of my collection. *Pictures*

https://imgur.com/a/F7MXMCw

There's just something special to me about 486 based machines which are multi-media and DOS/early windows games capable.

This is an upgraded Compaq Prolinea 4/66. When I got it, it had no sound card, and no hard drive, but I got it a 856mb hard drive, and a Sound Blaster 16 which I then upgraded to an AWE32. I also installed a 4x CD drive from 1995 in the then empty 5.25 bay.

The base specs now are:

Intel 486DX266
ATI VGA Wonder 1mb video card (ISA)
4x CD Drive
3.5" 1.44mb Floppy Drive
16MB RAM
Sound Blaster AWE32

I've also installed a Packard Bell FM Radio card in it, and it works, though it is currently in the basement so it is picking up nothing but static and interference, however when it was set up in my room upstairs with the dipole antenna connected, it picked up a lot of stations nicely.

This thing handles DOOM like butter, even plays DUKE3D nicely, and handles most other games, even the CD based multi-media games from the early-mid 90s very well. It is a little slow on 3D flight simulators though, but still playable. I chalk that up to the video card though.

All in all, I am very happy with it.

The monitor is a Panasonic Panaysnic C1381i from 1992.

The keyboard is from an older 286 based Packard Bell, but I at least got an older Compaq mouse to go with it.

Unfortunately, while it is set up it's in the basement now as I mentioned, because my bedroom where I spent most of my time, is now full up with other, more worthy things. I wish I had more space lol.

Anyways, just wanted to share.

[axur-delmeria]

Reminds me of the computers in my dad's office in the early to mid 90s. His was a Compaq Deskpro 4/66 with 8MB RAM, but other desks had Prolineas similar to the one you have (though with lower specs).

[kfzhu1229]

I only collect laptops and my collection definitely isn't nearly as vintage as those there, but I thought I'd share anyway:
https://imgur.com/a/o5vumpI
These are from 1997-1999, with Pentium MMX 233 on the Latitude CP, PII-266 on the ThinkPad 600, and PIII-450 on the CPx.
The ThinkPad 600 I got was 4 years ago off eBay working for just C$40+20 postage from US (yes the ThinkPad 600 was that cheap 4 years ago and now you'd be lucky to pay double that), after my ThinkPad 770ED died. The rubber coating are all coming off and I have replaced the ones on the lid with a few coats of spray paint (Considering that this thing had a rough life in a US School named Roanoke City Public School, I am not surprised). Grabbed a brand new battery from Canada Computers a few months ago and it lasts 2.5 hours.
The Latitude CP and CPx I got them off Canadian Kijiji (it's the Craigslist equivalent of east Canada) for just $15 a piece as junk. The CP required just a reseat of the MMC socketed CPU and a replacement of the hard drive, while the CPx was a nightmare to work with. It has the best cosmetics but I had to swap out the motherboard (Broken USB port, desoldered ATI chip, broken RAM slots which I fixed by the oven), CPU (dead ADP3420 chip), the palmrest (touchpad ribbon cable torn), the right hinge and then fix the left hinge, as well as supergluing and hotgluing together some threads and joints. This one apparently served its later life with some seniors in their 70s and came from a dumpster from a flat dominated by seniors in Toronto (the seller told me that after I got there and paid him - smart).
The ThinkPad by far has the superior build quality because Dell used softer plastics that may have earnt its torture test survivor badges back then, but right now I am not even gonna dare try flexing its chassis.
The CPx is the only one here that has a mechanical keyboard with no rubber domes (and was criticised for its loudness by PCWorld as rubber dome and quiet switches were the hotness back then)
The Dells have their original batteries and they last 1-1.5hrs on these things still.
Now that I have fixed the Dells, those have no underlying issues whatsoever while the ThinkPad has IDE controller reliability issue where it would not boot half of the time (Sometimes hangs with a blinking cursor, sometimes gives me a bluescreen, and other times just simply freeze under Windows)

[Twiggy]

Those are some nice laptops, I have one laptop which I think is from the 80s, a couple from the early-mid 90s, one Thinkpad 380XD, one laptop from 1999, and then a laptop from 2000, 2001, etc.

[OliverSparks]

I have a Macintosh SE somewhere in the attic, I look at it as a copy of the story

[MikalE]

You guys have some really vintage machines.

All I have that would be considered vintage is my mint A31p, but it's the best of the best.

I like it for email and iTunes. I can't wait until I get a full size dock for it.