Oldest File on your Computer? # of Stuff Folders?

[FrostyBoy]

Was just talking to my friend and we found out that we both have a lot of folders named "Stuff". Apparently I have 15 Stuff folders all up, scattered around.

These stuff folders hold the accumulation of files from 1997. The oldest file I have is in July '97, its of a photo of myself.

[MORON]

7/1998, a mp3. It was actually copied from a backup CD which was made around 2004 or so, which was copied from a direct hard-drive copy from two computers before that.

[Urban Ranger]

My oldest file is from 1996.

And no, I don't have any folders named stuff.

[FrostyBoy]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
My oldest file is from 1996.

And no, I don't have any folders named stuff.

Which means you do stuff all.

[Ari Rahikkala]

ari@creideiki:~$ find -print0| xargs -0 stat -c "%y %n"|sort -g|head -n 10
1991-04-09 17:14:15.000000000 +0300 ./unclutter/Imakefile
1991-04-09 19:49:52.000000000 +0300 ./unclutter/Makefile
1991-08-02 19:13:54.000000000 +0300 ./unclutter/vroot.h
1992-09-28 20:06:11.000000000 +0200 ./unclutter/README
1994-04-11 18:40:47.000000000 +0300 ./unclutter/unclutter.c
1994-04-11 18:40:48.000000000 +0300 ./unclutter/unclutter.man
1994-04-11 18:40:49.000000000 +0300 ./unclutter/patchlevel.h
1994-04-27 10:13:31.000000000 +0300 ./xgl-stuff/xserver/dix/BuiltInAtoms
1994-04-27 10:13:31.000000000 +0300 ./xgl-stuff/xserver/dix/CHANGES
1994-04-27 10:15:05.000000000 +0300 ./xgl-stuff/xserver/hw/xnest/icon

I guess this is what you get for using mtime-preserving archiving tools. unclutter was originally written in 1991, but I don't think I installed it before 2004 or so.

ari@creideiki:~$ find -type d|grep -i stuff[^/]*$
./Crap/celestia-stuff
./Crap/videostuff
./Crap/micronational/shireroth/website/images-stuff
./scbw/stuff
./scbw/stuff2
./to_cd/omf2097/stuff1
./.vegastrike/serialized_xml/stuff
./dosemu/freedos/omf2097/stuff1
./blender/src/lib/solaris-2.8-sparc/ode/include/drawstuff
./blender/src/blender/extern/ode/dist/drawstuff
./blender/src/blender/extern/ode/dist/contrib/Mac_CFMCarbon/mac_source/drawstuff
./blender/src/blender/extern/ode/dist/include/drawstuff
./xgl-stuff

So, not that many directories simply named "stuff", really. OTOH, the directory under which I just stuff things is called Crap, and this is its top10 by age:

ari@creideiki:~/Crap$ find -print0| xargs -0 stat -c "%y %n"|sort -g|head -n 10
1996-02-22 13:45:53.000000000 +0200 ./plif/kotisivu.dnainternet.net/icons/back.gif
1996-02-22 13:45:54.000000000 +0200 ./plif/kotisivu.dnainternet.net/icons/blank.gif
1996-02-22 13:46:09.000000000 +0200 ./plif/kotisivu.dnainternet.net/icons/image2.gif
1997-09-02 08:13:48.000000000 +0300 ./text/0ddcl10.txt
1998-05-26 15:48:42.000000000 +0300 ./kuvat/smac-backgrounds/GAIAN1280.bmp
1998-05-26 15:49:04.000000000 +0300 ./kuvat/smac-backgrounds/HIVE1280.bmp
1998-06-23 23:47:17.000000000 +0300 ./text/conway.pdf
1998-07-01 10:40:40.000000000 +0300 ./kuvat/smac-backgrounds/UNIVERSITY1280.bmp
1998-09-29 20:16:54.000000000 +0300 ./atarijoy/atarijoy.html
1998-09-29 20:22:36.000000000 +0300 ./atarijoy/joy-fig1.gif

I have no idea where the files in plif/kotisivu.dnainternet.net got their mtimes from. 0ddcl10.txt probably came from an archive (it's The Divine Comedy, from Project Gutenberg). That'd mean that the oldest files I've stored in my general stuff directory are... SMAC backgrounds. That sounds pretty much right.

[Tattila the Hun]

Topheavy Teenagers 24, from 2002.

[VetLegion]

I amass "misc" folders all the time (like when needing to empty a USB drive quick and such) but every couple of months I sort it out. So I have this huge categorized archive on my HD. It took me ages to come up with categories that make sense.

[laurentius]

PCGlobe 4.0 1990

and it actually works under WinXP

[Fake Boris]

haha you just don't have spotlight

[Solver]

I have no stuff folders, I do, though have stuff.zip and stuff1.zip, old files lying around. They contain stuff that is quite useless to me, but preserved for historical purposes. I have a bunch of files from 1998, and IIRC, no files earlier than early 1998 could have survived to present day.

Oops. Just checked. My English grammar back in 1998/1999 was atrocious. Very, very much so.

Second edit. Given what's in some of my old files, I better not only password-protect them, but also put them in password-protected zips on an encrypted filesystem .

[Grandpa Troll]

On my notebook for work I have files from 10 years ago, converted from the original works.

Basically old quotes and contractor/customer information as well as Quality Assurance memos/letter I had writtten.

I actually had to go testify in court and had all the documentation necessary for the D.A. but then the guy plead guilty to embezzlement


But after a few P C Crashes, I have learned life goes on when you lose all your information

[DaShi]

No Stuff folders, but quite a few New Folder (x) folders.

[Adagio]

My oldest file is probably from '97 or so... number of 'Stuff' folders: 0
I do have a few (3-4) misc folders though

[Locutus]

4-3-1987. Some old DOS tools, only a handful of files. Somewhat more from 1988 and 1989. The 1990s are very well represented though, especially from 1994 onwards: almost 64,000 files in total from before 1-1-2000.

Pretty sure I have even older files (personal files: WordPerfect and Quattro documents, some old savegames, etc) in an archive somewhere, but the archive itself is pretty recent (1998ish) and I can't find it ATM. I think I moved it to CD at some point.

Should I feel old now?

I have zero stuff folders but one 'mod stuff' and a couple of files called 'stuff'. I do have 2 very old 'zooi' folders, which is Dutch for 'stuff' and comes from those days a long, long time ago when I still used Dutch as a written language... Plenty of other frequent non-descript names though, like misc, crap, downloads (especially many of those), t(e)mp, test, backup, etc.

[mrmitchell]

A handful of files from old floppy disks from 1987 forward.

Only one folder named 'STUFF' (old as dirt, i dont think i even made it) and another archive, oldstuff.zip