What's the oldest computer setup you still use because it works, dammit?

I saw a video of Fatboy Slim showing how he loaded samples for songs on an Atari ST, and it looked like he was still using it to this day,
and that got me thinking... well why not?

A lot of older setups still probably work better than what we have now. What's your oldest that you still use?

Are we talking about music production or general computers? (not that it matters in my case because my main music workstation is a Win 10 PC I built earlier this year)

Anyway, this AudioPilz video, er, 'ticks a lot of boxes'...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYkGCwno6qA

I use a decade-old setup for music...Cubase 5 on a Windows 7 desktop (from 2010 or 2011) that's disconnected from the internet because, well, it just works. And adding new plugins (and hardware synths) helps me keep things relatively fresh.

It absolutely has its limitations (mostly around warping/pitch shifting), but anytime I try a new DAW I get frustrated with not being able to do basic editing & arrangement quickly, and even upgrading to a new version for a few hundred bucks doesn't seem worth it since I don't care about any of the new features.

I write code in vim, which, while under active development, is a 30 year old program based on a 45 year old program, because that's what I've been doing for 17 years, since literal adolescence, and the upfront cost of learning a new tool would drive me insane

Also while it's kind of a pain to put something on a usb anytime I want to transfer it to/from my music computer, I really believe keeping it offline has extended its lifespan. Possibly indefinitely. Like, it's a closed system that runs as fast as the day I got it.

xp

yeah keeping it offline is wise!

Not a computer but I've been using REAPER since late 2007, after Audacity refused to play any of the audio for the tracks on an album I was working on at the time.

audacity does seem to be getting wonkier for a supposedly no-frills ethos.

way xp
I meant in general, but keeping ancient workhorses around does seem like it lends itself to music production
I thought this thread would bring out the diehard wordperfect fans, though.

Oh I do have some writer friends who keep old Macbooks because of the specific version of (whatever word processing program). They insist that they can't write using the newer versions and will have to keep buying old laptops.

xp I used WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS up until 1997.

I have a windows 98 PC that I keep around in order to convert a client's files that run on an OS 9.2 imac to something I can then convert to a program running on Windows 7 or 10 ...

keeping a PC build from 2015 frozen in time with a copy of ableton on it that i understand and don't care to update

that’s advanced lifing right there

I'm thinking of getting a purposely - for cheapness reasons - as old as possible laptop so I can play Starcraft 2 and CS:GO and nothing else. Just need to figure out how old it can be and still manage that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDn7ZDcx9w0

Reviving old Ataris/Amigas/Macs for music production is a bit of a thing these days.

i just threw 16gb of RAM and an SSD into a 2011 Macbook and it works great

my 2011 mac mini still works great! video editing and blender etc are out of the question though which is kinda weird given that i have definitely edited video on less capable machines like 10 years before that computer was manufactured

enjoyed that jungle video, thanks for posting milo

Until April this year my personal laptop was a 2009 HP

Used almost exclusively for a football management' simulator from 2002

xp I found an Akai S950 locally but as of yet I have not thought about purchasing a computer old enough to drink

I have an old amiga a500 set up next to my main pc area, just for kicks really - I've got a lot of old games and magazine disks that feature free apps and pd stuff. I have a few spectrum +2 machines but i'm running out of plug sockets and space in general for all these things, so i keep those in storage.

I picked up an Akai S2000 for dirt cheap - the plan was to grab all my old samples but in the end half the floppies were corrupted after decades at the back of a cupboard. I also found an old Zip disk of samples but it turns out Ebayers are wise to old samplers needing SCSI zips, and the 250 drives now go for probably more than they originally cost.

I was briefly tempted to get an old Mac G3 to hook up via SCSI and use as an editor before sanity prevailed, I only got it to grab samples and Ableton drum racks are a billion times more convenient. Its now hooked up to an old Octapad II to use as a drum machine, and I just sample sounds I want via the front inputs. Its all completely pointless and unwieldy but its pretty nice to be able to fire it up without a computer so its staying for now. It also makes great 90s timestretch noises.

because my mother never throws anything away, she has (at the very least) an XP laptop. but if you turn it on it will autoload and try to update everything from norton to office 2002

I had a computer with Windows 95 that I used up until 2011 or so. It was still going strong but eventually got a bit too selective with the websites it allowed me to access.

Plug a Mssiah cartridge into a 1982 Commodore 64 and you gain MIDI control over its sound-chip, which is an excellent little three-voice analogue synthesiser.

2009 17 inch MB Pro running Snow Leopard and all my fave (ancient) music software. New motherboard installed in March. Purrs like a Cheshire Cat.

My main computer is a 2015 MB Pro running Sierra. I refuse to go near newer Mac laptops.

got a commodore 64 sitting right next to my brand-new ryzen-5800 based box

nice

i looked up how much my amiga 1200 is worth on ebay a while ago and the Blizzard acceleration card that's in it was worth more than actual amiga.

ma has got a lovely black 4:3 screen laptop in a drawer somewhere at home which would make a great pi laptop if i had the skills.

Pete Cannon vs Amiga 1200 jungle tracks are brilliant, I am hoping he will release a compilation of them all at some point.

My oldest, still in use machine : HP mini pc/workstation thing running Win XP, bought about 14 years ago, and still works really well.
main reason is because its connected to an old scanner that i use for documents.
i don't use it for anything else really, but it does have a full licenced copy of Office on it, that i have used recently as i never bothered to get Office for my laptop.

oh, and i have an Amiga 1200 with ext. HD etc. that i booted up last year to make sure it still works (it does !)

This Rusko vid (running an old version of Acid) is kind of infamous:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCfn8P2kBXM

Four Tet used to keep an old laptop around just to run Cool Edit Pro.

Also I'm kind of shocked that I can't find a video where someone is trying to remake/reverse-engineer a Burial track using only Audacity.

i've got a 2011 macbook modified with 16gb of ram and an SSD hooked up to my stereo - using a USB audio out because I fried the headphone jack - which runs itunes and spotify

i've also been using vi / vim / gVim / macvim / neovim for almost 20 years now and I'm pretty sure my vimrc file has moved from computer to computer over that time and has settings that I originally typed over a decade ago. Same with my .bashrc (now .zshrc) file - I aliased "cl" to "clear" in like 2001 and have kept adding to the same file since.

i've been trying to get my hands on an amiga for a bargain but they just weren't popular enough in the states :(

(i used ed on teletype terminals in 1986 (for 1 lesson) and then proper vdu with vi, which is 34 years now. i tell all the kids at work that it gets easier after the first 20 years.)

Four Tet used to keep an old laptop around just to run Cool Edit Pro.

I always managed to get Cool Edit Pro working until a recent Windows 10 update, like this year, finally made it stop working and haven't been able to fix it. Have been using Audacity but it's just not the same.

I still use cool edit pro for the easy multitrack recording including internal audio

essential for podcasting

reaper does this too iirc

the answer to this thread is notepad

the other answer is winamp

Anyone have interesting setups with virtual machines/in-browser emulation?
This got me thinking...:
https://infinitemac.org/

In answer to OP: 2013 Dell running Win7

I'm finally taking steps to transition off the Dell desktop I got for music in 2011, Windows 7, Cubase 5, firewire, etc.

2014 iMac running Catalina

HP Pavilion Slimline Media Center PC bought in 2006 (ish) with XP.
Only use it for ripping cds that my W10 gets grumpy with.
but it still works like a dream.

In answer to OP: 2013 Dell running Win7

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, August 3, 2023 4:26 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

2008 Dell running Vista! Pretty much in storage these days tbh but may bust the old girl out later this year.

that Infinite Mac site looks amazing, might have to put it to the test with some old HyperCard stacks

I still have to use an old 2011-era Macbook for DVD rips

I have a 15 year old FireWire Mac Mini (running iMovie HD) along with some 20 year old analog->digital converters (Sony DVMC-DA2 from when they still made quality gear). It’s still the best quality way to digitize VHS tapes. I’m totally dissatisfied with all the cheap USB shit on the market.

some years ago we gave our son my wife's internet-disconnected 2009 macbook to run logic pro 7 and he's still cranking out tunes with it. i had been using lp7 on a 2008 mac mini up until like two years ago.

2012 17" Macbook Pro running OS9 and a ton of apps that I love for whenever I get the itch to make music.

My current all 'round home computer is a refurb'd 2015 MB Pro running Sierra. Still runs great but I think my days of using Chrome and a bunch of other platforms are numbered if I don't update :/