The Plex Server has to transcode all types of formats to H.264 in real time. My old 2006 Core Duo 1.66Ghz Mac couldn't handle it. It is still being used by my parents running Windows 7. I also tried using a 2Ghz Pentium Dual Core.
* (I know because I was building home servers back then. In fact 10 years ago I was running ZFS off an old desktop PC with some really budget consumer RAID controllers)*
They weren't transcoding 1080 video to H.264 real time in 2008.
o and you're comparing that to a gaming machine which are systems which are typically at the higher end of spectrum). To put things into perspective, in 1999 I most certainly did not have a 3D accelerator. Yet I was still using my computer for software development and web development (including, by the way, 3D markup via VRML). In fact I don't think I even had a P2 considering my upgrade a few years later was to Celeron. I have a feeling my '98 PC was a Cyrix.
Would you still be using that computer in 2008? Could it run the latest version of Windows? Could it take advantage of the fastest speed internet that was available to home users in 2008?
o It was really common even in the 90s to run old PCs. Even in 1995 I was still seeing 386s and even the occasional 286 in use running Windows 3.x.
My 2008 Core 2 Duo can run the latest software and the latest version of Windows well. Could those 10 year old computers run Windows 98 in 1998?
Lastly you cannot really compare a watch to a PC. Sure, smart watches are basically just computers these days; but the point the OP was making was peoples expectations are different for watches.
How is a watch that runs a phone OS that makes phone calls not considered more of a phone than a watch?
I mean we have digital watches from the 80s that still work as well today as they ever have done,
The difference is that my 10 year old computer can do the same thing as a modern computer - run the latest OS and software, has just as much memory and storage (HDD vs SsD) and has a slightly better display (1920x1200 vs 1930x1080). Can that 10 year old digital watch do the same as a modern smart watch?
If there's anything we have learned in the last 20 years it's how to futureproof our products.
The only reason that my old Core 2 Duo is "future proofed" is because useful improvements have slowed down dramatically in the last 10 years. In 1998 the typical computer was coming with 32-64Gb of RAM and couldn't be upgraded to 4GB. My computer from 2008 came with 4GB RAM, the same amount as some low end computers today and can be upgraded to 8GB.
My 2008 computer has gigabit Ethernet. Which is still the fastest consumer internet connection.