Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
Depends on what the job at hand is, doesn't it? For me my computer is both a tool for work and an entertainment device (reading, browsing, TV, communicating) -- and the new ones can handle that so much better.
But even for work only, files getter bigger, you need more video, more storage, many different tasks are running at the same time. Old machines aren't up to that or become extremely slow.
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HansTWN, let me be a little more specific. What do I do with a general purpose computer? (as opposed to an embedded computer on a gadget.)
Listen to music - Wav files. You could do that on an 8088 machine. (The original IBM PC, circa 1981.)
Play "trinket" games. Mah Jong, computer version of Monopoly, ect. I have no interest in compute intensive 1st person shooters, or Massive Mulitplayer Online Games. I run old games from the day on DOSBOX.
Write letters, ect. No fancy layouts, font, mailing lists, ect. Wordpad would do, but Word 97 has a spell checker on it and is paid for.
Surf the web.
Watch SD level video. My machine won't upscale to 1080P, but SD is fine for me. If I want to watch 1080P, I go to home theatre and fire it up...
Run an Atari 800 emulator to play old games I bought 25 year ago, that I still enjoy.
Edit e-book typos
None of this needs the latest and greatest...
As to storage, I keep it external anyway, connected by USB 2. That is a govenor on how fast I can process the data anyways. If the data can only get to the CPU so fast, I don't need to keep spending money for idling resources.