How long did your old computers last before they died?

[Nlandas]

I have my Vic20 from 1981 until 1990 and then gave it to my brother who sold it 3 years later. My C64, I have from 1984 until 1988 and then gave it to my brother when I replaced it with a 64C, which I had until 1995 when I sold it to someone who had one that just died.

My Amiga 2000, I have from 1988 until 1993 when I sold it to another student to buy one of the first USA released Amiga 4000/030. I sold it in 1996 to a video editor when I needed to make rent. I really miss her.

I've since gotten a better job and re-acquired an A1200 and an A4000/040. (I'm working on re-habing the A4000 but the A1200 is rock solid.

Basically, I've never had a Commodore product that I bought new die on me - ever.

Well, My brother did end up having the C64 I gave hime die when he let clothes fall on top of it and it over-heated.

I still have my old Excelerator Plus disk drive and just hooked it up to my PC to rip my old collection of C64 disks. So far about 99% have no errors. Which is simply amazing to me.

[AeroMan]

My Mac 8500 AV died after 6 years. Everything else is alive and kicking, including my A1200 bought in 92, and my TK90X (read ZX Spectrum...) bought in 87.

[weirdami]

The VIC chip in my C=64 went wonky sometime between 2000 and 2004. Had that bad boy since 1984ish. It still worked alright, but the graphics were cheesed. I picked up a spare C=64 to cannibalize, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. So, my brand new C=64 lasted at least 16 years as a fully functioning goodness.

[Damion]

Up until the last few months, the only failed hardware I've encountered was an old 1802D monitor (worked about a month). I'm generally very careful with computer equipment, my original C64, C128, A500, etc all work and look like new. There's even an ancient 8088 in the garage... with a still-working (amazingly) Seagate.

In the last months however, I've had three issues:

1 -- fuXored an A1200 motherboard (my fault), easily fixed though and works fine now

2 -- Blew the Apollo 1260 card I just acquired (still not certain whether the PSU failed, or if I inadvertantly had something to do with it)... man did that suck. PG is amazing though, replaced six chips total (including some TINY ICs, which the soldering is absolutely perfect) and it now lives. Hopefully I'll get some time to play with that again soon..

3 -- Failing network card causing random BSODs on the PC... that one took a little time to figure out, since the card worked flawlessly aside from causing the BSODs.

I'm beyond careful now, and don't automatically assume that I'm "above" breaking something. I'd always wondered to myself "how the hell does someone ruin a piece of computer hardware?" until I (oh {bleep}!) did it myself... LOL.

[murple]

My TI-99/4a still works fine! That machine is rapidly approaching 30 years old. Never had any other vintage machines die on me, though I've had some lost over the years, and I've bought some duds on ebay. But of my Commodore 64/128 and Amiga systems, I've never had a computer die. Some 1541s, yeah, but never a computer. I expect them to stay functional for quite a long time still.

[HopperJF]

Great thread!

Let's see... well my Amstrad CPC 464 and green screen monitor still work fine, both werre purchased in 1984!

All my old Sega and Nintendo consoles work fine

My Amiga 600 works fine too despite being dropped a few years ago

My Amiga 1200 is gutted for spares/repairs (the mouse port is missing after a tower conversion)

Last time I checked my Commodore 1084S monitor was working great

C64 II is fine though the tape drive likes to chew

The only dead hardware I own is an A500 which was dead when I got given it!


PC's on the other hand well my family's computers have been not so reliable. The first PC they had a Pentium II - 300MHz with 64meg RAM and Win 98 was a nightmare with things going wrong with it nearly every few months and the one after the Duron 750 went through a phase of switching itself off. Funnily enough though every PC I have owned has been fine and the eMac I am selling on eBay at the moment has never gave any problems.

[tokyoracer]

1 A1200: 16 years or so, 1 A600 about 17 years and that's about it. Mind you they are not totally dead.

[swift240]

Amiga never had one go
Commodore never had one go
486 DX 4/100 that was rubbish it went back to the shop more times it came out.
I have had more troubles over the total years with PC`s than any Amiga type computer or any Commodore type computer.

Now that tells you some thing don't it.

So its like this:-

Amiga never OS3.9

Commodore never basic 7.0 C128, Basic 2.0 C64, Basic 3.5 C16, Plus4 Basic 3.5

ZX Spectruum any model never

Oric Atmos 48k never

ZX81 never 1k and 16K (well ok ram pack woble)

486 DX4/100 problems  Windows 3.11 unstable and mobo

AMD 266 problems Windows 98SE unstable

Pentium 166 problems Windows 98SE unstable and mobo

Pentium 200 Problems Windows 98SE unstable and ram

Pentium 4 problems Windows XP Pro mobo and ram

Now if you think about it, Microsoft should have a product that IS stable and not the {bleep} that they seem to love to pump out.

Mike.

[Dazxy2001]

I had a Commodore C16 when they first came out, within a few weeks I had to get a replacement as when text was scrolling up the screen odd letters and charactors would appear in what ever the listing was and scroll up too, and the machine wasnt very stable. Then once I received the replacement it worked fine until just a week or so after the warranty ran out and the datacorder stopped working :/ After that I think it was just thrown out....not exactly eco friendly lol

[Hodgkinson]

Hmmm. We've got a C= PET - Worked last time it was fired up.
A500, A1200T, 2x A1200 - All fine
TI99/4A - Fine

(PC list /snip/ )

And a recently crispy toasty fried 1.8Ghz tower complete with the "Burning Processor" smell :crazy: OK, That was due to the heatsink getting caught on the case as we tried to take the mobo out, but you get the picture.

Oh, and the HDD from that PC's gone into a new Dual Core brand spanking new PC ... XP Repair install on the drive ... 53 Files not found from the install CD during the repair ... grrrr ...

[odin]

Ilwrath wrote:
I built an Athlon T-bird 1ghz which overtook the A4000 as my primary machine.  It ran until about 4 years ago when the motherboard fried.  I sold the CPU to an Amiga.org member.  Gave the RAM to a friend and folded the rest into my current workstation.

Curiously enough the second motherboard the Athlon ended up in has also died in the mean time :-D.

[itix]

My first Commodore 64 died in 3 days. It was new.

Amiga 1200 (original Commodore version) lasted 5 years until its IDE interface died.

[Dandy]

ChuckT wrote:
How long did your old computers last before they died?

I think I had my Commodore 64 for 17 years and it worked and I was setting it up and when I turned it off and turned it back on, it blew.

I think my Amiga 1084 monitor lasted about ten years before I got a new one.

My Amiga drive came out of alignment after that.

Hum - well - AFAIK all my old computers are still alive.

I have an old CBM 620 with monitor, 7-needle CBM printer and CBM 3040 5 1/4" double floppy drive (which died - LED just flashing).

Furthermore I have two Amiga 500 with Viper 520 accelerators. I started to replace the 3.0 ROMs on the Vipers with 3.1 ROMs, but didn't finish that due to lack of time.
But the 500s should still work - and the Vipers (once finished) should work as well.

Then there is my towered A1200 with 030/40 accelerator card, which is still in working condition as well.

Finally there is my towered Amiga 4000 PPC, which is my main maschine and runs flawlessly most of the time (sometimes I have to clean the contacts between CSPPC and MoBo).

Not to mention several (3) installations of AmigaForever on my x86-PCs...

So - aside from the dead CBM 3040 Dual Floppy Drive, all my old HW is basically still up and running...

[morcar]

The computers that have died on me was the ZX Spectrum's from the 48k rubber keyboard to the +2 i think i have had in total about 15 or maybe more. either the z80 blows up or the UAL chip does.

Other that that all my other comps and computers still work perfect to this very day. Although i refuse to own an xbox 360 cuz of how they get the red lights.

[_Steve_]

My original C64 still runs (bought in 1982), as does my C128 from 1985.

My 1200s are all still running, but my A4000 has an audio cap gone wrong, resulting in crackly sound, not to mention the battery had leaked and has been replaced.

The A500s my brother and I have still work, but again one of those had a small problem with disks (partly down to the drive just getting dusty), as well as a small amount of battery leakage on the ram expansion (those pesky barrel batteries again).

Again hardware that failed on me was very modern (in this case an MSI Neo-FISR2 478 mobo bought a few years ago and died within a year), and the Xbox360 we bought had a DOA HD (which results in the RROD). Replacement machine the following day still works (now just over a year and a half old). Our first PS2 also died just before its warranty expired.

[hardlink]

Tenacious wrote:
My Amigas don't die, they sometimes become ill (not often) and I make them better.  It's a symbiotic thing, grin.  I've lost a few mice, keyboards, and hard-drives.
.

Same here!