• RedFrank24@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Trade it in to who? Who’s buying PCs that can’t be used? I mean there’s the retro market, but AFAIK they aren’t buying anything after Windows XP.

      • toddestan@lemm.ee
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        15 hours ago

        That’s true, but the supply vastly outstrips the demand. They may make great Linux machines, but the majority of 10-15 year old computers have little to no economic value.

        • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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          6 hours ago

          I am running a plex server on a 2013 lenovo booted with elementaryOS. I used a 2009 Mac mini prior. They don’t all need to become e-waste after 10 years, let alone the typical 5 years or so many people throw their stuff out at.

          You can also turn basically any old machine into a video game emulation station.

      • RedFrank24@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        Why would you want to though? I can understand the retro market because there is software like games that either won’t run very well, or won’t run at all on modern hardware. I’m in the market for a ‘powerful’ machine circa 2003-2005 for that exact reason.

        When it comes to machines made in 2015? I’m not sure there’s a lot you can run on those machines that you couldn’t on modern hardware, apart from Windows 11.

        I guess you could use them for things like media servers, but it would have to be phenomenally cheap, as in cheaper than cheap modern hardware.

        Personally, my rule is a 10 year gap is old, a 20 year gap is retro.

        • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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          20 hours ago

          I use a 2013 Lenovo X1 Carbon with a damaged screen as a plex server thanks to Elementary OS. It would’ve been e-waste years ago in different hands. Frankly it’s a shame people don’t realize how easy it is to boot something like elementary and set up a Plex server. You can be up and running in about 45 minutes and you never have to touch a terminal command.

          There are tons of uses for old hardware. You just don’t know them. Pretty much any old computer can be turned into a video game emulation station.