I had the idea earlier this year to partake in some silly and stupid technology-related challenges such as purchasing extremely cheap computers, using significantly outdated software, and similar things. I abandoned the idea for personal reasons, but I can’t resist the allure of an idiotic idea. So, here we are today, and I’m going to indulge my desire to do some stupid things with technology over the coming months.
Late last year, I bought a desktop PC for $50 and a laptop for $100. About a year ago, I built a Pentium III retro PC. In 2019, I purchased a laptop for $0.99 plus shipping, which might just be enough to buy a can of Coke1Diet Coke, natch. in 2023 😉. I’ve set up some virtual machines with ancient Microsoft operating systems. And just today, I put down $70 for a 30-year-old laptop. My goal with this old tech is to see what it can do — how it can still serve me in earth year 2023 — and to if I’m even half the technologist I still think I am.
The $50 PC and $100 laptop challenges will be simple: using any OS and software I like, use those machines for a week. The 30-year-old laptop challenge is equally as simple: to see if I can get any mileage out of a laptop made during the Clinton years. The virtual machine challenges lack the same panache as the ones done on real hardware, but they should be interesting for different reasons.
In any case, I want to satisfy my inner experimenter and try some things that weren’t really feasible for me years ago due to a lack of funds. I’m thinking that these are going to be some of the challenges I attempt:
- The $1 Laptop: Is it feasible to use a $1 eBay laptop from 2006 as a daily driver in 2023?
- The Skoolie: Is it feasible to use an $85 ex-school eBay laptop from 2017, with one of Intel’s slowest processors of the time, as a daily driver in 2023?
- The Bland Corporate Wintel Box: How much can a $50 eBay PC from 2013, with one of AMD’s slowest processors from its dark era, accomplish ten years later?
- The Museum Piece: I bought an untested 486-DX2 laptop from 1994 for $70 on eBay. Will it work? Can I install Windows 3.1 on it? Will the keyboard be worth suffering through Word 6.0? Can I find working floppy disks in 2023? (Related: can I find my USB floppy drive, and does the verkakte thing still work?) Can I find Dell drivers from nearly 30 years ago? Is it feasible to rebuild the battery? The questions just keep piling up!
- Windows NT 4.0 in a VM: What was it like? Can it do anything useful today?
- Haiku OS: Will a whole day of Haiku make me want to tear my hair out? Or will I fall in love all over again?
- FreeDOS: Can an OS from 2023 make ancient hardware useful again?
- The Gallic Gambit: What was non-English computing like in the mid-90s? How much Advil did the average ’90s PC user need to correspond with people across character sets? Découvrez-en à la prochaine épisode de Dragon Ball Z !
- The Conlanger’s Gambit: I started making constructed languages when Windows XP was still a going concern. Will going back to Redmond’s golden age for my weirdest, most niche hobby cause me to have a brain aneurysm?
- The Sub-C-Note Mac: Is it possible to buy a Mac for less than a hundred bucks? Would you really want to?
- Teenage iBook: Can my crusty old iBook G4 do anything of substance while I drink hideously overpriced union-brewed coffee?
- Building a Mystery: What can my 2000-era Pentium 3 box really accomplish? What is Windows 98 like to use in 2023? Can it bring back any fond memories of my adolescence?
These posts will filter in over the coming months. I’m a slow, lazy, forgetful git, and a lot of the time I find it hard to find the motivation to blog. But I’ll do my best.