topic Re: Still runs! in BreakPoint

Still runs!

altenbach — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:46:51 GMT

I still had my old Pentium 1 around that I used to learn LabVIEW 4.0. Still starts up fine in Windows 95 and still had LabVIEW 5.1 on it. Serial port mouse, keyboard with that big connector, 1024x768 monitor, etc 3x ISA slots, no USB in any form. 64MB of RAM was enough for anything I threw at it!

The only maintenance issue we had were these tiny CPU fans that tend to gum up at least once a years. I made it much more reliable by mounting a much bigger fan on a hand-made aluminum bracket and had no issues since.

altenbach_0-1785170049915.png

Looked at some of my old programs and was impressed by all the workarounds needed. For example I hade a tab structure using a row of buttons that changed the visibility of the relevant controls on a square decoration (hard to edit!). No event structures anywhere, because they did not exist.

This is a 30+ year old machine that really brings me back to the old times! How time flies!

Re: Still runs!

santo_13 — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 04:41:43 GMT

I am surprised that you still had it intact to load and run. I used my Pentium III machine to learn and practice assembling a PC.

Re: Still runs!

altenbach — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:35:34 GMT

Yes, it was just sitting in a corner untouched for well over a decade. Started right up... 😄

I was amazed how quickly it booted and how snappy LabVIEW opened. Impressive for a ~100MHz processor with only 64MB of RAM. Of course back then this was top of the line.

Award bios from 1995.that looks like on a socketed ROM for "easy" upgradeability.

altenbach_0-1785245000934.png

Re: Still runs!

wiebe@CARYA — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT

I have 2 Mac's (somewhere 🙄) with LabVIEW 2 on it.

I never actually used them (I started on LabVIEW 4 on Windows 3.11 IIRC).

It takes a lot of patience just to open a VI... That weird mouse with only one button doesn't help.

But on topic; they still run.

Re: Still runs!

Yamaeda — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 11:25:08 GMT

@altenbach wrote:

I still had my old Pentium 1 around that I used to learn LabVIEW 4.0. Still starts up fine in Windows 95 and still had LabVIEW 5.1 on it. Serial port mouse, keyboard with that big connector, 1024x768 monitor, etc 3x ISA slots, no USB in any form. 64MB of RAM was enough for anything I threw at it!

[snip]

This is a 30+ year old machine that really brings me back to the old times! How time flies!

That brings me back! Serial mouse and DIN-keyboard! My first PC was a P66 with 8Mb!

Now i want to see LV on an Amiga!

Re: Still runs!

Yamaeda — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 09:05:00 GMT

I think i had an S3 graphics card that i managed to get some extra memory for so i could run 1024x768 in 32 bit color! It only have memory for 16-bit originally. In the same manner i managed to upgrade my AWE32 soundcard so i could have a good sound bank for the midi!

Re: Still runs!

altenbach — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 15:43:43 GMT

Another curiosity was that the discrete L2 cache on the motherboard only supported caching up to 64MB of RAM. While it was possible to go up to 128MB of RAM on that board, some would go uncached, limiting performance.

From AI:

altenbach_0-1787585084443.png

Good thing we don't need to worry about things like that anymore....

Re: Still runs!

Yamaeda — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:30:58 GMT

@altenbach wrote:

Good thing we don't need to worry about things like that anymore....

Not to mention fiddling with Autoexec.bat and config.sys to move around drivers in memory to start specific games. 🙂

Re: Still runs!

altenbach — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 14:44:28 GMT

@Yamaeda wrote:

@altenbach wrote:

Good thing we don't need to worry about things like that anymore....

Not to mention fiddling with Autoexec.bat and config.sys to move around drivers in memory to start specific games. 🙂

Don't forget dip switches. "Dad, what's a dip???"

Re: Still runs!

Yamaeda — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 08:52:48 GMT

@altenbach wrote:

@Yamaeda wrote:

@altenbach wrote:

Good thing we don't need to worry about things like that anymore....

Not to mention fiddling with Autoexec.bat and config.sys to move around drivers in memory to start specific games. 🙂

Don't forget dip switches. "Dad, what's a dip???"

Right! I had to set the DMA-channel on my sound card like that! And then you tried to install the driver and the floppy was unreadable or something. Which reminds me of the both OS/2 and BeOS came to Uni to get some users for their OS and a couple of class mates grabbed 4 boxes each. Why? 30 free floppies per box, just tape (or was it punch) the write protection hole!