To continue a discussion from some other threads(or not):
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...es-4175485684/

I feel maybe this debate could go another direction, perhaps some of the oldest hardware should not be kept up (except museum style purposes) but surely much hardware of today, ten years from now, will be considered outdated* simply for the sake of capitalism and\or greed!?. As-well, if they are kept up properly (273 points out dusting inside) then there are far worse environmental hazards about.

Plus, I'm not a big gamer:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...7213622AAlnJjd
http://grumpyitguy.blogspot.com/2012...s-too-old.html

I'm considered old but if I put my hands on you. You might forget that fact. Just kidding.

Lets see. Hmmm. My oldest working Linux box.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...5/#post5067529

It is not blinding fast. But it surfs, plays youtube vids, answers mail, plays mp3s, burns music cds (cdrw), answers mail, you know the basic stuff any Windows user at home may need
who is poor as hell and needs hand holding using a computer.

Works great wireless pcmcia if needed and if a senior citizen, (locally), living off of cat food asked.
Yeah, I'd give to them and a CRT with it also. I've done this before with a 80 + year old friend of the wife with a IBM tower that is considered too old in some circles. When she
passed away. Her daughter called and told me to go ahead and take it back.


Perception as always plays into threads like these. Like my starting sentence.
Perception can change in a heart beat , (in real life situations).
Any disaster survivor from the Midwest, The Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, etc........
can and will probably tell you that. When you end up having nothing.
Old starts looking good.

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Old hardware and old computers, I have a hard time getting rid of it. Old computers and hardware are like those old classic or antique cars to me.

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I rebuilt an old 486 desktop for family, and it does everything they need, as you suggest.
It doesn't play streamed HD content very well though, which is becoming a more common requirement.
Same as my old 8086, I kept developing on that for many years, until JPEG's basically became common, and it couldn't decompress them in a reasonable amount of time.

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Good topic, interesting discussion! For me personally, the cutoff point is Adobe Flash. If the hardware can't play Youtube well, then I cannot recommend it to friends/family.

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashp...ech-specs.html

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For me a system is too old when it is not able to do the things it is supposed to do.

Last time I tried Minitube played Youtube videos without any problems on a laptop with 550MHz Celeron CPU and 256MB of RAM.
I find those specs Adobe sets as minimum requirements rather funny, just because they actually don't make any sense. Why should on a netbook with the (slower by design of architecture) Atom CPU 1.6GHz clockspeed be sufficient, when on a desktop a 2.33Ghz (faster by design of architecture) CPU is needed?

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For bypassing Adobe flash. While Browsing (browser open) I use mplayer in line with http://linternamagica.org/
Some youtube videos work this way. Some don't. Youtubes fault IMO.

Other ways I cheat
Download the video with greasemonkey script and play outside of browser.

cli downloader cclive and youtube-dl are also running buddies of mine that work real well outside of my browser.

More friends for older hardware https://github.com/trizen/youtube-viewer
What it looks like and does http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=76835

Yeah, what he said. http://flavio.tordini.org/minitube

Speaking of old. Here is the SD card I am posting from

Out of a Kodak camera that was Junked. One works with what one has.

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I've thought of trying to put Linux on an old Apple IIe (got at a rummage for a few bucks) also have its schematics for learning how it works and\or hacking, it does work but is mostly just eye-candy for me. IMHO: If you can learn from something or have fun with it, it's not recyclable as trash, maybe wreckable but not trash. (-: I like throwing together PCs for two year olds on up: they play games, teach typing\mouse, teach* and on and on... If it can't play DVDs I wouldn't give it out (unless not needed.txt++) so 400Mhz to 500Mhz minimum for that, otherwise no limit for me; can learn Ruby on an old piece of "junk" like my Compaq ProLinea 590 (free) and use my Raspberry Pi for searching help.

Snowpine for the average user I'd say yes, unless you're willing to do their updates but wouldn't use Adobe Flash for examples it like microcoughed and many other proprietors would out date your system every few years if possible, VLC for example, and Linuces long out live it and nothings free you have to work at it... ;-)

I seem to have a few odd perceptions. If 90% of the skills that you use to make something old work has no employment opportunities in the past ten years, it's too old. If it takes longer to setup a single device like a modem than it does to install linux on a modern machine, by a factor > 3x's, it's too old. And the modern clincher, if you can fund the purchase of something current just from the power savings by using the new thing instead of the old thing, it's too old.

That being said I do have some old tech that still fuctions. You never know when you'll need a 5.25" floppy, a reel to reel, or 3.5" floppy, or optical drives before DRM / protect mode. But outside of personal works from an era, I technically have no need for such things.

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Hehe, funny how this thread is just below mine about serial ports. I have a hard time getting rid of old stuff, but I've learned to live by doing more with less. That said, my opinion is: if it works, it's not too old. Heck, if an old CD drive doesn't read CDs anymore but still has a functional tray that can open and close, and be used as a beer holder... it's not too old.

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As far as wasting time goes I've done worse.

Good luck on your Q whatlogic. I have tons of hacks for serial ports+ on disks somewhere and a few older motherboards set aside for home automation, robotics, etc; way cheaper than the nephews Snap Circuits.

Dawned on me at work this definitely needs a poll of some kind so if anyone has ideas before I do, was thinking:

How Old is Too Old, (please post why?)

• If windows stops supporting it?
• Moneys in the budget?
• Too much work needed to make things happen?
• Too slow?
• Power consumption makes a difference?
• Next "big thing" is out?
• It won't play movies?
• It won't play games?
• Three years?
• Six years?
• Nine years?
• Twelve years?
• Never!

I will give it a couple of day and sure will edit in more...

I think for most people, Pentium II's and lower are too old for what most people want out of a desktop PC. My Dell Latitude D400 is probably on the cutting edge of too old with it's Pentium M 745 processor. It does most of the things I need from it, however.

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Depends on who you ask.

If you ask Intel, AMD, microsoft, apple, and probably most of the other hardware and software manufacturers and retailers, they will say 'yes!'. The people making new stuff wil always be trying to sell it to you, if you need it or not.

For myself, I'd say that the systems are 'somewhat' outdated. If you can get faster, lower power consumption systems then obviously the hardware is 'outdated'. That doesnt mean that upgrading will make any sense for economic, time management or environmental reasons.

Even if individuals stopped buying new computer hardware for 10 years, there would still be tons of less than 10 year old 2nd hand systems around. Corporate buying patterns arent going to change without some induction to do so (e.g. new enviromental/disposal laws).

Windows support, who cares? If you were going to take that route, pretty much every 586 system and earlier is now dead.

If the system is capable of doing what you want it to do, its not 'too old'. I know people who still run 386s and 486s for 'legacy' DOS gaming.

Thers a difference between knowing that the system is ancient/old/obsolete and may not run current OSes/software, at least without huge efforts, and running on hardware that is obsolete but still capable. In the case of jsowdens '64MB' thread (which you're linked to this thread) it seems like they are expecting to get a 'general use' distro that will do everything on systems that are not going to have enough RAM, or CPU power to make it possible. Even with some tweaking, its probably going to be slow enough to make the system unusable for many common tasks.

They arent totally stupid. Somewhat, yes, but not totally. Its all about those high clocked low performance per MHz P4s. 1.6GHz Atom vs 2.2GHz and 3.2GHz P4-

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ttop,2649.html

A 2.2GHz or lower celeron would run even slower, and the atom might actually pull ahead on most of the tests.

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If the cpu still cycles and you can put those cycles to any good use - it is never too old!

I still have an Apple II (not e) that works. You might think that has no uses, but it introduced my children to the basics of microprocessors, machine level programming and building hardware interfaces at a young age and in a way that nothing current could hope to do!

And as most of my own hardware has come from the thrift store or garage sales in recent years, I still think of a dual core 64 bit anything as cutting edge, with no regrets - I don't feel that I am missing anything!

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You guys remind me of die hard bikers.

"It's a Lifestyle"

"Naw, to me it is just a machine"

"I live and breathe this because it makes me free!"

"I live and breathe this because of the girls!"

Funny how geeks and 1% ers seem to have certain things in common.

My Thanksgiving joke of the day.

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