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Old computers = garbage? Hogwash!


Tommy

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Since I don't really know where else to post this, I'm going to discuss it here!

 

I just 'love' going around to other sites, looking for advice on upgrading older computers. It seems a lot of other people are asking the same questions on what the can put into their machines to give them a little extra boost to them, and the responses all seem the same....trash it and buy a new one.

 

Okay, I'll be blunt there, I'd like to slap those people upside the head.

 

Just because the machine is from 2002 or 2004, doesn't mean it's garbage. Will it run as great as say a new i7? No, of course not. But as long as it performs the tasks you need it to do, why is it garbage? I see people driving cars from the 60s and 70s, heck, sometimes even 40s! Are those cars garbage because they're old and don't have all the new bells and whistles that todays have? Of course not! They're classics, and that's just what some of these machines are, classics.

 

Now maybe something as common as a Dell Dimension from the early to mid 2000s is not necessarily classic, but everyone that I knew had one. They were pretty good for their time. But apparently because it can't watch HD YouTube videos or play these really extravagent games where you basically shoot people up like they did in the 90s...they're no good.

 

So I guess what I'm saying is, unless someone is looking to do the impossible with the computer that they're trying to upgrade, don't tell that person it's trash. Answer their freakin question. If I ask, what is the fastest Pentium 4 process I can put in a Dell Dimension 2400, answer it! Don't tell me to throw it away because it's no good and that you can't run Windows 10 on it with the latest security updates, because that's irrelevant to me. People today in my opinion are spoiled, because they aren't happy with what they have, they have to have the newest and greatest things no matter what the cost is.

 

Anyway, does any of our enthusiests of old machines or operating systems feel this way or had similar experiences? This is exactly why I love MSFN, because you're not given stupid answers like that, you're given answers to the questions you seek.

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Well, you have to consider that a number of people that actually replies to questions asked on some "technical" boards were actually born around 1995 or after that, their first chance to use a computer and use it was already something in the i686/several Gb RAM class of PC's, manufactured 2005-2008 or later.

 

They call those prehistoric, of course and believe that anything short of a quad core with 8 Gb of RAM (and a senseless 64 bit OS) cannot be defined a "computer".

 

Why, in my day ...

https://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html

and we LIKED it! ;)

 

And about amount of bytes (senselessly) transferred over the internet I like to use this new unit of measure :yes:, the DOOM :w00t::

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/174175-not-a-site-issue-but-maybe-worth-some-thought/

 

 

jaclaz

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Now maybe something as common as a Dell Dimension from the early to mid 2000s is not necessarily classic, but everyone that I knew had one. They were pretty good for their time. But apparently because it can't watch HD YouTube videos or play these really extravagent games where you basically shoot people up like they did in the 90s...they're no good.

 

 

 

Maybe that's the reason - just not old enough to be classic and gather its own scene. And the Fact that Windowses (what a word :P) are somehow continuous and backwards compatible doesn't help.

 

Ppl can do awesome things with old machines, look at demoscene, look what Amigas have nowadays, look... anywhere. Retroscene can produce wonders, what is said by proud owner of Everdrive N8 :) Actually old PC scene is not as big and somehow hidden (comparing to what Nintendo or Sega fanboys established), but you can find a good advice. Sometimes. Somewhere :>

 

I thought myself about making my old PC a DOS-games machine, by replacing XP with 95 or 98 and adding some old Soundblaster card or sth like that, but dropped the idea.

 

Maybe not exactly the answer for what you said, but still... just a stream of thoughts somewhere around the topic :>

 

PS a nice example of sth new for an old PC ;)http://retrocityrampage.com/msdos_retail.php

Edited by Mcinwwl
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...  If I ask, what is the fastest Pentium 4 process I can put in a Dell Dimension 2400, answer it! ...

 

Looks like the Dell Dimension 2400 could only run socket 478, 400 or 533 FSB, 512K or smaller L2 cache P4s tops.

 

So the fastest would be the non-HT Northwood 3.0 3000MHz 400MT/s, or the non-HT Northwood 2.8 2800MHz 533MT/s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_4_microprocessors#Northwood_.28130.C2.A0nm.29

 

 

You would be happier if you paid more attention to objective facts, and less so to other people's subjective opinions. :)

 

"Opinions are like a·s·s·h·o·l·e·s. Everybody has one." (Harry Callahan)

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LOL, TELVM. You have a good point, but I was just throwing that out as a standard fill in question. I know how to research some of that stuff but many times I just search for what others are putting into their machines and one was actually about a Dell Dimension 1100 which I really don't think it's necessary to go into full detail about it, but it's really not a bad machine from what I've researched on it and many on this one forum were basically saying just throw it away. It's a step up from the 2400 which I think works decently given the proper modifications to it.

People can totally have opinions about things, but if someone asks you a question, don't give them your opinion, give them the answer. If it's impossible to do what you want with it, just say so. But don't tell them to throw it out just because your standards are so high that it's garbage to you. It'd be like saying throw out that old cassette player because it doesn't have a CD player in it, or by today's standards, an iPod dock. If it can still be used for what you need it to, then I believe it's perfectly fine to keep it until it dies.

 

But actually, if you use the latest BIOS revision with the Dell Dimension 2400, it can support Hyper Threading. uxwbill just posted a video on it the other day in fact and it proves to be working.

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it is garbage only because you can't find replacement parts for it

 

i have 1 putter with single core AMD 2500+ but it only supports SSE 1

thus for example it can't run stupid things as browser (only pale moon specifically compiled for that cpu runs)

its also blocked from skype 6++, also youtube chokes on it

 

yet it has mid end gamers geforce 6600 GT (it even had 6900 XT at some point)

 

yet anything you work on it runs smoothly, except stupid a** WEB !

so if you look at it from that perspective, its not HW that is junk, but todays software

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yet anything you work on it runs smoothly, except stupid a** WEB !

 

I would say that when it comes to average PC usage web browsing is currently one of the most resource intensive activities.

 

The more "modern" (= bloated) the website is, the more powerful computer you need to view it comfortably. The popular web browsers themselves need high end components to operate smoothly too.

 

Considering the current trends I won't be surprised if the situation gets even worse in the future.

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it will

 

myself, I don't see reason why HTML 5 has to provide 3D graphic - wtf ?

or bunch of some graphic transitions that only chokes CPU down

 

will web browsers soon become all-use apps ?

fucking retarded

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it will

myself, I don't see reason why HTML 5 has to provide 3D graphic - wtf ?

or bunch of some graphic transitions that only chokes CPU down

will web browsers soon become all-use apps ?

f***ing retarded

HTML5 itself is just a skeleton.

I think it is useful to distinguish between:

1. Web sites slow to load - bloated code, bloated images & videos, ads, way too many HTTP requests, etc.

2. Web sites slow to perform - overused Javascript, overused CSS, audio & video autoplay, Flash, ads, etc.

You can probably name many more things responsible for the overall slow & poor experience of "modern web".

From what I have seen, just disabling Javascript alone leads to dramatic improvement in speed, especially on slower devices. Once I disabled JS on my old Android phone (using an older version of UC Browser), navigation through web sites suddenly became a pleasant and smooth experience instead of the constant struggle it had been before.

There will be many reasons for the current situation. I myself believe that one of the problems is that web designers themselves use very powerful computers and simply cannot comprehend how slow the whole thing is on computers used by ordinary people.

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v5 isn't skeleton anymore as CSS3 comes with it

and they both do all that shit, you don't need JS anymore for complex 3D displays

 

that was the whole point of next gen html/css

to replace JS and maybe jquery

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This kind of "non-advising" "advice" happens all the time, all over the place online - and yes, it's irritating.

 

I saw it just yesterday when giving myself some reminders on converting DVDs from PAL to NTSC format. People advise: "Just get a better DVD player and it will do the conversions for you right in the player."

Yeah, ummmm... Thanks, NUMBNUTS.

 

A Hollywood cartoon - where artists painstakingly created 24 images to be shown each second - is MEANT to be displayed at 24 frames-per-second. Now, in Europe, where the PAL standard was 25 fps, they had no choice how to watch it. I get that. But I DO. And I DON'T need to be told to "get a better DVD player". If that was what I wished, my player can play them back just fine, thankyouverymuch. SHEEESH!!

So yes, I sympathize.

My first computer was a Timex-Sinclair 1000. :)  I thought it was pretty neat at the time. It had a half-width membrane keyboard, you used a standard audio cassette drive for storage, and it could be expanded to as much as 32 kilobytes of RAM! LOL

I hate to throw anything away. I take old computers and turn them into arcade game machines using MAME and the like. Little kids LOVE those games! And they're so computer-savvy at such young ages now, they catch on to the controls right away. You can also make pretty good multimedia players from machines that have weak processors but decent GPUs.

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My first computer was a Timex-Sinclair 1000. :)  I thought it was pretty neat at the time. It had a half-width membrane keyboard, you used a standard audio cassette drive for storage, and it could be expanded to as much as 32 kilobytes of RAM! LOL

To be picky 64 Kb of it, at least the original zx81 had this third party "mempack", nowadays the difference between 32 kB and 64 kB is "nothing", but at the time it made a whole lot of difference:

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/36273/Memopak%2064K/

 

jaclaz

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v5 isn't skeleton anymore as CSS3 comes with it

and they both do all that s***, you don't need JS anymore for complex 3D displays

 

that was the whole point of next gen html/css

to replace JS and maybe jquery

 

Yes and no. You can have a valid HTML5 website without using CSS3 (or any CSS at all).

Check: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com

 

On my website too I use some CSS3 but no HTML5 elements.

 

Don't get me wrong. I do agree that the Web is slow and bloated, and thus require a powerful computer to browse comfortably. But I don't agree it's HTM5 / CSS3 to be the main problem. Sure, abusing CSS3 will cause poor performance. Yet, at the moment it's HUNDREDS of useless scripts (most used just for ads and tracking) running in the background that make even a fast machine stutter.

 

Try to disable CSS. I doubt it will make any visible difference on the majority of websites. Once you disable Javascript the difference in performance is huge.

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