Honestly I never would throw out an old pc, I usually tinker with them for experience and ask if anyone anywhere has any old hardware they don't want or need. I would say getting experience from old hardware is great, my teacher does that, he takes old hardware and unsolders them to solder them back on, he also does more other interesting stuff, like takes out pins out of a cpu and puts them back it. I'd say tinkering around with such old hardware is great experience.