IBM
Can You Surf The Internet On a 25-Year-Old Computer?
Can You Surf The Internet On a 25-Year-Old Computer?
#Surf #Internet #25YearOld #Computer
“DOS Storm”
As computers get older their usefulness declines, but surfing the web is a simple task right? How well does a computer that is 15, 20 or even 25 years do when its thrown on the modern internet? Using Linux, you will be surprised just how much you CAN do.
Chapters:
Intro – 0:00
How can we browse…
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YOU HAVE MY MOUSE
Oh my god yes. You can squeeze a bit. Not amazing but yeah. Actually kind of a little hobby of mine.
I had OpenBSD running on a mid-2000s Celeron and it was actually pretty capable (with 2G of RAM mind you). Even more rich (non-multimedia) sites worked great (but slow to load). YouTube was a slideshow but perhaps part was lack of acceleration. The OS and lightweight desktop actually felt lightning fast.
But a few years ago, I actually got an eMac from 2003 or so working pretty well for very light tasks. Used it for games and distraction free writing but would take it through its paces online. Actually would use it to browse YouTube and had a downloader to actually watch. Shit designed for the era (like Macintosh Garden) was great. Reddit (old version) and mobile YouTube were useable.
With XP, I have a 2004 or so P3 laptop with a more modern browser fork (MyPal). 512 MB of RAM was a bottleneck for too many graphics. It actually performed liked your powerhouse before the RAM upgrade.
I have a soft spot for doing things on godawfully outdated or underpowered machines.
Who doesnt have at least a 4 core, 8gb now days?
My Pentium 4 Fujitsu Siemens PC worked with 360p youtube videos
In the last 6 months I've been upgrading laptops and PCs for friends and family by installing Linux (Debian XFce for too old pcs (between 500 and 1000 passmark cpu points), Linux Mint for newer ones (over 1000 Passmark CPU points)). For a minimally acceptable experience with Linux and the internet, you need a computer not older than 11-15 years ago (11 years if the machine was low end, 15 years if the machine was high end at the time of the purchase). I personally don't bother with any cpu with less than 500 passmark points, because youtube won't run properly on such pcs on anything other than 360p, and youtube is the no1 need these days online. Minimum to work properly is 4 GB of RAM too. Yes, you can install a lightweight Debian DE with 2 GB of RAM, but that won't allow you to open more than 1 tab on Chrome or Firefox. Even with 4 GB, too many tabs open at the same time will send you to swap. Don't get hang up on lightweight DEs that don't use more than 100 or 400 MBs of RAM. The moment a browser opens (especially Firefox which is a hog), your RAM will be eaten for lunch. Anything slower than the specs that I suggest, it's an exercise in futility, given my experience. No one would want to actually use these computers without a minimum of these specs. Even my 10 year old niece commented that it was "slow sometimes" (I gave her a DELL laptop that its cpu scores 500 points, with Debian XFce, and 4 GB of RAM).
modern internet sucks, which is why i built old and veryold retrospace. google it. youtube works better in the mobile version, on pentium m
0:57 I thought I'm the only one feeling this….modern software bloated, modern games bloated,modern web bloated….everything modern is bloated
Youtube didn't work with Firefox probably because you forgot to activate DRM at Firefox settings
Youtube didn't work with Firefox probably because you forgot to activate DRM at Firefox settings
I have an old computer with Celeron 300A, 512MB of SDRAM, and GeForce 2 MX 400. The motherboard is a mix of AT and ATX standard too, which is nice to see. It runs Windows 98 and can actually access internet, even though I have to use old browsers. Is it good? Nope. But certain websites are accessible, and it's not all that bad speed-wise. If I was forced to use it as my main PC, I would be able to, even if it would be pretty slow and wouldn't be able to stream videos.
TinyCore Linux is good, I find CrunchBang++ is easier
Peppermint os with lxde
There's Lubuntu for light wight Linux distro.
More Linux, vintage and retro systems enthusiasts should try T2 SDE Linux, developed by René Rebe for the last 25 years.
Blue Glowy media buttons for the win!
Messing with older computers can be fun. Since I’m a ham and need software to program my older radios. older windows moto software will work as long as it is win 7 32bit ultimate. 600mhz cpu and only 512mb of ram. That was my slowest radio programming laptop. Actually watching videos and browsing ya that was slow as hell. But Firefox worked and worked well.
TinyCore though was a good pick, there's not much info on it on YouTube
Did you have swap enabled during your tests?
Disk Io is slow on these old machines, but Linux appreciates swap for offloading unused memory
Ok but what's up with those cheese pics? Hook us up
I had 2009 Dell with Windows in a conked out state. Display, KB, BIOS nothing working, also giving weird beeps. I tried entering BIOS with external KB and Monitor. Dell logo and Bios just didn't show up, directly boots to Windows. So I bought a SATA SSD and inserted it in to a slightly newer Dell machine, installed linux mint on it and replaced the old dells HDD with this SSD. To my surprise every hardware that worked with windows started working with Linux. Wifi, full hd monitor, wireless mouse. It can almost play full hd YouTube. I am happy.
At 1:25, lol. I miss netscape navigator and the early chat rooms. There's nothing like making coffee and logging in to the scratchy sounds of the baud modem. Those were the days.
Very cool! I was hoping you would try to use AiM, the AoL instant messaging system.
Running a modern web browser on an old computer completely defeats the point of this test. I have tried it using an old computer and a similarly old browser (1999) and the answer is… yes, but… it's busted asf. Only some pages will load at all. Most are broken in various ways.
I totally forgot that youtube use to use flash. My memory isn't what it used to be lol.