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Ask HN: Which old, functional, electronics do you have?

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11–20 of 67 posts

Re: Ask HN: Which old, functional, electronics do you have?

#11
I use an X220t laptop-tablet daily.

I still have a large collection of PowerPC based macs, though I rarely use them these days. The G4s and G5s can still browse the internet with a special fork of firefox, and they're still good for playing the small library of games released for them.

Re: Ask HN: Which old, functional, electronics do you have?

#12

I'm currently typing this on a 2008 Sony VAIO FW series laptop, running Windows 10. It has a physical wifi switch, among other great features. (but very slow even with 6GB of RAM, I use it at the kitchen table mostly to read the news because I don't care much if it gets abused, and the battery is good for only about 10 minutes even at full charge), I have a Palm Pilot V along with charging cradle and data transfer ca…

Have you considered putting a Linux distro on your laptop? It would probably be much faster than Windows 10.

Re: Ask HN: Which old, functional, electronics do you have?

#13
post #3

I have a laptop from 2012 that I use. Modded original Xbox would likely count. Most of my other old electronics are not computerized or capable of running custom software (at least nothing modern or extensive).

You'd be surprised what can run on old machines. iMac G3 from 1999 is capable of running the latest versions of FreeBSD.

Re: Ask HN: Which old, functional, electronics do you have?

#14
post #3

I have a laptop from 2012 that I use. Modded original Xbox would likely count. Most of my other old electronics are not computerized or capable of running custom software (at least nothing modern or extensive).

You'd be surprised what can run on old machines. iMac G3 from 1999 is capable of running the latest versions of FreeBSD.

My old electronics are generally not computers. Sure, you can probably hack/replace the ICs to run some trivial thing, but I don't think that really counts. They certainly aren't running an OS, not even Damn Small Linux.

Re: Ask HN: Which old, functional, electronics do you have?

#15
I've got a Raspberry Pi 2, a ~10 year old Samsung Android media player, an iPhone 6, a 5 year old Chromebook, and another older Windows laptop. I also just recently bought a ~10 year old Mac Mini to play around with as part of a little project I'm working on. I suppose technically my TV might count: it's a SonyXBR-55X900E from 2017 running Android.

Re: Ask HN: Which old, functional, electronics do you have?

#17
Do you have existing e-waste collection centers in your area? The local one in our county runs its own store where you can buy electronics they have picked out of the stream. Similarly, thrift stores run by local charities who take physical donations will also be repurposing electronics they receive.

I imagine that perusal of such places could give you a sense of what surplus equipment is being dumped in the community. You might even be able to chat up the workers and get a little better sense of how much waste is cherry picked versus sent onward to its destruction.

However, I also imagine these are also your competitors if you are trying to validate an idea based on collecting useful "junk" from people.

Re: Ask HN: Which old, functional, electronics do you have?

#19

The oldest fitting the actual question (though an n64 and GBC can run custom software technically), and the most interesting thing is a 32bit netbook circa 2011, samsung n150. I wish it were more useful but the 32bit limitation has made it not worth the effort for a while. Also fill in the unsurprising collection of android phones, and a handful of older rpis (zeros without wifi and a 2).

Looks like the Samsung N150 actually has a 64-bit capable CPU. Additionally, Debian GNU/Linux still supports 32-bit i686 hardware quite well.
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