Even better, how about the Digital PDP-11.

> >1: What is the oldest computer or comptuer system still in normal > >operational use

> >2: What is the oldest that is connected to the internet

> >3: What is the oldest connected to the internet AND hosting web pages > >that can be visited (I know of an Atari that is acting as a web server, > >don't remember the URL, but it shouldn't be tough to find... didn't know > >if there was something older)

Quothe UnRooster, from writings of Sat, May 10, 2003 at 01:14:38PM -0600: Hardly. That's one of those newfangled little computers of relatively recent vintage. It doesn't seem all that long since my C-64 was brand spanking new. Does that mean that I'm getting old? ;-) -- Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other

All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature

rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify

http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

IBM East Fishkill still very much has Series/1's in full operation.

The whole oldest computer on the net thread reminded me of a story a friend told me. THE AMAZING VANISHING NOVELL SERVER He was called in to perform some maintenance on a Novell server. All the workstations in the office had various partitions of it mounted and they'd been using it for years. So Gary, my friend, goes to sit at the console. "Where is it?", he asks the baffled staff. "Uh...we don't know." Unbelieving, he seeks to verify that nobody in the company actually knows where the server is. Apparently, they'd hired a firm that had since gone out of business to install and maintain it. Nobody else ever touched it. So Gary goes into the telephone room where all the ethernet terminates and the server would logically be. This is old 10base2 coax. But when he looks where the coax should terminate, it doesn't. It continues THROUGH the wall, down in a tight little hole in the corner. So, he thinks, it must be in the room on the other side. Ah ha! He goes to the other side...no cable, no server. So, scratching his head, he goes into the adjacent rooms. Same story. He goes back in to the telephone room, sees the cable go under the wall and then it occurs to him. Something about the distances doesn't add up. He paces off the distance between the wall on the telephone room side and the wall on the other side and finds that four feet is missing. Finding no niches in the adjacent rooms he asks why this might be. "We did some construction a couple years ago to change around some of the offices." The upshot is that the builders had walled the server into a little 4 foot room with no doors and nobody had noticed for TWO YEARS. Says something about the reliability of Novell servers, I suppose. Anthony Clifton Des Moines, Iowa

On the prowl for computers at home (Wellington, New Zealand) I had greased my way into a tour around a storage room of a banking centre. I was greatly excited to discover a frightfully large IBM (if memory serves, an S/390) with its face turned to the wall. On enquiry of possibility of my relieving them of this waste of storage space the chap told me that he wasn't sure why I'd want a water heater. Unfortunately, after explaining to the fellow why it was most definately not a water heater, the chances of picking it up become very remote. They never explained to me why they'd put the machine in storage either :/

On 11-May-2003 JP Hindin wrote: This is an urbane legend that I believe to be true. Google found this : http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/18265.html (this probably isn't a good enough reference to guaranty authenticity, though)

I know one place I worked "lost" a Novell server for years, but it turned up in the corner of someone's office when they finally found it. Yes, it was running and being used. The only reason they started looking for it was that they were decommissioning it... -Toth

On Sat, 17 May 2003, Tothwolf wrote: Sure, this is not as uncommon as one might think. But lost behind a new wall? I doubt that anyone could be THAT stupid. I mean, people can exhibit amazing levels of stupidity, but it would be incredibly naive to think that someone would take the time to cut out the holes and everything necessary to run the cable through, then close off the wall.

But lost behind a new wall? I doubt that anyone could be THAT stupid. I mean, people can exhibit amazing levels of stupidity, but it would be incredibly naive to think that someone would take the time to cut out the holes and everything necessary to run the cable through, then close off the wall.

Vintage Computer Festival wrote: Cut holes? Probably not..... the server was probably nudged over behind a wall under construction.....the wires probably would have been mudded over at a corner. Someone may have even done it to be "funny".

A friend has an IMSAI 8080 that he still uses to burn PROMs ... that's the oldest one I know of.

I've personally seen with my own eyes an IBM S/360/30 still operating in an industrial setting.