Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-01-27, 02:57:

Go back and tell a PC enthusiast in 1999-2000:
"Yeah, some day you'll be able to buy a used 10 year old video card, drop it into a 10 year old workstation that someone is throwing away and use it to play all but the most intensive 3D games... and you'll still be able to play games from 20 years ago on the same computer (with the latest Windows version that exists) with very few problems."

Would have sounded totally bonkers back then when the games that came out each year were nearly unplayable on the video cards that came out the year prior.

its not only games, its computers in general. PCs became commodities 20 years ago, like cellphones some 7 or 8 years ago. You expect every computer in every form to do the same task because the technology is already there.

The only way to keep moving is to push people with software updates that artificially make a part obsolete and nobody will convince me that a AM3 or 775 isnt good enough for the vast majority of task (Windows 11 24h2 its gonna make a mess in a couple of years when 23h2 enters in EOL)

i dont miss the crazy advancements of the late 90´s tough, computers were much more expensive and lasted much shorter times. What i miss is the creativity and clever use of limited resources we had to do.

Nobody would believe me in that time that im posting this from a computer from 19 years ago (Thinkpad T60) with no compromises

Living wrote on 2025-01-30, 11:16:

The only way to keep moving is to push people with software updates that artificially make a part obsolete and nobody will convince me that a AM3 or 775 isnt good enough for the vast majority of task (Windows 11 24h2 its gonna make a mess in a couple of years when 23h2 enters in EOL)

Well, the publicly stated rationale for the hardware cutoff for the windows 11 upgrade is to improve security in the boot process. Rootkits are a real problem even if you find the windows upgrade cutoff specious. Security is one area where things are not yet where they need be in the computer world, and when it involves the boot process, hardware can help.

Security is the reason for millions of electronic deviced becoming useless and dumped.
You are not able to use a tablet or cellphone with an ancient android or os-X to browse the web due to missing certificates.
As a result you are not even able to install any software fron the official sources.
So the only real use of these devices is the use as a media player or some kind of remote control for your own home automation,
maybe as a handheld gaming gear, if the games have allready been istalled and are working without web access.

The last PC I build from new parts myself was during early 00-years.
From then on I started buying used professional workstations from resellers.
Just add a decent graphics card and an SSD makes them perfectly usable for gaming as well as for office and internet.
Using a RUFUS install stick is the choice to overcome the Win 11 hardware requirements.
Up to now all updates installed fine on these machines, even on these running for several years now.

eisapc wrote on 2025-01-31, 07:09:

Security is the reason for millions of electronic deviced becoming useless and dumped. You are not able to use a tablet or cell […]
Show full quote

Security is the reason for millions of electronic deviced becoming useless and dumped.
You are not able to use a tablet or cellphone with an ancient android or os-X to browse the web due to missing certificates.
As a result you are not even able to install any software fron the official sources.
So the only real use of these devices is the use as a media player or some kind of remote control for your own home automation,
maybe as a handheld gaming gear, if the games have allready been istalled and are working without web access.

yes indeed - the thing works but isn't useable outside a few offline tasks - but then some of those offline tasks are pretty good, like using and old tablet as emulator. the trick is getting needed software on when it can still go online, or knowing how to bypass everything to install things

The last PC I build from new parts myself was during early 00-years. From then on I started buying used professional workstation […]
Show full quote

The last PC I build from new parts myself was during early 00-years.
From then on I started buying used professional workstations from resellers.
Just add a decent graphics card and an SSD makes them perfectly usable for gaming as well as for office and internet.
Using a RUFUS install stick is the choice to overcome the Win 11 hardware requirements.
Up to now all updates installed fine on these machines, even on these running for several years now.

i didnt know about using rufus to circumvent win11 install requirements! thanks. also, i did the same thing - bought some "boring" old workstations for very little and added cheap graphics cards and an ssd (sometimes not!). They do well with almost all older games, eg a 2010 machine with an entry level 2010 graphics card can play just about anything up to around Crysis/fallout 3 etc at 1600x900 just fine.

BTW for repurposing discarded "modern" stuff, I have been stumbling across info that many HP business laptops and desktops can have their TPM firmware upgraded from 1.x to 2.0, this may apply to other players in that field. So then putting 11 on them may be less hacky. I doubt you're gonna make your fortune flashing TPMs to 2.0 but could be a nice sideline.

Guys, I took a small TV to the recycle center and found this stuff in the bin.
Any thing Good ?…..

I'd say its a score

Found a couple of IDE optical drives while exploring some dumpsters. Philips DVD-ROM DROM6116/34 and NEC DVD+RW ND-3500A. Both in excellent condition. I would have preferred beige drives, but for the price I can't complain 😀

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-01-31, 13:55:

BTW for repurposing discarded "modern" stuff, I have been stumbling across info that many HP business laptops and desktops can have their TPM firmware upgraded from 1.x to 2.0, this may apply to other players in that field. So then putting 11 on them may be less hacky. I doubt you're gonna make your fortune flashing TPMs to 2.0 but could be a nice sideline.

Assuming a secure boot capable platform, the only think Windows 11 setup really looks for is some sort of TPM. Even 1.2 is fine.
If you are doing a clean install as long as it sees theres some TPM it's happy and lets you continue no matter what the CPU is.
If you're doing an upgrade then if you have any TPM then you can use the (officially documented from MS, although they say as usual that the 7 plagues of Egypt WILL happen if you do use it) AllowUpgradeWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU=1 registry key to go ahead with the setup.

I've done it this way on several machines ranging from various flavours of Sandy Bridge to Ryzen 2xxx and never had any issues.

As for flashing TPMs, Infineon SLB9660TT12 can be flashed to TPM 2.0 becoming SLB9665TT20 and viceversa*

*the only exception are SLB9665TT20 running FIPS compliant firmware, those will have a firmware revision that ends in .2 and will only ever be TPM 2.0.

CrFr wrote on 2025-02-01, 13:53:

Found a couple of IDE optical drives while exploring some dumpsters. Philips DVD-ROM DROM6116/34 and NEC DVD+RW ND-3500A. Both in excellent condition. I would have preferred beige drives, but for the price I can't complain 😀

The attachment IMGP2392_.jpg is no longer available

Even SATA optical drives are becoming harder to find for free, so I'd call that a win.
I'm been stockpiling Optical drives for a few year now.

chinny22 wrote on 2025-02-02, 23:45:

CrFr wrote on 2025-02-01, 13:53:

Found a couple of IDE optical drives while exploring some dumpsters. Philips DVD-ROM DROM6116/34 and NEC DVD+RW ND-3500A. Both in excellent condition. I would have preferred beige drives, but for the price I can't complain 😀

The attachment IMGP2392_.jpg is no longer available

Even SATA optical drives are becoming harder to find for free, so I'd call that a win.
I'm been stockpiling Optical drives for a few year now.

Someone really needs to come up with a cheap GOTEK-like device for CD-ROMs..

CrFr wrote on 2025-02-01, 13:53:

Found a couple of IDE optical drives while exploring some dumpsters. Philips DVD-ROM DROM6116/34 and NEC DVD+RW ND-3500A. Both in excellent condition. I would have preferred beige drives, but for the price I can't complain 😀

The attachment IMGP2392_.jpg is no longer available

That picture is messing with me. Are those drives cut out and pasted onto a picture of an area rug?

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-03, 09:14:

That picture is messing with me. Are those drives cut out and pasted onto a picture of an area rug?

No 😁 I was using strong HDR setting on the camera to make the black front panel markings more visible. I guess that gives it a bit odd look.

Got another LCD, a Philips 150S3 from 2002 with plenty of life left. The best part: it's tiny so I don't have to blow up my storage area to find a spot for it.

Nice, I'd like to find some tinier 4:3 LCDs ... the usual problem with that is that they are early tiny LCDs, which means they might be slow and blurry on movement or the CFL is long gone out, or the PSU is external and weird. Guess there's a sweet spot for them in the early noughts where they were better but only briefly available before widescreen formats took over.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-02-07, 14:33:

Nice, I'd like to find some tinier 4:3 LCDs ... the usual problem with that is that they are early tiny LCDs, which means they might be slow and blurry on movement or the CFL is long gone out, or the PSU is external and weird. Guess there's a sweet spot for them in the early noughts where they were better but only briefly available before widescreen formats took over.

It would be awesome if someone would produce some 4:3 OLED monitors now that the prices have come down significantly. Actually... I wonder if any of the newer OLED laptop screens are 4:3? A lot of the nicer machines these days use a less widescreen ratio because vertical space is more desirable for lots of things. If the panels exist, someone could theoretically put together a DIY monitor for retro gaming. Would probably be a big project though. 😮

Now I'm imagining purpose-built retro-styled 17"-27" 4:3 OLED monitors that run internally at 240Hz and then apply something like BlurBusters' CRT beam simulation to the input signal. Would be about as close as we're going to get to a perfect CRT replacement unless something like LPD or laser projection takes off in a massive way (not likely).

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-02-07, 14:33:

Nice, I'd like to find some tinier 4:3 LCDs ... the usual problem with that is that they are early tiny LCDs, which means they might be slow and blurry on movement

No experience with early LCD but this one has a response time of 40ms so it's not the best out there. It came from a local factory where the displayshield feature was more important than the response time.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-07, 19:42:

It would be awesome if someone would produce some 4:3 OLED monitors

And I'd buy those monitors because I love 4:3. I still use a Syncmaster 913N.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-02-07, 19:42:

or laser projection takes off in a massive way (not likely).

Heh, you just reminded me of a deep backburnered project, a scanned beam laser retro-futuristic gimmick mono display I was cooking up. I was aiming low in terms of resolution and framerate. Think it stalled out due to problems finding where I could get suitable optical components.

When you take your PC to e-waste but you are too paranoid and even smash the PSU before Big Brother steals your power data. 😁

*sad PCIe slot noises

Well, you can always salvage that floppy cable. Or is that exterminated too. Man. 😒