Hacker News Reader

> unlike microchips, wheat can't be stored indefinitely

I'm actually unsure which depreciates quicker: wheat or silicon? On one hand, wheat is perishable. On the other hand, silicon becomes obsolete.

View on HN

What we know says that obsolete silicon trickles down to poorer countries, e.g. the early 8-bit microcomputers saw continued use in the former Soviet states into the mid-1990's, a full decade after obsolescence had started to hit in North America with the introduction of 16-bit machines.

Of course, there's some leapfrogging that also takes place. Most of Africa jumped straight into adoption of mobile phones without really going through an era of cheap consumer micros.

Well the PS4 was released in 2013 and still plays modern games, sure they could look better and run faster but it gets the job done.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com