Funny / Satire

TonyR

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This past December I worked on a Dell Dimension 2400 with XP that was made, according to its Service Tag, in 2003. A local small biz runs software on it to cut vinyl letters and make signs. The PC drives a big plotter with a 4 ft. wide x 25 ft. long roll of colored vinyl that's adhered to paper, the plotter has an X-acto type of blade instead of a pen and cuts the vinyl just enough to leave it on the paper so you peel off the backing, lay the whole thing on then press onto a plastic honeycomb sign board then peel off the surround, leaving the letters stuck on. It's like a H-U-G-E "Cricut" sort of thing only it's 4 feet wide.

Anyway, I put the software ("Flexi-Sign") on it in 2005 and about every few years it'll have an issue (malware, bad chassis fan, power supply, etc.). About 2 years ago someone kicked the USB key plugged into the back (it's $2,500 software so it has a key to authorize it) and tore it up bad. I cut up an old USB printer cable and soldered 4 wires to the key's tiny motherboard then shrunk a big sleeve of shrink tubing over the whole thing....it looks like a python had swallowed a goat but it works!

This time it had 2 issues: First, it has 1 large fan at the rear that has a green plastic shroud than helps it pull heat off the heatsink and out of the case...it was stuck. Second, it's a socket 478 for a Pentium and 2 strong spring clamps keep the heatsink clamped to the CPU and the springs hook into plastic ears on a bracket on the motherboard. Well, we all know what 20 years of heat can do to plastic so one ear broke from the constant tension, heat and age and the heatsink was doing little to cool the CPU since it lifted up and lost the thermal bond.

Anyhoo....I replaced the bracket, cleaned and re-coated both the CPU and the heatsink with thermal compound, installed a new fan and it runs great.....again. It'll probably still be runnin' when I cash in my chips. :lmao:
 

David L

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I have ran into several old systems with old software. It seemed in each one of them they have been working for them for many years but none of those companies had a Plan B if it no longer worked...
I even ran across dialup modems still communicating...
 

Smilingreen

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The company I left 4 years ago had Dell PC's that were made in the early 2000's.........hundreds of them all over the plant floor. They all ran on XP. We had 7 high speed sorters that could only run on XP, as the software was written for custom hardware that had been developed. I was constantly re-capping old Dell mother boards on the bench, as you couldn't even get "rebuilt" ones anymore. They had 2 print and sort stations for product totes that were still running on OS2/Warp4 (Win 3.1 competitor). Funny thing is, those 2 computers were the most stable in the whole building. Never once, in the 8 years I was there, did we have a BSD or crash on those boxes. The IBM servers that was running the shipping system were the original servers from 2001, when the shipping system was put in. So was the raid box......and the SCSI drives....all 15 year old originals. All of the servers were running AIX 5L 5.1. Ihad to put in several "rebuilt" System Boards in the servers, as you couldn't get new ones. We had another old IBM server running the Pick The Light. I had searched the net (ebay) and found enough old system boards for replacement and kept a supply of all the common caps that tried bottle rocketing off the system board once a year.

Some companies management doesn't want to invest money back into the company to ensure it's stable operation and future growth. They will just run it into the ground and then fold up, while upper management sails off into the sunset with their salary contract in hand.
 
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mat200

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The company I left 4 years ago had Dell PC's that were made in the early 2000's.........hundreds of them all over the plant floor. They all ran on XP. We had 7 high speed sorters that could only run on XP, as the software was written for custom hardware that had been developed. I was constantly re-capping old Dell mother boards on the bench, as you couldn't even get "rebuilt" ones anymore. They had 2 print and sort stations for product totes that were still running on OS2/Warp4 (Win 3.1 competitor). Funny thing is, those 2 computers were the most stable in the whole building. Never once, in the 8 years I was there, did we have a BSD or crash on those boxes. The IBM servers that was running the shipping system were the original servers from 2001, when the shipping system was put in. So was the raid box......and the SCSI drives....all 15 year old originals. All of the servers were running AIX 5L 5.1. Ihad to put in several "rebuilt" System Boards in the servers, as you couldn't get new ones. We had another old IBM server running the Pick The Light. I had searched the net (ebay) and found enough old system boards for replacement and kept a supply of all the common caps that tried bottle rocketing off the system board once a year.

Some companies management doesn't want to invest money back into the company to ensure it's stable operation and future growth. They will just run it into the ground and then fold up, while upper management sails off into the sunset with their salary contract in hand.
lol .. I just e-wasted a bunch of stuff they could have used ..

man, those SCSI cables were thick ..
 

Smilingreen

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lol .. I just e-wasted a bunch of stuff they could have used ..

man, those SCSI cables were thick ..
Yeah, they were. I hated shutting down any of those servers. With 15 year old 36.4GB SCSI hard drives, you never knew if they would spool back up after power was removed. It took AIX around 15 minutes, just to boot. I spent a lot of anxious time, in the server room, waiting for something to appear on the monitors, in hopes it would show life, once again.
 
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