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.
I’m not saying that old hardware is useless. I make good use out of old hardware too. I have an old i5 Dell from about 2012 running ZoneMinder, a Phenom II system from around 2009 that I use a Linux server, an even older Core 2 Duo system that’s a glorified MP3 player, and even a very early 2000’s Pentium III that I use for a router (sadly I’m going to have to retire it from these duties soon - it can barely handle a 100 mbps DSL connection, and it’s too old and outdated to run the modern router distributions).
However, for every one of those computers I have another one like it sitting in a closet plus a few extras. All the geeks and tinkerers I know are also swimming in old hardware. If I really wanted to get rid of this stuff, I’d have a hard time giving it away. Economically, this stuff is worthless. The supply greatly exceeds the demand(*)
(*) well, except maybe the Pentium III… it’s old enough now that retro gamers may be interested…
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.
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.
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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.
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I’m not saying that old hardware is useless. I make good use out of old hardware too. I have an old i5 Dell from about 2012 running ZoneMinder, a Phenom II system from around 2009 that I use a Linux server, an even older Core 2 Duo system that’s a glorified MP3 player, and even a very early 2000’s Pentium III that I use for a router (sadly I’m going to have to retire it from these duties soon - it can barely handle a 100 mbps DSL connection, and it’s too old and outdated to run the modern router distributions).
However, for every one of those computers I have another one like it sitting in a closet plus a few extras. All the geeks and tinkerers I know are also swimming in old hardware. If I really wanted to get rid of this stuff, I’d have a hard time giving it away. Economically, this stuff is worthless. The supply greatly exceeds the demand(*)
(*) well, except maybe the Pentium III… it’s old enough now that retro gamers may be interested…
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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.
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