Worst computer you have? by ecjonas | tildeverse BBJ

>0 ecjonas @ 2026/03/27 18:44

What's the worst computer (in specs) you have?

>1 cartwright @ 2026/03/27 23:00

Compaq laptop, with 64MB RAM, and Pentium 2 CPU

>2 ecjonas @ 2026/03/28 01:07

>>OP
oof XD 
what OS?

>3 danielaw @ 2026/03/28 12:02

>>OP

A really shitty Chromebook.

>4 ecjonas @ 2026/03/28 12:16

>>3
That's insulting me - I'm accessing this from a Chromebook XD
It's a Plus though, they're pretty good little gaming machines.

>5 ecjonas @ 2026/03/28 12:17

>>4
also i didn't know chromebooks had a pentium 2 option XD

>6 danielaw @ 2026/03/28 16:55

>>4

I promise you I am not insulting your Chromebook, I bought the cheapest one I could find and eventually paid the price.

>7 ecjonas @ 2026/03/28 21:34

>>6
XDDDDDDDDD

>8 cartwright @ 2026/03/31 13:07

>>2
Dual booting Windows 2000 & and an old version of Solaris

>9 ecjonas @ 2026/03/31 15:06

>>8
The Chromebook? How? I have a manual for Solaris 7-8.

>10 anthk @ 2026/04/03 13:51

>>OP

Atom n270, 1GB of RAM, 9front, it flies.
Gopher and IRC as my main comms,
Email and Usenet as a async coms.

I use it for games, Go/AWk/C programming, music,
jabber (either native or thru servers
from https://bitlbee.org).
it's my main machine. I connect to 
the tildeverse with vt(1) and ssh(1).
It shines with hoc/pc and gview
to do plots. Far easier to manage
than Unix. No PM's, a simple script 
rebuilds and upgrades the whole system
than running apt-get upgrade
under Trisquel in my Intel NUC.

The few extra programs are upgraded
with a script using git, it's
just a matter of 5 minutes.

No Python, No Perl, no KSH.
Rc it's a godsend, really easy,
Bash in comparison it's too complex.
I have vim for the Unix withdrawal
syndrome, but I prefer Acme to
edit code and  run
Eforth/Golang under a subterminal.

I can watch videos too,
and read PD comic books (cbz) and
PDF's from Gutenberg.

Altough the shittiest computer
would be a subleq vm (muxleq
actually, mux'ed subleq) with Eforth.
Almost like 8080/Z80 CPU speeds, faster
under muxleq. Enough to play
Sokoban and do EForth for 
prototypes, it's damn small
and liberating.
No AI, OFC.

Also, by supporting Golang I can run 
rclone to restore/backup files
from Nextcloud and 'aio' to compress/decompress
lzma/xz files, where are no decompressors yet.
Very handy.
I use Hell to read Mastodon posts, too.

Now, I even have native tools to dump old doc/xls
files from Microsoft. First they are mounted 
as if the were a filesystem (the MS OLE
spec it's kinda a FAT file) and then the contect
it's extracted either text (DOC) or tabular data
(XLS). Really handy too to interop with people.

Yes, It's a hobbyist OS, but I can be sure that
no upgrade will mess with my settings.

>11 cartwright @ 2026/04/04 16:58

>>9

The compaq is not a chromebook.

>12 ecjonas @ 2026/04/08 13:03

>>11
I was confused LOL

>13 kasmo @ 2026/06/12 01:28

worst in specs... but i learn a lot.

AMD Am5x86 133mhz + 24mb RAM
CD-ROM and Floppy disk

Ran Linux slackware, conectiva and freeBSD. Old times

>14 yalla @ 2026/06/12 07:21

>>OP

If you mean with "computer" simply "yes, it is Turing-complete", then I'd say it's my "HP-16C Computer Scientist" pocket calculator, which I still have on my desk and regulary use.

Spedcs, lifted from Wikipedia:

* Memory register	203 bytes (shared with programs)
* Program steps	up to 203 steps (shared with data registers)

Processor speed? I have no clue. It's ono fast. I would estimate it feels like perhaps 20-30 copcodes per second. But fast enough to quickly whip up and test some bit-mangleing when I can't be arsed to start up Root or Python, just to learn again how one sets up Big/Little Endian, LSB/MSB and whatever. :-)

~yalla

>15 pnppl @ 2026/06/13 04:32

>>OP

Do microcontrollers count?

If not, probably the TRS-80 Model 4 or TI-99/4A. I actually find the TI-99 so weirdly offputting that I've never used it, but I'm pretty sure it's got worse specs, and it doesn't come with any peripherals except a keyboard.

The Trash-80 has a real charm though, owing mostly to its built-in monochrome CRT and vaguely scifi aesthetic.

Actually, maybe the Psion Organizer II is even worse than both of them. I love love LOVE that thing but it's basically a calculator that runs BASIC.

>16 ecjonas @ 2026/07/02 22:12

>>10
W 9front

>17 csynt @ 2026/08/01 10:16

>>15

it runs OPL bro.. not BASIC :)

Psion II user here as well, yeap probably the 'worst' in specs but it's a beauty

>18 singletona082 @ 2026/08/04 23:52

The worst computer I have right now?

...unironically is my fridge. We got it July 5th. 

It Broke July 20th. 

It is currently august 4th and the repair guy is saying that they won't have the parts in for seven to ten business days because the head office is in malaysia and they don't know their head from a hole in the ground. 

Actual general purpose computer though?

the 486 my uncle 'gifted' us in 1999.... 

Basically he was cleaning hsi attic out and 'hey here ya go!' 

and i mean I got it working better after the debloat, but ye gods and little fishes the amount of bloatware on that poor computer.... and not an interesting file in sight during the archeology dive.

>19 aleph @ 2026/08/06 11:18

>>18
is this fridge "smart" or what do you mean it's your worst computer rn?