Why do I keep buying and using obsolete hardware?

Friends and co-workers have brought this up many times in the past, why would I ever buy used and obsolete hardware when you can find reasonably priced modern hardware on the market?

While this is fine, and I have nothing against it I have a predilection for old hardware that can be put back to effective use for two very specific reasons, one is Linux and the other one is a man by the name of K. Mandla.

Back when I started getting into Linux, some 10 years ago, I was struggling yet was always fascinated by the level of control you had over your operating system, want to install some software? It’s probably in a repository, don’t need a GUI? That’s fine, run it through the command line, and on the command line is where I found myself more intrigued, this all mighty black screen held so much control over everything, an esoteric world in front of me that I could not wait to tamper with, every mistake was a lesson well learned, every success was a thrill, but to learn that you could run video and audio directly from the console was something that completely changed the way I saw computers coming from a purely Windows environment.

When looking for more things to do I hit a blog of someone named K. Mandla and there my love for the console grew but furthermore my appreciation for old hardware and the possibilities of what I could do with it, repurposing it to do very specific tasks, I got into it so much that I went to flea markets and PC stores to pick up old hardware, in most cases I could get it for free because the owners just wanted to get rid of all the trash they had because they could not push it into the market, I was rebuilding old PCs and selling them for 10 or 20 dollars back then, whatever happened to those computers I would not know but at least I managed to rescue them from the garbage dump and gave the opportunity to a lot of people of finally having a computer back when having a smart phone was either having an iPhone or a Blackberry, either option was expensive so a cheap computer, no matter how slow or short lived, was a viable exit.

While I am conscious that also using old hardware may mean higher electrical bills and this is in no way helping the planet or my wallet there is a very important issue with e-waste being dropped on Africa and Asia, the link contains a very informative overview on what is going in Ghana and e-waste literally killing the country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mleQVO1Vd1I

There is another point aside from repurposing or saving the planet, one way or the other as this is again very debatable, and that is collecting some old hardware that I had worked with, that was very reliable and apparently very long lasting, an example of this being the IBM T60, T61 and T400 laptops I have at home which I continue to use even to this day with Debian as they are more than enough for what I need to do, the T60 and T61 are stored but these I have used for 8 and 7 years respectively and the only reason why I stopped using them was because I could not put 4GB of RAM in them yet I could see some tasks that I could use these laptops for, then there’s the Pentium III Laptop that I use to write and play old videogames, because emulation is fine but sometimes I just doesn’t work and writing without any interruptions can be golden when trying to put every ounce of effort into it.

Also there’s trying out old hardware that I had never worked with in the past such as SCSI drives, this was more of an accident actually as I did not read on the specs of the PowerEdge 1850 on what type of hard drives it used but at the price of 30 dollars with shipping included I could not pass it up and the hard drives, two 136GB and one 73GB, ended up costing 20 dollars with shipping, or DAT Tapes, which I actually worked for some time with but I never got the chance to do it myself and while backing up something on another hard drive or the cloud is fine I could always have a spare backup for emergencies on a tape.

And to add to the inventory I have recently purchased a SunFire v100 and SunFire v120, one of them is IDE and the other one is SCSI so I do not have a problem with getting them to work, they already have RAM and everything on them it’s just a matter of connecting through a DB9 to Ethernet type cable to the console of these servers to get them to boot onto a CD, which I still have plenty laying around surprisingly, and install an operating system so I can fiddle around with them, probably to make a small web server or even a firewall/proxy, we’ll see about that one but this was all because I wanted to play around with these old machines as I’ve read about them and have been intrigued about how good they are.

Now the only problem that I have left is buying a server rack and start building up a room to put the servers and all the retro-hardware that is just piling up.

IBM: Why bother?

A lot of people, throughout time, have bad mouthed IBM hard. An example of this is the hatred against AS/400 (We're talking about the servers) and the programming language (Can't be considered one to be honest) RPG.

Then the prices are also something the normal user runs away from. The laptop I currently use was made somewhere around 2005 and from what I've read this was the top of the line for IBM and went for around 1500 up to 1800 depending on the configuration and the add-ons you decided to put into your purchase.

Is it worth it, should you bother?

Real simple answer: Yes.

Long answer: Even though IBM has stopped building laptops and desktops for the end-user, that is the business end-user or companies that had the budget for it, Lenovo continued this process and reasonably began to lower their prices and continued the "economical" line that tries not to sacrifice power but that is for the common user to decide in the end.

Back when I worked at a Factory we used only IBM for our end-users. During my time I had 5 laptops assigned to me and all but one were IBM products going from a T41, a T60, a G50 and finally a T500, not included a Gateway laptop that I hated because it was heavier than most laptops I ever used and that is including the G50 which is a monster. The reason why I mention these models is because they were, at some point, the main mobile army of IBM for the businessman which even though light were powerful enough.

Desktops and Laptop alike, IBM made some really tough material back in their prime days that can still be found in many recycling shops and computer stores and it's guaranteed that even though most of them had seen a lifetime of abuse that they'll continue to last for another couple of years before finally giving up and going into eternal slumber. If you ever have the chance to find a T40 or her lesser cousins or maybe a T60 and you are in need of something powerful then do not hesitate to give it a try.

And we're better off now!

Last tuesday drew the final line with Windows 7 and the Microsoft Windows line in general. I've used Windows during my entire life and I've transitioned from Windows 3.1 up to Windows 7, learning a fair amount of tricks, but I've grown tired of bloatware and in general Windows tendency to lose compatibility between versions.

Yeah I'm probably an old dog, not that old though, but those are the little details that piss me off... and the drivers which is what took me to fly into Linux and say good bye to Windows.

This bad boy over here is an IBM/Lenovo T61 running an Intel Centrino Core Duo at 2.0 Ghz, 2 GB of DDR2 PC-6700 and a 500GB Hard Drive, which I got from somewhere else. Even though modest in this time and year, considering these were built back in '05. Interestingly this machine had issues running Windows XP, I somehow felt there was something wrong, and even though I went for Windows 7 it still felt the same way and it wasn't until at work, while trying to fix a T500 I had been assigned, I realized that the T60/61/500 line had SERIOUS problems with driver compatibility. So bad it was that if you tried to format the computer with a Windows XP CD it wouldn't let you and if you didn't have the recovery discs then you were in for an ugly ride until you yet again realize you have to mess around with the BIOS to get it working and then after the install is done you have to mess with it again... not cool Microsoft/IBM/Lenovo. And I'm not going to talk about my experience with Windows Vista and the T500, believe me I have NOTHING good to say about it.

So it all comes down to this, Linux. I had intended to do this transition earlier but for X or Y reason I just wouldn't, OK I procrastinated, but in the end it is a change I don't regret at all. In comparation Debian 6 "Squeeze" is running way smoother with the Gnome interface at a noble 300~ MB when it has completely finished booting up into the Desktop, after 30 seconds, which in no way was happening with either XP or 7. Oh joy, Windows Security Updates, Windows Driver Updates, Windows Something Updates, sorry what's that? 300MB patches? Windows Genuine Advantage Mathingy? Resource Hogs at the turn of every corner?

Things like that always made me cringe in terror but fortunately that's all in the past and if I ever need to run anything I just go for WINE or fire up the Virtual Machine which contains an original version of Windows XP. And for those telling me that's not true remember that all branded PC's contain a label with the key and I'm using mine for the VM XP so Microsoft can go and kiss my ass with their retarded policies.

And as a final note the only issue I had with Linux was the Wireless Driver which took me around 5 minutes to find, which unfortunately with Windows XP was a whole different story because the property drivers are NOT included in the installation disc which literally consists of most components in the laptop except for the motherboard, monitor, keyboard, mouse and the USB hubs... aside from those it could vary and if you weren't using a Windows XP SP3 CD then you weren't going to find the Hard Drive, EVER, since there were no SATA drivers included or if you found 'em it was minimal.

Yes Microsoft, quite a joyful time I had with your operating systems...