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What old “smart technology” do you still have that works?

JR4X

JR4X

wheeler
race
Joined
May 20, 2020
Member Number
445
Messages
4,073
Loc
Farmington NM
Today I turned on an old windows 7 Dell laptop that says it hadn’t been updated since Dec 26th 2013. I’m watching YouTube on it right now despite it giving a prompt that my unsupported Windows may be “counterfeit”. Just because it’s super old I won’t update it fearing any update will brick it. I hadn’t turned this thing on in at least five or six years.

My old 2011 Samsung smart TV and Smart Blu Ray would work fine but Samsung turned off a bunch of apps and features because they want me to buy new ones. I won’t link it to the internet because Samsung will disable more features rendering it useless. Which I consider unacceptable and the reason I won’t give Samsung another pennie as long as I can help it.
 
I wouldn't have that laptop connected to my network, you're basically opening a giant security hole to everything else. Install Linux on that thing and it'll probably run even better than it does with 7 on it. The specs you need to run most Linux distros are next to nothing.
 
Got an old diamond rio mp3 player that still works. Barely holds 16 songs though.
 
I have a WIn XP computer I still fire up now and then to run old programs and a scanner that doesn't play well with 7 or 10. Has a 3.5 floppy and Zip drive in it. I still have parts from my first Win 95 PC, but the hard drive failed so it's inoperable.
I have an Atari 2600 I've been meaning to get running again. Need to figure out how to adapt the analog output to a flat screen.
 
Quick & Dirty said:
I have a WIn XP computer I still fire up now and then to run old programs and a scanner that doesn't play well with 7 or 10. Has a 3.5 floppy and Zip drive in it. I still have parts from my first Win 95 PC, but the hard drive failed so it's inoperable.
I have an Atari 2600 I've been meaning to get running again. Need to figure out how to adapt the analog output to a flat screen.
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I have an old Roland vinyl plotter that will only run on WinXP. I finally figured out how to get the USB-parallel adapter and drivers to work through an XP Virtualbox install and was finally able to scrap the old early 2000's Dell laptop & docking station I'd been using for it.
 
Around christmas time me and some of my high school friends get together and will play the original xbox and N64.
My 1st generation LG bluray player circa 2008 is network connected and still works with older codex’s
 
I would have said my Western Unimount snow plow but the damn thing smoked the solenoid in traffic today while I was doing a "not last second" trial run.
 
I have mp3s on my phone I listen to that I pulled off CDs or diwnloaded in the early 2000s. Still hanging on to my VCR and Walkman from the 90s.
The foam in the headphones crumbled apart last time I touched it 🤣
 
My 3D blu ray player broke and quit being able to play blu rays. The dvd player still played. I was able to fix it by putting a new disc driver in it. Would have bought two but now I can’t find another driver. I have a big collection of active 3D movies but that stuff is going extinct so I’m trying to keep one working
 
Still using this, Brought new from Federated Group in 1978
Works perfectly
IMG_7715.JPG


Got these speakers at the same time, But are used in the garage now
IMG_7716.JPG
 
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Still have all the hard drives from all my PCs going back to teenage years. Earliest is from a Compaq Presario that probably had all of 256MB RAM. Can still fire it up externally and browse it.
 
I’ve got four or five Holley carbs hanging on the garage wall. They still work…..errr I guess we aren’t talking about smart technology from the 70’s.:lmao:
 
Rooney77 said:
I only have 1 ear anyway so audio quality is wasted on me.
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man that would piss me off
since the few things that offer a "mono" setting just switch one of the speakers off, it doesn't combine both audio channels into the one
so the song sounds like crap since everyone has to do the 'crazy train' stereo demonstration in their songs

did figure out that when running one speaker off a stereo amp, you can just bridge both the channels together right at the output and it sounds okay
doesn't help with a headphone jack though
 
My wife's old Netbook is in the garage, wifi disabled & not updated in 10 years, crammed full of MP3s & feeding a receiver + 2 speakers from Windows Media Player playlists. Battery's been dead over 7 years so it only runs off the power cord. If I let it connect to the internet, it would brick immediately :laughing:
 
Motorcharge said:
I wouldn't have that laptop connected to my network, you're basically opening a giant security hole to everything else. Install Linux on that thing and it'll probably run even better than it does with 7 on it. The specs you need to run most Linux distros are next to nothing.
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I wouldn’t be out anything if it bricked. I only still have it because of one file from a job I did in 2015. Way no longer need that file.

It’s got a broken screen. It was on in the passenger seat of my pickup and I had to do a panic brake. It hit the dash on its way to the floor and killed the screen. It’ll still play to a monitor via the 9 pin. HDMI wouldn’t work today when I tried it. It weighs almost double my current Dell that’s 5 or 6 years old now.
 
JR4X said:
My old 2011 Samsung smart TV and Smart Blu Ray would work fine but Samsung turned off a bunch of apps and features because they want me to buy new ones. I won’t link it to the internet because Samsung will disable more features rendering it useless. Which I consider unacceptable and the reason I won’t give Samsung another pennie as long as I can help it.
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Apps have licensing deals, once the license expires the app either can't be updated anymore, or it is removed/deactivated. It has nothing to do with the manufacturer wanting you to buy a new TV.
 
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