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Comment by ido | Hacker News Reader

Funny that it was already salvage in 1987! You sure you don't have it backwards - the computer was '87 vintage but you got it later? That's when my father bought our first (new!) computer & it was a "turbo xt" (8 or 10mhz 8088).

The very first PC/AT was at most 3 years old at that point & still worth a couple grand. Any 286 would be at least mid-range, as a 386 would probably still cost high 4-figures $.

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The hardware was great for the time so I can only guess that small office didn’t need it any more. This was a small regional satellite office of a much larger company.

Funny how that works! My first job in 2001 still had a Compaq Deskpro 386 bought in the 80s to control some very expensive equipment (via some proprietary dongle that wouldn't work on then-modern computers).

My boss at the time told me they paid $10k for that computer when it was new & the equipment it controlled would cost $1-2m to replace (I want to say it was a microspectrophotometer but my memory is blurry), so they had to keep that 386 around & in working order. Luckily these were apparently very reliable computers.

Eventually, the hardware will break, so it's a good idea to plan for that. There are ways to interface with old hardware using new hardware, including special modern motherboards that have ISA slots, or USB2ISA converters

I haven't worked there in a long time, I wouldn't bet on that computer still chugging along. 2001 is actually closer to 1986 than it is to today :)

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