Old PC?

[him610]

I saw this in another topic this morning...

I have this old PC...

I figured the OP must have been to referring to a PC about 10 or so years old. I read a few more posts further down where the OP finally referred to his motherboard model, ASrock H51DM.
I looked up the specs; the first thing I saw was "Supports 10th and 11th generation Intel Core processors" and "Has two DDR4 DIMM slots."
Thought to myself, "That is definitely not old, recent, but not old." New motherboards are currently being sold still have DDR4 slots.

I believe we have had this discussion before, but what is considered to be old these days?
Is it merely a personal perspective?
Many of us have been around computers and operating systems for many years (decades) while younger people (our great-grandchildren) for one, maybe two cycles of CPU/DDR? advances.

Maybe it is only the rants of an old man who occasionally feels the urge to say something.

FWIW, it is still cold in south central Pennsylvania; although, not as cold as a few days ago.

[TheFu]

What is old is completely subjective.
It depends greatly on the purpose of the computer and background of the person evaluating "old".

I don't consider my 2001 car "old" because everything on it works perfectly, it still looks nice, and has never left me stranded anywhere. But some people who only lease vehicles for 1-3 yrs might call it ancient.

To some people "old" means it broke on them. This is because they aren't skilled in that specific area, "old" is how they justify buying something new. I want to achieve "value" out of the things I buy. That means they last longer than I expected. Sadly, I've never had a laptop last that long without any issues. Of course, I don't believe I'm "hard" on any laptops, at least not before I've reached the "value" time period. The only laptop I've owned that got to that point was an Asus EEE. Towards the end, I was actively abusing it. I even checked it inside international luggage, hoping it wouldn't survive. It did. ;( Eventually, I gave it away and that person spilled coke into it within a month, destroying it. Giving people stuff for them to break wasn't the plan. It was clear he didn't appreciate the gift.

I will say that my SPARC-IPX is "old". I consider my Core i5-750 (1st Gen) to be old and I definitely consider my Win7 laptop with a Core i5-25xx CPU, old. These last two have broken on me, while I can coax both to boot, they aren't very speedy and don't always boot. The desktop was my backup server for years after it wasn't the fastest system here. It is old enough not to support USB3 and adding a USB3 add-on PCIe card just showed how ill equipped the motherboard bus was for that throughput. It is "old".

But none of my Raspberry pi computers are "old" to me, since each is running something specifically designed to work well on the hardware.

I have some "old" chromebooks and laptops that cannot be used anymore due to hardware issues.

The best travel laptop I've ever owned will still boot, but the battery and keyboard on it are unusable. It is sized perfectly, 1080p resolution, 10+ hours of battery life when new, Core i3-5xxx. Great system, until the battery started expanding and more and more keys in the keyboard stopped working. Replacing the keyboard is about $150 and the entire laptop is worth $150 if the keyboard worked perfectly. A laptop without a working keyboard is sorta useless. I used it with a portable keyboard for about a year before finally giving up, taking the storage out of it and getting a replacement laptop. Sadly, the new laptop is 15 inch and about 4.5 lbs - big and heavy. I did get a deal, but didn't realize how much I loved the 13in size and sub-2lbs weight. Now that laptop and the replacement Core i5-8xxx are both "old" to me. Both have non-working keyboards which are hard to replace.

Most importantly, we aren't going to solve the question here or even come to a consensus.

[ajgreeny]

I consider myself old; my desktop computer, now 11 years old, and my laptop, 10 years old are both middle aged as far as I'm concerned and both work brilliantly using Xubuntu 22.04, or even 24.04. Both have Intel i5 CPUs and 8G ram and at the moment still have spinning rust disks but they work fine for my needs and I see no reason to replace either whilst they still do what I need

OK. they're not fliers, but not chuggers either, a bit like me, so as TheFu says, old is completely subjective, depending on the computer user and what is required by them.

[mikodo]

I don't consider my 2001 car "old" because everything on it works perfectly, it still looks nice, and has never left me stranded anywhere. But some people who only lease vehicles for 1-3 yrs might call it ancient.

+1 for everything.

Especially my 2000 Oldsmobile Intrigue. Just like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF7lf9_Cnzc

Or my refurbished 1890ish Government Issued Ash Desk, serving now as my computer desk.

Too bad I don't age as well as some of my stuff ...

[Frogs Hair]

I have a 2010 era Frankenstein computer made of spare parts with a biostar mobo, amd 645 x IV cpu , 8gb of ddr2 ram , and an older 2 gb nividia card. It's a very snappy computer ruining Solus. Better than paying to get rid of the parts.

[TheFu]

I have a 2010 era Frankenstein computer made of spare parts with a biostar mobo, amd 645 x IV cpu , 8gb of ddr2 ram , and an older 2 gb nividia card. It's a very snappy computer ruining Solus. Better than paying to get rid of the parts.

Frankenstein computer? The last pre-built desktop computer I bought turned out to be total crap. I swore I'd never do that again. Every computer since has been home built and upgraded since. My newest CPU and Motherboard sits in a case I bought in 1999. The system next to it is using a case from 2005.

For a long time, my "upgrades" were $200 total. $100 for a new CPU and $100 for a new motherboard + RAM. Thanks to inflation, my upgrades require spending more now - a little over $200 to get 5x faster processing.

My local county has free e-waste days a few times a year, so I load up the trunk and let the volunteers grab everything. The only hassle is a 10 minute wait in a huge parking lot. Last spring, I took about 7 monitors + 1 TV to be recycled for free. Next recycle day, will be old UPS batteries. They are in the garage waiting to be loaded along with smaller batteries. The county recycling center will take stuff 6 days a week, but I think they charge $10 per pickup load, depending what is included. Also, no helpers at the center, so I get to load and unload everything.

Some local office stores recycle anything electronic for free, assuming you'll buy replacements. There was an incentive program by one of the box Office supply stores here last spring that would provide $10 off for each item to be recycled. The rule was you didn't get the $10 until the next month and had only 30 days to use it. Basically, they used it to drive foot traffic into the store. Good way to get rid of old drilled HDDs, phones, tablets, switches, routers, and other little electronic gadgets that aren't working/wanted anymore.

[Frogs Hair]

Frankenstein computer? The last pre-built desktop computer I bought turned out to be total crap. I swore I'd never do that again. Every computer since has been home built and upgraded since. My newest CPU and Motherboard sits in a case I bought in 1999. The system next to it is using a case from 2005

I've built all my desktop computers except my first. Frankenstein refers to the multiple sources of the discarded parts. The mobo bundle is mine. The case, power supply, old ssd, and graphics card come from different sources. I don't build laptops and of the two owned, one is 12 and the other 2 years old. The office and electronic stores take one item if you buy a new item. Once a year you can pay to have your items taken at the outdoor concert venue parking lot and 50% of the fee goes to local charities.

[breakdaze]

I guess the Acer from 2011 I'm using right now is old, but works fine.

My first Intel PC was the IBM PS-2 Model 25. Such an oddball! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PS/2_Model_25 The keyboard used an RJ connector!

My first PC was the TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with 16k and Extended Basic! Had great books for learning programming, so cool.

Subjective, but let's say it's old when it no longer compiles your code as fast as you want, or doesn't run the distro you want.

The Babbage difference engine.

[him610]

Since I started this thread, I should document my legacy machines in the order which they were acquired (more or less)...

Chromebook Cr48 (original gifted by Google) In-operative with broken hinges and expired battery
Acer Aspire One A110L ZG5, Bios Date: 2008 - currently has BunsenLabs and Crunchbang++ installed on it
FoxConn R20-S4 with Atom 330, Bios Date: 2008 - recently (last week) installed Xubuntu 22.04.3 on it
Raspberry Pi Model 1B Rev 2 with Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) armv6l
Raspberry Pi Model 3B with Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) armv7l
System76 Pangolin with intel i5-3210M, Bios Date: 2012 (this is laptop my spouse uses daily) Xubuntu 22.04.3

House Rule: One old computer must go before a new is acquired or built. Can't clutter up the basement.