heyitsheather Posted September 9, 2019 Share Posted September 9, 2019 (edited) The past week has had me going through some old servers that are left over from a failed attempt at an online game hosting venture, circa 2000-2002. None of the machines have been powered on in 15 or so years, and I was feeling nostalgic (also read as my wife asked me to get rid of them). Of the oldest, a machine powered by a slot A 500MHz Athlon is the most functional, meaning all of its installed stuff still functions. I loved this machine, it was my first server custom build, though by no means is it consisting of server level hardware except perhaps the 3u rack mount case it is in. The machine: Slot A 500MHz Athlon K7 Some sort of Biostar AMD 751 based motherboard, probably the M7MKA 256MB PC 133 SDRAM 2 x Maxtor 40GB ATA 100 IDE drives mirrored via a Promise controller, the model I do not remember. A broadcom based gigabit PCI ethernet adapter 52x Creative Labs CD-ROM 3.5" floppy Matrox G400 AGP The machine is old... but... for some odd reason, it has a near and dear holding on my heart, and I want to just make it run. I'm thinking some build of Linux may work, perhaps Bohdi. It started out life as a NT 4.0 domain controller, upgraded trhough to 2000, and finally 2003 before the whole lot of machines were shut down. Somewhere after that, it had an install of Suse put on it, but that won't boot. In the end, its not a "useful" machine, but I am going to make it work anyway. Edited September 9, 2019 by Jason S. changed "Mhz" to "MHz" to satisfy my OCD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted September 9, 2019 MVC Share Posted September 9, 2019 Gig back in 2000-2002? Wow that would of been a bit pricey back then Put NT4 back on it Mindovermaster and Daniel F. 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted September 10, 2019 Moderator Share Posted September 10, 2019 What version of NT 4.0 was it running? (when it was on NT4) They were all in the Y2000 range. (just curious) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dark Knight Posted September 10, 2019 Share Posted September 10, 2019 As long as it works, and you have a use case for it, use it! I have a 12 year old AMD Athlon 64 X2 based PC that I'm using as my Media Server. It's mostly on Sleep mode, until a Kodi instance on the network wakes it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel F. Administrators Posted September 10, 2019 Administrators Share Posted September 10, 2019 14 hours ago, BudMan said: Gig back in 2000-2002? Wow that would of been a bit pricey back then just what i was thinking! would have been a super domain controller 😛 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heyitsheather Posted September 10, 2019 Author Share Posted September 10, 2019 12 hours ago, Mindovermaster said: What version of NT 4.0 was it running? (when it was on NT4) They were all in the Y2000 range. (just curious) It was running NT4 Server, started life with sp3, and ended with 6a before being upgraded to 2000, finally 2003. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted September 10, 2019 Moderator Share Posted September 10, 2019 4 hours ago, nhjay said: It was running NT4 Server, started life with sp3, and ended with 6a before being upgraded to 2000, finally 2003. Ah, OK. Cool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peresvet Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 (edited) I hear you, however, you have to keep in mind that running these old machines is hugely inefficient. They consume the same amount of power as modern PCs do, but output a small faction of performance. Sure you could run a mail server or what not on it, it's your call. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eilegz Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 Windows 98 would be perfect for this one.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Eternal Tempest MVC Posted September 12, 2019 MVC Share Posted September 12, 2019 3 minutes ago, eilegz said: Windows 98 would be perfect for this one.... Windows ME, actually serious. When dealing with legacy OS's with VMs, if you need any patches / updates, Windows ME has most of the 9x baked in. An alt would be Windows 2000? If you search the web, you can find out how to make it keyless. eilegz and heyitsheather 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eilegz Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 I never liked windows ME, it was pretty unstable for me when i use it, windows 2000 would be better but drivers compatibility, i think that windows xp would be a stretch but you could try it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted September 12, 2019 Moderator Share Posted September 12, 2019 Yeah, ME is full with bloatware. I would put 2000 on it. I used to love that thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peresvet Posted September 12, 2019 Share Posted September 12, 2019 WinXP for this one, all the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted September 12, 2019 MVC Share Posted September 12, 2019 2 hours ago, Mindovermaster said: Yeah, ME is full with bloatware. I would put 2000 on it. I used to love that thing. Windows 2000 still holds a place in my heart for the best version of windows I ever used. cork1958 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted September 12, 2019 Moderator Share Posted September 12, 2019 8 minutes ago, warwagon said: Windows 2000 still holds a place in my heart for the best version of windows I ever used. I actually loved 98SE before it. IIRC, that was the version where you had to call into MS to get it activated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adrynalyne Posted September 13, 2019 Share Posted September 13, 2019 3 hours ago, Mindovermaster said: I actually loved 98SE before it. IIRC, that was the version where you had to call into MS to get it activated. There was no activation until Windows XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted September 13, 2019 Moderator Share Posted September 13, 2019 1 hour ago, adrynalyne said: There was no activation until Windows XP. Product key, I meant. You can install it on about any PC. All you need to do is call this 1-800 number to "make it genuine" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted September 13, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted September 13, 2019 1 hour ago, Mindovermaster said: Product key, I meant. You can install it on about any PC. All you need to do is call this 1-800 number to "make it genuine" huh? Prior to XP you just needed a product key. XP on up you needed to activate or it wasn't "genuine." No idea what you mean by "All you need to do is call this 1-800 number" aside from the situations where it wouldn't activate for whatever reason. With regards to the OP ... I think that would be a nice retro box to play old DOS games. Slap 98 on it ... find an old 6800 AGP or whatever. If you're into that sort of thing...otherwise I really see no point in keeping it (my opinion) Kinda wish I had my first and second computers still (Adam by ColecoVision and later an AST Advantage 8090P). adrynalyne 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra.Xtreme Posted September 13, 2019 Share Posted September 13, 2019 As much as the nostalgia is awesome, I think you should just let the ship sail into the recycle bin. If you try to suffer through an XP install, it's just not going to be as fun as it was back in the day. Admit it, we're spoiled today with much better hardware and "modern" software. Keep those old memories and let that old hardware enjoy a proper retirement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted September 13, 2019 Moderator Share Posted September 13, 2019 I thought it started with 98/2000. /shrug Anyway, yeah, use it for something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cork1958 Posted September 13, 2019 Share Posted September 13, 2019 7 hours ago, warwagon said: Windows 2000 still holds a place in my heart for the best version of windows I ever used. I always thought 2000 was killer too, but then came along XP! 2000, XP and Windows 7 were the best of the bunch from MS. Down hill ever since. Peresvet 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted September 13, 2019 Moderator Share Posted September 13, 2019 4 minutes ago, cork1958 said: I always thought 2000 was killer too, but then came along XP! 2000, XP and Windows 7 were the best of the bunch from MS. Down hill ever since. yeah, then ME and Vista were hell.. cork1958 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted September 13, 2019 MVC Share Posted September 13, 2019 8 hours ago, Mindovermaster said: yeah, then ME and Vista were hell.. Personally I never had an issue with Vista. Then again I never had an issue with Windows me either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vf- Posted September 13, 2019 Share Posted September 13, 2019 Vista was a real hard drive grinder when the system was idle. It would last for ages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted September 13, 2019 Global Moderator Share Posted September 13, 2019 Vista was released when hardware couldn't really match its demand ... but I like to think it pushed hardware manufactures. Just think...pretty much any hardware that could run Vista then...can run 10 now. Anyway, nothing really wrong with Vista ... if you had the hardware to run it. It was stable and better than XP. +hedleigh, goretsky and +InsaneNutter 3 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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