Upgrades for PCs (1 Viewer)

camcondor

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Saw a good article in this weeks MicroMart about upgrade pathways for older PC hardware - if you are confident about dabbling with PC hardware, don't ditch systems under 4-5 years old yet (even those over 5 years old could still make a great Linux Box or even a dedicated Firewall - better than joining the landfill!!)

There are even suggestions about upgrading a Dell or Acer box - usually all but impossible as Dell and some others deliberately make their boxes all but "non-upgradeable" except in respect of RAM and HDD / Optical drive.

Laurie
 

Digger Driver

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Laurie!
A PCs speed is equated around the processor, Motherboard and RAM speeds!
The new stuff is coming out so fast that anything under a year old is obsoleet!
Don't believe anything about recovering old PCs!
They are only good for stealing software and music from the old hard drives!
The rest is a waste of space unless your giving it to your 4 year old kid!
 

American Dream

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Sorry DD I disagree.

I have recently been upgrading PC's for the community as part of a project.

Older PC's, Yes even running win98SE can run as units to surf the internet with no problem at all.

In fact I was surprised how fast they did run without all the bloated software and overhead of Win XP and Vista.Throw in 384 meg of ram and they fly.

A PC's speed is also governed by the amount of data required to perform a certain task.

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camcondor

camcondor

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Digger, I know we are a "throw away" society, but things are getting tighter,globally, financially, and most people really do not need or use the massively powerful processors they are duped into shelling out for when buying PCs. Exception being die-hard gamers, also top end graphics / video systems, (many of these are Macs anyway).

Its fine to go down that route if you have the spare dosh and don't mind chucking out stuff which is very usable, although no longer cutting edge.

Even an elderly system can act as a firewall or a print server in a home network - costs almost nothing to do this, and saves the landfill growing that bit faster.....I'm all for saving some cash where I can and using working equipment if at all possible instead of junking it. Why buy extra gear if you can use some of the existing stuff ?

Obviously this has to be done sensibly so you don't try to create a cutting edge gaming system from a three year old system - anything cutting edge needs to be built or purchased from brand new up to date stock. Lots of people only send email, browse a bit and use a word processor though..........perhaps view some low res pics or JPEGS from a digital camera. Its all down to what you actually need and want, and are prepared to pay for......:RollEyes:


Laurie
 

Digger Driver

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AD!
Your demands cannot be as great as mine!
I want it today and now!
Not next week after the pensioners are fed up!
 
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camcondor

camcondor

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Digger, you are probably just addicted to the boy's form of shopping for new gadgets and gear!!!

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American Dream

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AD!
Your demands cannot be as great as mine!
I want it today and now!
Not next week after the pensioners are fed up!


It is not my demands.More the community we serve and our customers.

My demands probably are as great but there are more factors to be taken into account than just the hardware.

Our company as well as so many more responsible builders of hardware, recognise the restrictions being placed on landfill of electrical products.

I blame it on the software writers pushing the technology forward, (making fairly recent technology obsolete within a couple of years) to be able to run their excessively bloated and glitzy software.eg Microsoft, for the pure purpose of profit.

Unix and Mac OS run so much more efficiently and with more stability than the MS products.

That is my opinion after working in I.T. for 17 years.
 
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Zozzer

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I no longer believe it's worthwhile jumping on the periodic upgrading bandwagon.
Far cheaper to join the throw away society and buy ready built PC from a computer fair. You can pick up a high spec machine cheaper than the price of components for doing the upgrading yourself.

In reality, for most everyday applications you dont need a superfast PC with masses of memory. It's all just marketing hype.
 

Digger Driver

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Laurie!
I agree with you totally!
But technology grows faster than us and we have to keep up or fade away!
Iam still to young and full of fight to fade away!

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camcondor

camcondor

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Steve, interesting some years ago I undertook just such a project - we took down a large company network of state-of-the-art XTs, which I managed to buy for scrap value (this was in the early 1990s). Bit of graft involved, but got some 30 systems running very well, Dos 5, I seem to recall, sold 3 or 4 to cover purchase costs and redistributed the rest to a local African school and community local to where I lived and worked at the time in S Africa - first computers in the area, ever. Ran some workshops as well to get recipients / community going - it was just brilliant to see the stuff used and helpful in an education context. At the time, 386es were the flavour of the day, but the XTs did a sterling job, as did numerous 286es.

Sadly, the UK is a much more "I want it now" society, and loads of useful stuff is junked for no reason other than there's a bigger / better / faster model - even if no-one really needs it!!

Laurie
 
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camcondor

camcondor

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Laurie!
I agree with you totally!
But technology grows faster than us and we have to keep up or fade away!
Iam still to young and full of fight to fade away!

Digger, you can keep up without necessarily fading away!! Its a myth that you HAVE to buy the biggest and best of everything to "keep up" !!! No-one has ever thought of me as not being full of fight yet, I don't think - ask around!!:ROFLMAO:

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American Dream

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Steve, interesting some years ago I undertook just such a project - we took down a large company network of state-of-the-art XTs, which I managed to buy for scrap value (this was in the early 1990s). Bit of graft involved, but got some 30 systems running very well, Dos 5, I seem to recall, sold 3 or 4 to cover purchase costs and redistributed the rest to a local African school and community local to where I lived and worked at the time in S Africa - first computers in the area, ever. Ran some workshops as well to get recipients / community going - it was just brilliant to see the stuff used and helpful in an education context. At the time, 386es were the flavour of the day, but the XTs did a sterling job, as did numerous 286es.

Sadly, the UK is a much more "I want it now" society, and loads of useful stuff is junked for no reason other than there's a bigger / better / faster model - even if no-one really needs it!!

Laurie

Hi Laurie,

I remember Dos 5, 5.1 and 5.11 and before.

No glitzy user interface but pure OS.

This "Must Have It Now" society is a product of Salesmen only interested in one thing and that's making a quick buck.

It's great for us as builders of systems but not for the ecology of the planet.
 
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Hi Laurie,

I remember Dos 5, 5.1 and 5.11 and before.

No glitzy user interface but pure OS.

This "Must Have It Now" society is a product of Salesmen only interested in one thing and that's making a quick buck.

It's great for us as builders of systems but not for the ecology of the planet.

Dos 5 modern stuff, what about 3.1 or even earlier qdos affectionally known as "quick and dirty dos" the original that gates bought from SCP (had to google that name ::bigsmile:)

Olley

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camcondor

camcondor

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Well, Dos 2.1 was quite a breakthrough as well now that we're in reminiscing mode:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:I think it followed on from or just preceded QDOS.

Seem to remember Dos 4 as being a complete dog, though.
 
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American Dream

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Dos 5 modern stuff, what about 3.1 or even earlier qdos affectionally known as "quick and dirty dos" the original that gates bought from SCP (had to google that name ::bigsmile:)

Olley

Yeah I remember those OS.
also DRDos.

Before Gates stole (allagedly) the windows Interface from Steve Jobs at Apple.
 

Zozzer

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Ah !!! the good old days.

Spectrum ZX80, then 81

Amstrad CPC6128 and CP/M OS, ...... PIP A:*.* B:*.*

Dos DrDos, PCDos, GWbasic & the Amstrad 1512.

The for £1200 I bought brand spanking new OPUS PC5 Turbo Mhz10 286 CPU, 1048kbs of RAM 30mb MFM Hard drive, 3.5" & 5.25" floppies and VGA monitior. Real number crunching power.

We certainly have come a long way since those days.

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johnsandywhite

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:Sad: The trouble with older PC's is that the latest software is so hungry for RAM and processor speed. Programmers today are TOO lazy. They have pages and pages and pages and pages and pages and pages etc of code. When it could be done in the old days with 1K for a Space invader game or table tennis bat and ball type game. Even programming HTML calls for a page of info before you actually start doing things with it. IMH&HO. :Eeek:
 
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There was a remarkable similarity to Apples system of the time, Steve, wasn't there?:RollEyes:

Remember "GEM" I think thats what it was called, Amstrads GUI had it on my 1512 in about 1986, took a while to load but seem quite good, for some reason he never continued with it.

Was that before the Apple version, or did he nick it as well? ::bigsmile:

Olley

PS after some googling it appears apple stole the GUI from PARC.
 
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