Hacker News Reader

Comment by thaumaturgy | Hacker News Reader

It's a Powerbook 5,5 (http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-lookup/?search_keywords...). Looks like it was discontinued in 2006 (?), but introduced back in 2004 -- so, older than I thought.

Still, I started waaaaaay back with the Mac Plus, multiple Performas, a 4400/200, etc.; the 68k -> PPC, 8.6 -> OS X, and PPC750 -> Intel switches have all forced me to upgrade before I wanted to. Given Apple's history, I'm absolutely certain that they'll be switching their Air, at the very least, to their new A-series processors and/or IOS. I'm simply tired of the forced-upgrade cycle.

I've also had this conversation on HN a couple times. It often ends in multiple people expressing surprise that I'd be interested in continuing to use such old, out-of-date hardware, or that I'd even expect to be able to. I'm not going to have that conversation again.

View on HN

"Looks like it was discontinued in 2006 (?), but introduced back in 2004 -- so, older than I thought."

Your laptop is 5 to 7 years old - do you realize how long that is in tech years? I am not sure you can run the latest Windows OS well on a 5 - 7 year old laptop.

"Intel switches have all forced me to upgrade before I wanted to."

The switch to Intel processors was very gradual and not painful at all. Apple kept PPC support for many years.

Why are you against the upgrades? If it is because of the cost associated with upgrading that is understandable. But the tech industry moves so fast and computer performance increases every year - do you really want to be using 5 - 7 year old technology?

"I've also had this conversation on HN a couple times. It often ends in multiple people expressing surprise that I'd be interested in continuing to use such old, out-of-date hardware"

Time to listen to the crowd my friend.

You CAN still use your computer to access email, write, browse, communicate, play, etc. But you can't complain when it doesn't run all software or isn't the fastest.

>You might not be able to run the latest Windows OS reliably on a 5-7 year old laptop.

That's true, but, unlike with OSX, previous versions of Windows are still supported by the manufacturer and third parties. You might not be able to run Windows 7 on that hardware, but you'll certainly be able to run Windows XP. And, unlike with OSX revisions, Windows XP will be supported for several years yet.

I have a Pentium 4 box with 2GB RAM that runs Windows XP reliably. Its been a solid workhorse for almost 8 years now. Before that, I was running Windows 2000 on a Pentium 2 that was 11 years old.

Of course, another advantage of WinTel systems is that their hardware becomes more and more supported by Linux as they age. When XP finally reaches EOL, I plan to migrate this box to Linux and continue using it as a secondary workstation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com