I had my Viking Designer1 for 16 years with little trouble. If its the floppy disk one you'll have issues finding designs to use for embroidery. As to regular sewing, I used mine strictly for piecing as it has the pivot with the foot which I loved. When I took her in for her annual cleaning I went to piece with my Babylock and boy did I miss the "pivot" but I finally got used to it. My Designer1 never came home sadly as I traded her in for their fairly new EPIC machine. Stupidly I took a class on the EPIC and fell in love with it. They gave me such a great trade-in deal I couldn't pass it up so now someone else will get to sew on her one of these days. Luckily most of my extra hoops and feet will work on the EPIC so not a total loss on my end. As to the floppy disk designs I had for her I'm slowly transferring them onto my PC using an external floppy drive I have.