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That's OK. I see Digital Research, since I ran DR-DOS as long as I could. 
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What are your thoughts on this?
Over the years I have usually upgraded my hardware to the latest, greatest thing - once the initial price premium has eased off a bit. But now...
I have a laptop that is seven years old. It has an i7, 8GB of memory and a 500GB SSD (only three years old). It runs Windows 7 Pro with some VMs of DOS, Windows XP, and Linux just for fun. It has a 17", 1920 by 1080 screen, a touch-pad (which I rarely use) and a pointing stick I use quite a lot. It also supports two external screens, a keyboard and mouse - has sound, re-writable CD/DVD, card readers, USBs and all the usual paraphernalia.
There is a brighter area in the bottom right corner of the screen - only noticeable when the screen is dark - and the case is cracked slightly at one corner where I dropped a laser printer on it once. otherwise pretty much "as new".
Just about everything I want to do, it does and does well or, at least, quite well. I started a new job recently and the brand new laptop they provided me with is only an i5 and a 250MB SSD - most of the other bits are pretty much the same except it runs Windows 10.
My 7-year old laptop at home outperforms it and shows no sign of quitting any time soon.
Unless it does actually quit why would I consider "upgrading" it?
Computers these days are not quantum leaps better than last year's model as they were a few years back; they are, at best, a little bit better, maybe.
Have we come to a watershed where only the software really matters and the hardware is stagnated, not worth the (huge) effort to change to the latest version (I avoid the word "upgrade" here as it doesn't seem appropriate anymore)?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
modified 4-Sep-18 15:18pm.
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If it's not broken, don't fix it
If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Everything makes sense in someone's mind.
Ya can't fix stupid.
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Kevin Marois wrote: If it's not broken, don't fix it
Ummm...
Kevin Marois wrote: If it's not broken, fix it until it is.
Ah.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Software Zen: delete this;
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I only upgrade my hardware if (a) it is broken, (b) it can't do some required operation, or (c) I can no longer get the supplies it requires (e.g. printer toner cartridges). Any other policy is a waste of money, IMO.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I prefer to upgrade it just before it breaks: it works out cheaper as you can plan better, and don't waste time waiting for parts.
Hence why I spent time on Monday to MS tech support: my processor was dying (one core was regularly reaching 75C, the shutdown temp for the core and causing soft errors.
At a guess, the thermal paste had degraded - it's an old dual core processor - and yes, I could have replaced the paste. But I've had problems with that before, and temps that high reduce silicon lifetimes so it was better to bin it and get a newer jobbie. That runs at 35~38C which is a load better!
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Forogar wrote: seven years old. It has an i7, 8GB of memory and a 500GB SSD
Forogar wrote: an i5 and a 250MB SSD
Yep, the SSD solves a lot of performance problems and is probably a large part of why your 7-yr old laptop still works.
On the flip side, I bought my wife a brand new i5 with 8GB ram. It had win10 on the 500GB HDD (not SSD).
Booted up the new machine and it went into a win10 update cycle and was uselessly slow.
I took the 120GB SSD out of her old celeron laptop, copied win10 to the SSD and slapped it back in the new i5 machine and it has been running perfectly since.
My point is just that SSDs solve a lot of performance problems even though the OS may create others (or maybe the OS even solves some performance problems that are far less dramatic than the I/O HDD problem).
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Yes, it used to be that if you wanted Windows (any version) to run faster/better you added more memory.
Now it seems that adding an SSD generally gives the same effect.
Of course, adding more memory and a big SSD is the best bet!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I think an SSD allows you to do more with the same resources: because it takes so much less time to load, you don't need to keep so much open and that frees up RAM.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I agree; if you change the default swap file size (when you have an SSD) to something quite large then you can have a lot of things open and still have the performance.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I still have a similar age laptop, I think I bought it in 2011. Same story, I replaced the failing HDD with an SSD. Around the time when Win 10 came out I got the free license upgrade from Windows 7.
Big mistake! After that one core was always maxed out with Cortana, and the GPU was always maxed out with the fancy UI.
Since I really only use it to read email and RDP into servers when I'm onsite I just installed Xubuntu on it - can probably get another 7 years of life out of it now.
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What model of the laptop are you using?
Most i5 models today have better single core performance (~32% faster) than 2011 i7s, while the multicore performance of the i7s being 1% faster in normal conditions and 17% faster when overclocked.
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I upgrade when my laptop is smoking, or gets too hot to touch 
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Two points I would like to make:
1. The brighter area of the screen might be fixable if it is screen burn. Google lcd screen burn repair and there is advice and free software that will attempt to fix it.
2. Laptop CPUs used to come in two varieties: performance and eco - the eco versions tended to perform on a par with the next level down, so an eco i7 would perform similar to a normal i5 and an eco i5 would perform similar to an i3. This could be why your old i7 is outperforming the new i5 so much.
As has been said: if the laptop you have does what you want then why upgrade? A computer is just a tool.
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I'v adopted the "change the whole desktop once every +/-10 years" methodology.
Basically I get the best of the best (that is still affordable) every 10 years and that's it.
Last desktop lasted 8.5 years before things started to run slow or break.
For a desktop off around 2000 euros that's pretty good.
Current one is at 2 years (I think) and no signs of needing to be upgraded or anything yet so ...
I don't get laptops anymore or if I really really need one I just buy one of those 200euro ones that lasts only a couple months.
Laptops just don't last as long and are way more expensive and I really can't be bothered to shelf out that much cash for it.
Tom
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Mr. Cooper assigned English homework to his 5th grade students: A rough draft Title and opening sentence for a story.
The next day reading through them while students worked on other materials, he came across Cyndi's work, reading:
Gone with the Wind | Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.
He called Cyndi over and talked with her about original writing vs. plagiarism of a story; she understood and turned in another draft title & opening line:
The Tempest | Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.
Mr. Cooper again called Cyndi and noted that, while the title and opening line are unconnected, they are still from existing stories, so she tried one more time:
The Antics of Coccyx Conjoined Felines | 2 X 2, 4391.23 X square root(3423321)
Quite perplexed yet amazed, Mr. Cooper asked Cyndi to expound on what the title and opening line meant.
Cyndi replied, "The Tail of Two Kitties | It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
The best way to improve Windows is run it on a Mac.
The best way to bring a Mac to its knees is to run Windows on it.
~ my brother Jeff
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I do not get it. 
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Refresh your browser window...
The best way to improve Windows is run it on a Mac.
The best way to bring a Mac to its knees is to run Windows on it.
~ my brother Jeff
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Until the end, I was sure it belonged in Q&A.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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We fired the dude...
The best way to improve Windows is run it on a Mac.
The best way to bring a Mac to its knees is to run Windows on it.
~ my brother Jeff
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Is money laundering what happens when you leave a twenty in your shirt pocket?
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Actually, no, but good guess. According to Google, money laundering is defined as:
Quote: the concealment of the origins of illegally obtained money, typically by means of transfers involving foreign banks or legitimate businesses.
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Yeah, but that definition is not as funny. 
Just because the code works, it doesn't mean that it is good code.
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You haven't quite got the hang of this, have you?
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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