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[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

LGR is a classic gaming channel AND he frequently takes apart and upgrades old PC's/laptops but I think he caused the prices to soar. I don't think you read what I said at all. Are you a bot?

[–]Alphix 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

I don't know this LGR thing. Not all of us here are aware of EVERYTHING on youtube. $400 for that? Come ON. I'd give $0.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

LGR ( still don't know what it stands for after all the videos I've watched on him) is this older guy that takes apart and fixes/upgrades rare or rescues old electronic machines and does reviews on them including benchmarks he gets the most obscure to sometimes middle of the road stuff and once in a while NON machine stuff. Here is on of his more recent videos that ISN'T a laptop OR a PC. But in fact this weirdly designed surround sound system you wear around you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRWWEuNNq14 Creative Surround Station. Back then 'Creative' was a good name to have in your household up to Windows Vista/7 era. Creative (TM) actually still exists but sold out to China sometime back (long story) and their stuff is lousy or broken.

He's very popular in the retro computing crowd and from what I've understood made a massive price spike on anything 'retro' now even things that weren't all that rare to begin with. Prices for anything vintage now is out of bounds of reality sadly. When Win 8 came out computers had something that locked out installing anything below that called UEI class 3 or something like that. If your architecture is the new modern chip it won't support anything below Win 10 now sadly.

If you have the previous chips all the way back to Intel Core Duo you can operate Windows 2000 Professional up to Windows 7 (which is iffy on some machines I think XP drivers you could manually configure for Windows 7 to recognize but it's a pain if the laptop doesn't support it natively)

A lot of older programs still aren't compatible with Windows 10/11 that are niche but valuable to certain customers or gamers or both. I know because I'm one of em. I wish I had snatched one of these older chips back when they were still dirt cheap!!!!!!

[–]Alphix 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Yep, I bought a 5.1 surround PC sound system back in 1999 or so from Creative. It was among the best available.

Interesting about that retro tech, I always forget about edge case users whose tailor made software isn't compatible with the new OSes.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I have a lot of childhood games from companies like Broderbund,Edmark,etc that won't see the light of day without PCEM/86box or heaven forbid a virtual machine which are slowly being killed off the market sadly instead of improving. XP is great for games of that era but before and some cases after that is where the light fails to shine however MS did try harder back then but by Windows 7 they were seeing a whole different future and it wasn't for the practical consumer. Ironically there actually WAS a 64 bit Windows XP and it was no good for most people and Vista quickly came out like a year later.......

[–]Alphix 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I got my first computer in 1980 so I recall all this easily... ;-)

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The sad thing is it shouldn't cost 400$ because you don't know how much the motherboard inside is failing. Over time inner parts will heat or melt or little things can go wrong you cannot see. This goes way beyond a CMOS/Ram or hard drive swap. And this is completely within the realms of normal. In fact if your computer lasts 6 years your lucky but then that means it may not work the next week.

'Oh it turns on' says the product listing but that doesn't mean it will turn on for long and it's 400$ down the f'king toilet where as for just a bit more you can have 5+ years of new hardware and with some tinkering you can emulate almost to true Windows 98 via 86Box as long as your host can handle it or go the virtualization route if it cannot though I REALLY DON'T recommend virtualization. I DO recommend 86box or PCEM.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Creative sold out to China in 2011 and now doesn't work on Windows 10 as it will crap out and fail after a few minutes of playing yet their external Creative Play is what saved my PC actually as nothing else would work and I'd be stuck with awful TV speakers otherwise. It isn't 5.1 or anything but it's halfway and has decent bass.

Creative Speakers have a weird buzz to them so don't buy those whatever you do.