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Comment by BatFastard | Hacker News Reader

To be fair to the rest of the world, this comment is written on a 20 year old PC. It has had some component upgrades, but works like a champ after 20 years.

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If you keep replacing failed/failing components or give needed upgrades to the system every few years, is it fair to call it 'working like a champ for 20 years'?

I'll take it a step further. Is it fair to even call it the same system after 20 years of changes?

Like the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, at what point does a thing no longer have sufficient continuity to its past to be called the same thing? [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Some parts are kind of like tyres on a bike, just need to be replaced from time to time, it doesn't mean the bike is bad or not working like a champ.

Yeah, but it does mean it is no longer the same bike. If you replace every part of a bike, even one at a time over years, it is no longer the same bike. So it all depends on what GP means by "replacing some parts". Is it entirely new computer in a 20 year old case? Or is it a 20 year old computer with a couple sticks of RAM thrown in?

Regardless, I have a hard time believing a 20 year old computer is "working like a champ". I've found the most people who say their <insert really old phone or computer> works perfectly have just gotten used to the slowness. Once they upgrade and try to go back for a day, they realize how wrong they were. Like how a 4k monitor looks "pretty good" to someone that uses a 1080p monitor everyday, but a 1080p monitor looks like "absolute unusable garbage" to someone who uses a 4k monitor everyday.

Definitely not if the metric we care about is keeping components out of landfills.

I don't understand the landfill argument here.

A typical "Upgradable" PC is in a box 10 times the size of the mini. If you upgrade the GPU on a PC, you toss out an older GPU because it has pretty much zero resale value. Typical Apple hardware is used for 10-15 years, often passing between multiple owners.

It's a shame we don't have charities that would take such parts and then distributed them to less fortunate countries. Ten years ago a ten year old graphics card would no longer be quite usable, but now 10 years old card should work just fine for most of the tasks, except more advanced gaming.

I don't see the point. There is nothing to put it into. It's far cheaper to just ship modern CPUs with integrated graphics which will be faster and more efficient than that 10 year old GPU. The era where computer components were big enough for it to make sense for them to be discrete parts is coming to a close.

This is particularly true on the lower end where a 10 year old part is even interesting.

I thought you could donate any part of a computer and then people could sort and match, but I think you're right.

if only two parts got replaced, then landfill mass was reduced.

Why do I think of Trigger's Broom when I read this?

Apples and oranges. I've never kept a laptop for five years.

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