How Do I Provide a Workstation To Last 15 Years?

An anonymous reader writes "My father is a veterinarian with a small private practice. He runs all his patient/client/financial administration on two simple workstations, linked with a network cable. The administration application is a simple DOS application backed by a database. Now the current systems, a Pentium 66mhz and a 486, both with 8MB of RAM and 500MB of hard drive space, are getting a bit long in the tooth. The 500MB harddrives are filling up, the installed software (Windows 95) is getting a bit flakey at times. My father has asked me to think about replacing the current setup. I do know a lot about computers, but my father would really like the new setup to last 10-15 years, just like the current one has. I just dont know where to begin thinking about that kind of systems lifetime. Do I buy, or build myself? How many spare parts should I keep in reserve? What will fail first, and how many years down the line will that happen?"

Veterinarian

[robably]

I wouldn't worry about the system having to last for 15 years if he's already a veterinarian. What is that, 140 years old? Wow.

Re:short answer - you don't

[afabbro]

At the office, I'm still running a 350mghz PowerMac G4 computer (the bugger is 10 years old) as a server.

Hmmm, if that's mghz = MegaGigaHertz, then I'm quite awed. But if it's MicroGigaHertz, then I feel bad for you.

Re:forget it

[vajorie]

lol, it's her father, not her client.

Re:Or at least

[darthflo]

"the" virtualization software? Just be sure to keep the vm's disk an actual partition and you can swap your virtualization software in no time.
Alternatively, go the matryoshka way. Run Win95 in (for Example) VMWare 5 on current Ubuntu now, wrap that in Xen on Ubuntu 12.4 LTS, wrap that in the 2016 Edition of Virtualooz on vanilla Lunix 28.6.19 and that in some deep fried beer batter. Processor speed will keep up.

Re:Or at least

[similar_name]

Then he'll just have to virtualize the older virtualization software in the newer virtualization software.

Re:Or at least

[MasterOfDisaster]

Sup dawg, we heard you liked legacy applications so we put an emulator in your visualization so you can compute while u compute!

Re:short answer - you don't

[aschran]

Lowercase "m" means "milli," as in "milli-gigahertz." Which is the same as one megahertz. So actually, he is inadvertently correct. :)

Re:Veterinarian

[joeme1]

No, it means he only eats veterans. Duh.

Re:Moving parts are the main problem

[Anonymous Coward]

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