Is my computer obsolete?

One point of view would be that if you could lay hands on it, then it is obsolete. Less extreme is the point of view that if you bought it more than 5 years ago, then it is obsolete. It is perhaps more reasonable to divide all computers in existence into 3 categories: ancient and historic (i.e. obsolete) machines, older machines, and modern machines. Here are some characteristics that would immediately put your machine into the obsolete class:

• Does it require a fork-lift to move around?
• Does it have tubes or core memory?
• Does it require 3-phase power or water cooling?
• Does it only come in a case designed for mounting in a 19-inch rack (or several of these)?
• Does it have a front panel?
• Does it have an 8-bit processor?
• Does it lack a hard drive?
• Does it have a MIPS rating of less than unity?
• Does it have a 80286 chip (these were obsolete during manufacture)?

Older computers are rushing headlong toward obsolesence, but haven't quite got there yet. Here are some tests:

• Does it require more than one person to move around?
• Does it have an interface for an SMD hard drive?
• Does it have a single digit MIPS rating?
• Does it lack a bit-mapped display?
• Does it lack a network interface?
• Does it have less than 4M of ram?
• Does it lack hardware to support virtual memory?

For those with a particular interest in older computers, the following links may prove interesting:

obsolete computer museum

History of Computer Science

Virtual Punchcard Server

The Retrocomputing Museum

The Jargon File

Think-A-Tron Media Laboratories